Theodore Olson And The Quantification of Poultry

by tristero

Around the blogosphere, it is not uncommon to find sentiments like this:

The central question is whether the Democrats can force a significant reduction of troops from Iraq on Bush’s watch, so as to avoid Iraq becoming exclusively their headache when they (as is likely) take over the White House in January of 2009.

Let me put it this way. While countrywide disgust with Bush, Bushism, and the low-brow pandering of Republican shtick is, perhaps, at an all-time high, one should never misunderestimate the Democrats’ remarkable skill at pulling the rabbit of defeat out of the most victorious of hats (or something like that).

Now comes word that the genuinely odious Theodore (“Ted” humanizes him) Olson could very well be Bush’s AG nominee, beating out Michael Chertoff, who Bush must think clearly is overqualified for such a trivial post. If Olson is indeed the nominee, how he fares should be considered a decent harbinger for 2008. If they confirm him, hang on to that hat: It means that the top Dems have learned nothing and ’08 is seriously up for grabs. But if the Dems can manage not merely to defeat Olson, but expose the extremism that he – and by extension, the Republican Party – embodies, well, that’s a different story. Suffice it to say that one can safely purchase a calculator and start ‘a-counting, because the future could very well resemble a certain Hitchcock masterpiece, but in a good way.