Harriet Miers Redux

This morning as I was catching up on the campaign front, a sentence caught my eye. It read: “Santorum getting more scrutiny as he surges in Iowa.” For those who are unfamiliar with political speak, that’s the same as saying Santorum is about to be trashed and destroyed in the media. It was the proverbial shot across the bow.

Scrutiny in political terms means having as much dirt as possible dug up and used against a candidate. It need not be true, it need only be sellable to the great unwashed. The media program hosts and Karl Rove will take it from there. They did it to Herman Cain, they’ve done it Rick Perry, and Michelle Bachmann. They’ve targeted Newt Gingrich and the Republican hierarchy complicit with Republican leadership on the local level, have devised plans to destroy any gains made by Ron Paul – even though he is viewed as a spoiler, not a threat to win.

And now as Rick Santorum appears to be benefiting from conservatives looking for a candidate to support in the aftermath of Herman Cain and the torpedoing of Gingrich, finds himself in the line of fire. This so-called “scrutiny” is nothing more than the specious pretense of journalistic integrity that is in truth as scrofulous as Karl Rove and Obama.

If people want to attack Santorum’s record as a Senator, c’est la vie. But, the attacks will have nothing to do with his record, they will have to do with his social positions, specifically his stance against abortion. It’s the way these people operate. In the absence of factuality they will make it up. They did it to Herman Cain and they will do same to Santorum. Gingrich had a recent legacy of being on the wrong side of issues that are important to true conservatives, but he wasn’t the Beelzebub he was portrayed as.

There is something fundamentally wrong with a political system that seeks to destroy the person, in the absence of substantive reasons to use against a candidate. It is especially scurrilous when it is done by way talking points secreted to the media and party apparatchiks, who are the marionettes of wraith-like creatures operating from the shadows to effect outcomes based their political agendas.

The elections are supposed to be about what the people want. They are supposed to about the legitimate choice of the people, not Erebusic machinations of an unseen aristocracy that decides the outcome in advance and then sets about making the people believe they actually have a choice.

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This election is about getting Mitt Romney the nomination and there are those who will allow nothing and no one to stand in the way of same. The question alert voters must ask is why Romney is being pushed upon us? Why is Romney being promoted as the only one who can beat Obama? And, even more importantly, why is the race about who can win, juxtaposed to who is the best person to lead the nation?

I am well familiar with the mentality that argues we must vote for whoever the party puts up as the nominee, or our vote is wasted, because we in essence are casting a vote for Obama. That used to work, but it will not work on me ever again. My vote is not for the candidate who can win, but for the candidate who can lead.

Many will remember George W. Bush trying to thrust Harriet Miers upon us, as being “the most qualified” person he could have chosen to serve on the SCOTUS – the problem was that she wasn’t even close to the most qualified. In all honestly she didn’t qualify in the top 50 that could have been selected. But the Bush White House and it’s marionettes did their level best to convince us she was the only one for the job.

But, as I wrote at the time, if Miers was the most qualified as Bush tried to convince us she was, what was/is Samuel Alito? I apply the same reasoning to Romney. How is a man whose proven ability is to flip flop on issues in the blink of an eye, a man who has spent four years completely reinventing himself, in an attempt to flee from his long held beliefs, now the one we should believe most capable to lead the nation?

Harriet Miers, the Chevy Volt, and wind energy, epitomize things we are told the country cannot do without, and Romney is yet one more of the same.