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By Root 404 0

of Appeals and for years has been angling for an appointment to the U.S. Supremes, is but one example. This darling of the right-wing Federalist Society won the admiration of the boys on the loading dock, even if she was outvoted on a 2–1 decision in a sexual-harassment appeal. (She was on the side of the harassers.) In fact, Judge Jones’ conduct on the Fifth Circuit bench in 1988 recalls the unofficial motto of Sul Ross State University at Alpine, Texas: “Where the men are men and so are the women.” Judge Jones got downright pissy with a lawyer representing a woman whose coworkers groped her and plastered her locker with pornography. “One of the guys pinched [my client’s] breasts,” the woman’s lawyer said, trying to impress upon the three judges just how hostile the workplace was.

“Well,” Judge Jones sniffed, “he apologized.”

Some of us are still wondering if that standard can be applied to rape and murder cases. Or if the “I’m sorry defense” only works in civil suits.

We also have it on record that Judge Jones is a strict constructionist regarding a criminal defendant’s right to legal counsel. She rejected an appeal of a death row inmate whose lawyer slept through much of his trial. The defendant, she reasoned, did have a lawyer. Who said he had to be awake? Jones was on Poppy Bush’s shortlist for a Supreme Court appointment, and Dubya’s a big fan. She’s a Texas jurist on his shortlist of high court nominees.

Then there’s Criminal Court of Appeals justice Sharon Keller, who also held that an attorney didn’t have to be awake. At least she set a higher standard: an attorney must remain awake for the important parts of the trial. In particular when the trial can result in the execution of the defendant.

If the right-wing women on the Texas bench give you gooseflesh, you ought to see the men. We know this rough justice is not exclusive to the Great State. GeeDubya Bush and Karl Rove can find judges cut from the same coarse conservative cloth in each of the fifty states. And if they’re not challenged in the Senate, they’ll succeed.

As we write, the filibuster of the Miguel Estrada nomination continues, and the filibuster of Priscilla Owen has begun. From where we sit it looks as though only Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, and Dianne Feinstein have drawn a line in the sand—somewhere between Washington and the Red River.

We hold out some small hope that judges like Owen, Charles Pickering, Estrada—and later perhaps Edith Jones—will finally engage the gag reflex of moderate Republicans such as Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chaffee, and Susan Collins.

It’s a small hope. But it’s all we’ve got.

15.

Shrub II: The Empire Strikes Back

The president believes that Ariel Sharon is a man of peace.

—ARI FLEISCHER, APRIL 11, 2002

Foreign policy was not George W. Bush’s forte, as you may recall from the 2000 presidential campaign. As he stumbled through the Grecians and the Kosovians, his own campaign staffers winced and rolled their eyes. Most of us thought it was pretty funny but not terribly important. After eight years of peace* and adultery, rumors of war were not high on anyone’s list. We had won the cold war, and globalization with its discontents was the hot topic du jour. We were the only superpower, Number One, and the last thing we worried about was being attacked.

Dubya Bush campaigned as a rather mild-mannered international citizen, saying, “I think the United States must be humble, and must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out for themselves how to chart their own course.” During the presidential debate on foreign policy, when expectations of Bush were so low all he had to do was clear a matchbox, he addressed anti-Americanism: “It really depends on how our nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us. If we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us.”

One of Bush’s major foreign-policy differences with Al Gore during the campaign was over nation building, a concept Bush clearly held in contempt. He said