Earlier in the week, it was the Democrats making silly. But today, this Washington Post editorial reports that a Republican senator from Kansas is one-upping the Democrats in the absurdity department:

IF YOU THOUGHT that fights over judicial nominations couldn’t get any worse, consider the case of Janet T. Neff, whom President Bush has nominated to a federal district judgeship in Michigan. Judge Neff, who serves on the Michigan Court of Appeals, is part of a multi-judge deal between the White House and Michigan’s two Democratic senators resolving a long-standing fight over federal court nominees from that state. Yet in reaching an accommodation with the home-state senators, Mr. Bush finds himself with another problem. For Judge Neff, it turns out, once attended a commitment ceremony for a lesbian couple — and that has Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback (R) reaching for the smelling salts and blocking the nomination.
Mr. Brownback has said he wants to satisfy himself that the judge was not presiding over an “illegal marriage ceremony” in Pittsfield, Mass., in 2002 — before the state legalized same-sex marriage. He has written to Judge Neff asking for an explanation, his spokesman says, and will hold up her nomination until he learns the nature of the ceremony and its legality. . . . An administration official says Judge Neff has told Mr. Brownback that she didn’t preside [over the ceremony].

Blocking a long-delayed judicial nomination by your party’s President because the nominee attended a commitment ceremony between a couple of gay friends? Even had the judge “presided” over the non-binding, symbolic ceremony, what difference does that make? What on earth is Brownback thinking?
President Bush has got to be thinking that his Crawford ranch is looking better every day.

I’ve been a tad hard on the Republican Party recently (here, here and here).
But it’s not as if the Democratic Party is distinguishing itself during this political season. Take a look at the political ad below, which is surely the worst political ad of the year, courtesy of the Democratic Party.

Jeff Stein, the national security editor at Congressional Quarterly, reports on in this NY Times article some questions he has been asking folks in Washington recently:

For the past several months, Iíve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: ìDo you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?î [. . .]
. . . so far, most American officials Iíve interviewed donít have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies. How can they do their jobs without knowing the basics? [. . .]
Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.
ìDo you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?î I asked him a few weeks ago.
Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: ìOneís in one location, anotherís in another location. No, to be honest with you, I donít know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.î

That’s the vice-chairman of a House intelligence subcommittee? And he doesn’t even make this top 10 list of the dumbest members of Congress.
God save us.
By the way, while on matters religious, don’t miss this NY Times article that reports on the hardships faced by Iraq’s dwindling Christian population.

This post from yesterday noted the failed leadership of the Republican Party as we approach this fall’s elections. In the interests of balance, however, I pass along this delicious post from Victor Davis Hanson in which he takes stock of the current state of the Democratic Party, including one of its standard-bearers, former President Jimmy Carter (earlier post here):

Jimmy Carter . . . almost immediately was back in the news claiming that the United States was one of the worldís great abusers of civil rights (I wonder how our internecine body count in Plains, Georgia stacks up with that in Rwanda, Kosovo, or Dafur?). He adds that all Presidentsóexcept the current oneóhave been supporters of human rights.
In his dotage, Carter is proving once again that he is as malicious and mean-spirited a public figure as he is historically ignorant. And for all his sanctimonious Christian veneer, and fly-fishing, ëaw shucks’ blue-jeans image, he canít hide an essentially ungracious and unkind soul.

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I’m certainly no political prognosticator, but a couple of matters caught my eye over the past week or so that indicate to me that the Republican Party has become dangerously concerned with maintaining power rather than providing leadership.
The first thing that caught my attention was the political wrangling that occurred in regard to the silly GOP initiative to ban Internet gambling, a ban that leads to absurd abuses of power such as this. Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist was criticized last month for attempting to attach the Internet gambling ban on to a defense appropriations bill, so what does he do? Senator Frist attaches the Internet gambling ban to a port security bill at the last minute to ensure that there would be no debate over the ban and also to make sure that anyone who voted against the port security bill because of such shenanigans would be labeled as being soft on port security. In short, Frist crammed a needless and paternalistic law down our throats while stifling debate on the measure and not allowing for an honest and straightforward vote on the ban.
Elsewhere, over in the scandal sheets, it was bad enough that Florida Republican House member Mark Foley liked to send salacious emails to 16-year old House pages, now it appears that House Republican leadership hoped Foleyís indiscretions could be covered up until after the upcoming election. John Miller at The Corner sums the lurid affair up pretty well:

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Virginia Republican Senator George Allen is in a fight for his political life, which is not what one would normally expect from a candidate who was recently mentioned as Presidential timber. Senator Allen has been hammered in the media for some apparently patronizing remarks that he made to a minority student, but my sense is that the attitude reflected in this Washington Post article is a far bigger problem for Allen with voters than his impolite remarks to a student.
The article reports that last week ìthe Secret Service asked Virginia officials if they would be kind enough to shut down all of the HOV lanes on I-395 from 1 to 7 p.m. the next day so President Bush could get where he needed to be,î which was a fundraiser for Senator Allen. State traffic experts explained the likely results of closing the HOV lane to accomodate President Bush and Senator Allen:

There will be approximately 8,600 cars using the HOV lanes over a three hour period (4 to 7 pm). This equates to approximately 20,000 to 22,000 people. If the HOV lanes are closed, according to the Districtís estimate the back up of traffic in the general purpose lanes will not be cleared until 10 p.m.

Despite that effect, local officials apparently had quite a time talking the Secret Service out of the plan.
When a couple of politicians expose an attitude that they could not care less about how much they inconvenience 20,000 of their citizens so long as one of the politicians can get to a rubber-chicken fundraiser for the other one on time, that’s a pretty good signal that it’s time for a change.
Hat tip to Gene Healy for the link to the WaPo article.

This Newspaper.com story summarizes several articles and resources that examine a troubling growth industry among Texas municipalities:

Red light cameras and cash seizures are taking money from motorists and funding uncontrolled spending sprees in small Texas cities. . . . In the South Texas city of San Juan, population 26,200, police have begun seizing ever greater amounts by taking both cash and vehicles from motorists. In 2005, officers collected $4400. This year, however, the force has collected $67,000. Pharr, with a population of 47,000, collected $422,000 last year. McAllen, a bigger city with 106,000 residents, collected $484,000. A federal appeals court ruling this week concluded that driving with a large amount of cash is sufficient justification for police to confiscate it, even if there is no evidence that a crime has been committed.
Each South Texas city has said its priority is to use the money to fund or expand a SWAT team, . . .

As Cato Institute policy analyst Radley Balko shows in this Cato study, small municipalities frequently misuse SWAT squads for routine police work, which has led to an increasing number of botched raids resulting in injury or even death to innocent citizens. And local politicians of small Texas cities are encouraging liberal confiscation policies by police as a convenient means to funding this type of questionable activity?

I recognize that the University Park area of Dallas is a nice place to live and all, and I also concede that the residents there are rightly attentive to maintaining property values and the decorum of the area. But this recent Dallas Morning News article reports on an initiative that establishes fairly convincingly that a number of the UP residents simply do not have enough to do:

Hoops could be shot down in this wealthy community thanks to a proposed ordinance banning basketball goals in front yards. The reason? To some city officials, they don’t look too good.
That’s the basis of a proposed University Park ordinance prohibiting portable and permanent basketball hoops. On Tuesday, council members postponed a decision on the ordinance until their Aug. 22 meeting so revisions could be made, . . .
Under the proposal, violators could be fined up to $2,000 a day. [. . .]
The ordinance the Planning and Zoning Commission and city staff originally recommended would have allowed residents to keep portable basketball goals in their front yards for up to 30 days a year. Council members wanted none of that, though.
They went back and forth for about 15 minutes at their Tuesday meeting on whether to allow swings, soccer goals and basketball goals in front yards at all. Some wanted to allow them certain months of the year, others only during daylight hours.
Portable soccer goals and badminton nets were deemed allowable because they could be moved inside every night. So were one-seat swings, provided they don’t swing into the street.
Trampolines and basketball goals weren’t as lucky.
“It’s just not as pleasing to the eye,” [the] Mayor . . . said about the goals.