Footnote to both of the preceding

Bush was speaking to the American Legislative Exchange Council, which

was gathered to exchange ideas and work toward what is described as "a limited government that promotes free markets and individual liberties."

More bluntly, a bunch of right-wing crackpots for who "limited government" means "cutting taxes on my fat cat campaign contributors," "free markets" means "consumers, workers, and families can go to hell," and "individual liberties" means the government will interfere neither in the right of corporations to profit any way they can nor the right of the poor to starve.

Bush

encouraged lawmakers, when they return from their August recess, to address the future of Social Security, a centerpiece of his domestic agenda that is languishing.

"My first question to members of Congress is 'How can you go back to your districts, when you look at the facts, and stand up in front of young workers and look 'em in the eye and say the future's bright for you knowing full well somebody's going to be paying payroll taxes in the system that's going broke?'" Bush said.

What I want to know is how he can look the American people in the eye and continue to lie through his goddam teeth, since Social Security isn't going broke or anything like it. What I'd also like to know is how he can with a straight face - well, okay, never mind that part, he's such an accomplished liar that should be easy - but how the media can continue to report what he's saying without gagging on their persistent Edward R. Murrow fantasies? Without even making the banal observation that he's "proposing" to avoid a non-existent threat of reduced benefits by a program of reduced benefits?

Footnote to the footnote: Bush also called for a quick confirmation of John Roberts because "he will not legislate from the bench."

In all the times I've read that, I still wonder one thing: Just what the hell does that mean? I mean, Clarence Thomas has shown himself to be the current Justice most willing to overturn acts of Congress and most willing to ignore precedent - that is, the most willing to inject his personal views into the decisions of the Court. Doesn't that make him the most "activist" member of the Court? Or does the fact that his personal views tend to favoring property and corporate rights over the general and working public and executive power over the Constitutional rights of individuals somehow change the meaning of the word?