Get a room, Reinhard

Reinhard's latest editorial is another dreamy bootlicking session of another court nominee named Roberts.

This time, instead of fawning over John Roberts, Reinhard is getting all gooey-eyed over Jack Roberts, a former Lane County Commissioner and potential Oregon Supreme Court justice. The biggest qualification, Reinhard says, is Roberts' holding of a partisan political office.

This, coming from the guy who said "President Bush makes clear he doesn't want them ("judicial activists") in the federal judiciary; he opposes judges who legislate from the bench." link

So on the state level, partisans are okay? While it may warm Reinhard's heart that Jack Owens gives lip service to "closing the door on (his) partisan political career," pardon me if I take note that Reinhard would react differently to these same words from a Democrat's mouth.

If Diane Linn was up for the job, and ejected the same statement from her mouth, Reinhard would be howling, "How can you just ignore your partisan tendencies? Her position on the court will herald judicial activism, gay marriage, and before you know it we'll be eating babies for high tea!"

Reinhard is willing to ignore this contradiction becuase the candidate in question is Republican, and conservative judicial activists are okay in his book. This must be why he has already determined "John Roberts proved such a good pick for the US Supreme Court" before Roberts has even sat to hear a single case.
How can he be sure of John Roberts' fitness for the job, giving him a passing grade before he has done anything in the job? Because whether Roberts performs with restraint, as he mentioned he probably would, or he becomes a zealous partisan, as is possible in Bush's top picks, either way benefits the conservative movement, and works for Reinhard's ideological goals.

This logical flaw pulls the rug out from the rest of Reinhard's argument, a pandering support of Jack Roberts. He says judicial activists are bad, but while both Roberts and Roberts have the siginificant capability to be judicial activists, it doesn't matter whether they will be or not; they still get a passing grade from Reinhard, because they will be activists for his team or they will be fair. Either way, the RNC wins.

Because this argument is so weak, he cannot fill an entire editorial with it, and has to spend a profligate amount of time bashing democrats. While this is certainly one of Reinhard's favorite pasttimes, why does he bother centering the article around a flawed argument supporting a Republican, when he could just unabashedly rant and yell about Democrats, and leave it at that?

"Oregon is crying out for fresh leadership," he says, and then he derides the Democrats for not supporting the current governor, and avidly looking at replacements. Oops.

"It's hard to imagine a more depressing commentary on this state's leadership deficit than a recent story in The Oregonian. A week ago Saturday, Harry Esteve reported that Democrats were sounding out former Gov. John Kitzhaber to run against Gov. Ted Kulongoski in next year's Democratic primary."

This is the depressing commentary? Kitzhaber is looking at running for governor again, to replace an ineffectual governor? A depressing story would be that no one was even looking at replacing the ineffectual governor. Reinhard is depressed because the Republicans can't find a decent candidate that appeals to Oregon voters.

Then he gets in the requiste cheap shot--"What's their plan if Kitzhaber passes -- a "Draft Neil Goldschmidt" movement?"

If an old Republican official was around to run, you can bet Reinhard wouldn't be poking fun. He would be pulling out another saliva-smeared editorial of praise, doing his local best to make Oregonians think that Republicans aren't selfish bastards that don't give a damn about them.

That's what gets me the most, I think, about Reinhard and his rhetoric. He is working on propaganda to make people he doesn't care about think that rich men really do care. If he can successfully fool enough people into believing his crap, then he can really take advantage of the dupes. Slash public school funding, health care, taxes, and every ounce of government he can, so that he can get even richer.

Republicans are just mean people who don't like to share; and you can tell by looking at their poorer rhetoricians, like Reinhard.