Dance of the Reptiles
On the November ballot, Lewis, Pariente, and Quince are up for merit retention, meaning voters can choose to retain them or not. This simple system was put in place to keep the state’s high court above the sleaze of political races. The mission of the Kochs, hiding as always behind their super PAC, is to get the three justices dumped at the polls so that Gov. Rick Scott can appoint replacements.
This is worth repeating: If the Kochs have their way, Rick Scott—yes, that Rick Scott—gets to pack the Supreme Court with his own handpicked crew.
“Yikes” is right.
The head of the Florida chapter of Americans for Prosperity is a person named Slade O’Brien, whose job is to keep a straight face while saying things like: “We’re not advocating for the election or defeat of any of the justices. What we’re attempting to do is call more attention to them advocating from the bench.” Meanwhile, the state GOP’s executive board is less coy. It voted to oppose the retention of Quince, Lewis, and Pariente, branding them “too extreme.”
Well, let’s have a peek at these dangerous radicals.
Justice Pariente, 63, has been on the court for 15 years. She graduated from George Washington University Law School and clerked in Fort Lauderdale under U.S. District Judge Norm Roettger, Jr., who was no softie.
Justice Lewis, 64, who graduated cum laude from the University of Miami Law School, has been on the court almost 14 years. Both he and Pariente were appointed by Gov. Lawton Chiles, not exactly a wild-eyed liberal.
Justice Quince, also 64, is the first African-American woman on the Supreme Court. A graduate of the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University, she worked for years prosecuting death-penalty cases in the state attorney general’s office. In 1999, she was jointly selected for the high court by Chiles and that wacky left-winger Jeb Bush.
Twice before, Floridians have voted to keep these justices, but now the Kochs from Wichita say they know better. You won’t see David or Charlie in any of the campaign commercials, because they don’t like people to know they’re prying.
Their multinational fortune comes from oil refineries, fertilizers, cattle, commodities, chemicals, and paper mills. Next time you reach for Angel Soft toilet paper, think of the Koch brothers.
Both are MIT grads, philanthropists, unabashedly ultraconservative, and anti-Obama. They’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to defeat the president and lesser officeholders all over the country who won’t bend to their will. Some Florida Republicans—respected judges and lawyers—are disturbed by the sneak attack on the Supreme Court, which they view as a bald attempt to politicize the judiciary.
The two other justices who voted against the inept Obamacare amendment were similarly singled out two years ago, when they were up for merit retention. Tea Party groups bought TV time blasting justices Jorge Labarga and James Perry, and urging voters to remove them from the court. It didn’t work.
Labarga was retained with about 59 percent of the vote, Perry with 61 percent. Those aren’t bad margins, considering that the justices can’t campaign in their own defense.
This time is different, because Americans for Prosperity has a bottomless war chest to use against Lewis, Pariente, and Quince. Be assured that Gov. Scott is rooting for the Kochs. He’d love to have three openings to fill on the court. The last thing these guys want is fair judges who know the law; they want partisan judges who’ll obediently support their political agenda.
It’s worse than just trying to buy an election. It’s trying to hijack Florida’s justice system at the highest levels.
And all the Angel Soft in the world won’t wipe away the stink.
Note: By lopsided majorities, Florida voters returned Justices Pariente, Lewis, and Quince to the state Supreme Court.
February 16, 2013
Rubio and the GOP’s Thirst for Leadership
Secret Valentine’s Day memo to Sen. Marco Rubio from the Strategy Office of the Republican National Committee.
Dear Marco,
One simple word sums up your unorthodox rebuttal to the president’s State of the Union address: Genius.
Pausing in the midst of a speech that nobody would otherwise remember, lunging off-camera for a bottle of water, and then slurping it like a demented hummingbird … Time magazine was right. You are the savior of the Republican Party.
Was the whole country laughing at you? Possibly. Okay, yeah. But was it the most unpresidential thing you could have done? No! You could have walked out with your fly unzipped (whoa, don’t get any ideas!).
Truth be told, all of us here at the RNC started freaking out when we saw you stop and take that sip. What’s that goofball doing? we wondered. Does he think it’s a rehearsal? Doesn’t he know he’s on live TV in front of, like, 50 million voters?
But once we stopped throwing our coffee cups and kicking our garbage cans, we calmed down and thought about what you’d done. And we finally got it, Marco—the sheer brilliance. The water grab wasn’t really a spontaneous and awkward moment, was it? You’d planned the whole darn thing, right down to your deer-in-the-headlights stare at the camera.
Of course you did, because that’s what saviors do. They see the big picture.
The script we gave you to read the other night was incredibly lame. In fact, it was basically Mitt Romney’s stump speech for the last three years. Didn’t work for him, and let’s face it, it wasn’t going to work for you, either.
Truth is, we don’t have any new ideas in the Republican Party. Our plan was to retread all our stale old ideas through a sharp, young Hispanic dude—you!—and hope people would think they’re hearing something fresh.
Obviously, you read through the script ahead of time and realized it was a turkey. So you improvised a visual distraction, something so ditzy that all of America would instantly stop paying attention to what you were saying.
In retrospect, it was the best thing that could have happened to our party. Thanks to you, Marco, nobody’s talking about that moldy little speech. They’re talking about you jonesing for that water bottle. The video clip has gone totally viral. On YouTube, you’re getting more hits than that adorable piano-playing hamster!
Here at RNC headquarters, we’re receiving thousands of e-mails and tweets, including some from GOP donors who haven’t yet grasped the subtle cleverness of your “message.” Which is: Yes, Sen. Rubio is really thirsty. The whole country is really thirsty!
Thirsty for a new direction, a new vision for the future.
We’re still ironing out some wrinkles, but you get the idea. You’ve struck gold, Marco, and we’re on it.
THE JOKE STATE
October 31, 2001
The Greatest Show in Miami
The Miami mayoral race is like that famous circus act in which a midget car speeds into the tent and clowns start piling out. This year, 10 candidates have emerged from the city’s metaphorical midget car to amuse us before next week’s election.
The most colorful of the pack is incumbent Joe Carollo, fondly known as Crazy Joe. He’s ruthless, paranoid, demagogic, divisive, and unabashedly bankrupt of conscience. We love him. If journalists alone were allowed to vote, Carollo would win in a landslide because he makes our jobs so easy.
Still, it’s only fair to mention the other leading candidates, who are themselves not without entertainment value.
Among the front-runners is Maurice Ferré, an ex-mayor who promotes himself as a visionary and a healer, reaching out to all factions of the community.
While Ferré might be more polished and presentable than Carollo, he’s probably not the steadiest hand to be guiding Miami toward long-term fiscal solvency. After his family’s concrete business tanked in the 1970s, Ferré transferred all his assets to his wife. In 1983, when the State Attorney’s Office tried to collect an unpaid campaign fine of $65,000, no funds could be found in Ferré’s own name.
Ten years later, he still hadn’t paid the fine. He claimed to have no personal assets but admitted enjoying “a very nice lifestyl
e” supported by his wife’s holdings. Today, Ferré happily reports that his finances are under control and lists a private net worth of $3 million. Inspiring as this dramatic change of fortune might be, voters should still be wary of entrusting the city’s fragile budget to someone with Ferré’s checkered-checkbook past.
Another familiar figure trying to unseat Carollo is Xavier Suarez, fondly known as the former Mayor Loco. The last election “won” by Suarez was nullified after it was revealed that absentee ballots had been phonied to his benefit. A court removed Suarez from office after 111 bizarre days, during which he appeared to be auditioning for a dinner-theater production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
These days, Suarez campaigns on the assertion that Miami’s fiscal crisis was a hoax and that the city is actually rolling in dough, despite the contrary findings of professional auditors. As evidence of the nefarious plot, Suarez excitedly points to $148 million in unused bond and special project funds recently unearthed by city officials.
Unfortunately, most of that money was long ago marked for specific capital commitments and cannot legally be diverted to cover Miami’s operating expenses or balance its budget. Suarez, however, seldom lets hard facts stand in the way of a juicy conspiracy theory. In such twitchy ramblings, he is nearly Carollo’s equal.
One surprise among the mayoral front-runners is lawyer Manny Díaz, a first-time candidate who is not yet known by any derogatory nickname.
At first glance, Díaz would seem an unlikely pick for Miami’s top job in Miami. He doesn’t appear to be insane, dysfunctional, or arithmetically challenged.
Díaz’s civic résumé is distressingly impressive, especially his work on behalf of Haitian refugees in the 1980s. Though he has the requisite anti-Castro credentials—he was part of the legal team representing the Miami relatives of Elián González—he’s also shown an apparently sincere concern for Miami’s neglected minorities. A recent poll suggests that Díaz will be one of the top vote-getters on November 6 and would beat Carollo in a runoff. That’s unsettling indeed for those of us who’ve been counting on another four years of slapstick at City Hall.
One hopeful note: Díaz has raised more money than all the other candidates, thus increasing the potential for trouble later on, when fat-cat donors come whining for favors.
A longtime pal and fund-raiser of Sen. Bill Nelson, Díaz prospered while Nelson was Florida’s insurance commissioner. During those years, Díaz’s law firm received more than $1 million worth of business from the state Insurance Department—merely a happy coincidence, we’re told.
Let’s hope not. We need a reed of hope for future scandal, should Díaz get elected. The prospect of having a mayor who is both uncompromised and unimpaired is too dreary for a writer to contemplate.
This is Miami, for heaven’s sake. You can’t have a circus without the clowns.
June 9, 2002
First Draft Needs Tweaks on Content, Facts, Title
An absolutely true news item: Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, now a candidate for Congress, is writing a book about her controversial role in the 2000 presidential election.
Dear Katherine,
The first draft is terrific! All of us here at Delusional Press are thrilled to be working with such an exciting new talent.
We do have a few minor editing suggestions, however, that might better serve to underscore your diligence and objectivity during this turbulent episode in American politics.
To begin with, we’re not entirely comfortable with any of your proposed titles, which I will discuss in order of stated preference.
Tell Al Gore to Kiss My Smokin’ Hot Chad is too wordy to fit on the book’s cover. Also, the tone is a bit brash for our conservative readership.
While your second choice, Recount, Shmecount! has a nice wry ring to it, the title struck some of us as flippant, considering the heavy historic event about which you’re writing.
Of all the titles you suggested, by far the catchiest is How I Saved America. Unfortunately, the folks in marketing feel that it could scare off potential readers who might mistake the book for a gloating and self-aggrandizing political tract, which of course it isn’t!
So, we all put our noggins together and came up with what we believe is a positive, inspiring title: Center of the Storm: Practicing Principled Leadership in Times of Crisis.
What do you say, Katherine, does that reach out and grab you by the tonsils or what? Think Churchill during the blitzkrieg. Or maybe Reagan during Grenada.
Now, let’s move on to your manuscript, which needs only a little tweaking: Our copy editors have noted that you refer to former Vice President Gore as “a drip” (pp. 13, 27, 88, 92, 107, 185, 310–76), “a dweeb” (pp. 14, 44, 98–107, 224, 288, 410), and “a whiny Ivy League wimp” (pp. 1, 5, 9, 55, 67, 71, 123, 144, 233, and throughout the epilogue).
For consistency, we should settle on a single pejorative name for Gore. Personally, I’d say that “drip” covers a lot of territory and still gets your point across. No more than half a dozen references are probably sufficient.
Similarly, some of us remain uneasy with your frequent characterizations of the Bush brothers as “godlike” (pp. 46, 75, 221, 388), “heroic” (pp. 1, 32, 113, 150, 244), and “saintly” (pp. 28, 67, 183, 209–14). Let’s consider toning down those sections. Same goes for the dream sequence in which Jeb appears as a golden unicorn, “his rippled flanks glistening in the moonlight.” There’s some interesting writing there, to be sure, but it’s best saved for a different book.
Look, we’re not trying to be sticks in the mud. Nor would we ever seek to dilute your deeply felt convictions about what happened during the presidential election.
Still, we are in the business of selling books. Thus, you can understand our disquiet to see the term “left-leaning Metamucil heads” (p. 169) applied to the Palm Beach County retirees who mistakenly cast ballots for Pat Buchanan instead of Gore. That group, according to our calculations, represents 6,000 to 10,000 voters who won’t likely be lining up to purchase your opus, no matter what the title.
So, exactly who is your potential audience? Good question, Katherine, and one we’ve been asking ourselves daily here at the publishing house.
Market surveys tell us that most people would rather undergo amateur liposuction than read another word about the 2000 presidential election. This aversion seems to cut broadly across party lines.
Our target customer base seems further limited because Gore actually outpolled your candidate by more than 500,000 votes nationwide—a fact only recently unearthed by our crack research department.
But don’t fret for even a moment. Our sales force loves a challenge!
You recently inquired about advance orders, and I do have some figures to report. So far, 537 customers have prepurchased your book online—coincidentally, the exact number that was George W.’s disputed margin of victory in your home state.
While that doesn’t seem like many sales, we suspect that thousands of readers got you confused with another famous Harris (Thomas, in this case) and accidentally ordered Hannibal instead.
We are confident that we’ll get this sorted out soon. Amazon, unlike the bureaucracy of Florida, is quite amenable to recounts.
Meanwhile, take a look at the manuscript changes we’ve suggested, and try not to worry about the bestseller lists. As you know better than anyone, Katherine, numbers never tell the whole story.
January 11, 2004
Rush’s “Fans” Say Loyalty Has Limits
Dear Mr. Limbaugh,
As president-elect of our local Rush Limbaugh Fan Club, I’ve been deputized to write this letter regarding your recent legal problems.
Here in Gopher County, some of your loyal followers are upset about what they’ve been reading and hearing in the media, which (as we all know) is run by a bunch of liberal pansies (except for your radio show, of course!).
Anyhow, we were all real sorry to learn about you being a dope addict. Naturally,
we didn’t believe a word of the story until it came from your own lips.
Seeing how you’ve been so hard-core against drug users on your radio show—saying that they ought to be locked up with murderers and rapists—it must’ve been hard on you to sneak around all those years, pretending like you were some straight-up, sober citizen.
According to Palm Beach prosecutors, in only six months you got about 2,000 painkiller pills from pharmacies in your neighborhood (and that’s not including what you scored on the sly from your maid). When you do the arithmetic, that works out to at least 11 hits of opiate-based analgesics a day—enough to put any lily-livered liberal in the emergency room—yet it didn’t even slow you down! Speaking on behalf of your devoted radio listeners, most of us never suspected that you were ripped to the gills. You always made perfect sense to us.
Still, we were sympathetic when you explained that you’d been popping pills because your back was hurting and then your eardrums were hurting, and I forget what else was hurting. Hey, it’s a hard job, sitting in front of that microphone. You don’t get much exercise, except for the jaw muscles.
Admittedly, we got worried when you went into rehab, since the concept was pretty much invented by mushy-hearted liberals who wanted to help drug users instead of punish them. Thank goodness you were still a die-hard conservative when you came out!
But that, Mr. Limbaugh, is when the trouble began.
The authorities in Palm Beach have been investigating a drug ring that allegedly supplied some of your pain pills. However, instead of cooperating with law-enforcement officials, you’ve recently instructed your attorney to stonewall.
To those who have followed you faithfully, it’s mighty confusing. You’ve always said that you were pro-law-and-order, ranting about criminal suspects who complained that their constitutional rights were being violated. Yet that’s exactly what you’re doing now, and you haven’t even been charged with anything.