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Ralph Peters
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Wars of Blood and Faith
Ralph Peters

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Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco
by Burt Prelutsky
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FROM THE PHONE BOOTH: The Smallest Space in  Hollywood

	FINEFROCK

Why No Friendly Skies?
One Sale Every Two/Four/More Years!
by Steve Finefrock - Hollywood Forum [scriptwriter] 12/40/07

Coffee became an ad-war battleground some decades ago, as one brand bashed the other for being inferior in many ways, and the favor was returned in kind, and then the escalation began. Result? Coffee sales – overall – fell precipitously, as the public lost its taste for all coffee, regardless of the brand. The war ended. Only nice ads prevailed since.
 
One recent wag wondered how we'd all feel if political ads were the template for regular, commercial ads, such as for airline travel: We'd all be afraid to fly, due to the rancid accusations between airlines. That would be the end of "Friendly Skies" advertising, with all schmoozing, all the time, without bashing the other airlines. Differences are rampant between politics and commerce, and offer a lesson for the coming Court Combat. It is Cultural Combat. It will last a long time. And it will always be ugly, never be polite. Courts and campaigns ain't coffee, nor airline service. They're much more important, and constructed much differently.

 One-Day Sale: TODAY ONLY!

The next chapter of Court Combat will be for one seat at a time on SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the United States, the Secret Service lingo now becoming very common, like POTUS for the president, and V-POTUS for the VP], a seat that represents one-election/one-time in American politics. Aside from misconduct, or resignation, or death, no Associate Justice can be 'reconsidered' once put on the bench. Unlike legislation, a decision is DONE, and final, and not re-examined.
 
It's the Extreme Election: once every election cycle, the deadly dynamic rears its ugly proboscis, as a candidate on a ballot must win TODAY ONLY, and complete his 'sale' to the 'marketplace' and its 'buyers' on a single day in November. All the marbles in one throw, putting the rent money and baby's shoe money and the eldest's college fund on one toss of the electoral dice.
 
If This Were Coffee...

Were coffee or airline or cereal firms to play this way, all their sales would be made on a single long commercial-buying day every two or four or six years. Imagine the scramble! The frantic run-up to 'buying day' – as we all decided our cereal, coffee and airline decisions for the coming two/four/six years – would be insane. That's what elections are: we choose together, collectively 'buy' our senator, congress member, mayor, governor, president, water commissioner at one Grand Single Lollapalooza Sale Event. The nastiness of the brief Coffee Wars would pale in contrast – bring out the heavy artillery, launch all missiles, this is Do Or Die – one big sale, or we go bankrupt.
 
Thus elections get nastier and tougher and bloodier and ever costlier. Each senator, every house member, dozens of governors all must sell all the 'customers' to make their 'purchase' on a single day. Less than a day – no late-night convenience-store voting places, just the work day of about twelve hours. All those decisions, all those purchases, made in a twelve-hour period – the buy is locked in concrete, for two or four or six years.
 
Then Came SCOTUS

Independence Day weekend in the Nickel Year of '05 showed us how saturated the political environment will be with talk of the next vacancy in SCOTUS, such as it was with Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement – for the next retirement will be the departure of a True Liberal. Battle stations everyone! America will tire of the tireless advocates, left and right, but not the media. Nor the 'political mutts' of all persuasions. This is the Big Enchilada of Elections – not a national seat to be filled for two or four or six years. Nope, there's no 're-election' option – though most senators seeking their return to office get it easily – and we won't ever get a chance to complain with a visit the 'return counter' should the SCOTUS choice go sour. Which so many have for the right these past three decades.
 
No warranty.
No returns allowed.
No recall option likely.
 
When the whining begins – Why can't we all just get along? Why is this so ugly? Can't they be civil? – remember the coffee wars, and potential airline wars, and how nasty commercial advertising would be if the total sales for a lifetime were in the offing on a single day, one particular day in a Senate chamber, the senators casting their ayes and nays.

Commerce ain't politics. And since the left has poisoned all the 'civility' since Haynsworth and Carswell times, don't expect the right to restrain itself too much. Oh, the right will hold back some, for that's the demand put on them by the media and other opinion-mavens – imagine a rightwing Carville or Dean! Ann Coulter doesn't count – I mean male nasties getting away with such uncivil language. None would be labeled 'eccentric' or 'passionate' – but instead branded with 'extremist' or similar labels. Thus, rightwing behavior will be a bit calmer. But not their motivation.
 
ONE DAY SALE!

The stakes are high – the choice for SCOTUS will have ten or twenty years [O'Connor had almost 24, mostly shifting leftish during her tenure] to effect, and affect, our national policy. The stakes are too high for civility, and the dems have lost any habit of civility anyway. The entertaining game to watch will be: How the right can counter the nasties, without being labeled Nazis.
 
Imagine the nastiest U.S. Senate race for an open six-year term, multiply it by infinity, and you get a hint of what is to come, in the next of at least two likely One-Day-Sale SCOTUS events on the national political mutts' agenda in the next few years. With Roberts and Alito, plus Scalia and Thomas, holding the anchor for a fifth affiliate, it will be Super-Coffee-Wars. This ain't coffee, or airline tickets, or breakfast cereal. It's about power. Gonna be fun!
 
 
Yeeeee-Haaaaa. Ride 'em hard, Dubya’s deputies. Close that sale, then another. Ain't no refunds. No 'return' counter. Never a 're-play' button on SCOTUS. This game has one ending, one time, for a lifetime of SCOTUS decisions.
 
This particular POTUS ends in '08; SCOTUS choices last a lifetime. So, do you get how @#*!ing important the next POTUS will be? ExileStreet

copyright 2007 Steve Finefrock

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