While the Pentagon is sending more Nighthawk stealth fighters to the Persian Gulf, the White House is busy installing its own stealth army back at home. And the entire process itself has been underground, like Dick Cheney's private little hideaway. The drumbeat for war and the Columbia tragedy have been used by the Bushies for maximum effect, preoccupying the public with that unstoppable combination of sorrow, fear and patriotism. One day, W. is on TV saying prayers to the prophet Isaiah on behalf of the astronauts (who included a Hindu woman). The next day, he's backing up Colin Powell's commanding performance at the UN with more tough bluster guaranteed to secure the front pages. This administration's motto seems to be, 'The economy may be tanking, but just get the tanks rolling.'
Bush's budget is among the most reckless proposed by any president—with its unacceptable $307 billion deficit projection and an intractable allegiance to more, more, more tax cuts—but it's running as a back story, out of sight, out of mind. Our crusading evangelist of an attorney general, John Ashcroft, is forcing the death penalty on federal prosecutors in New York, including for defendants with whom they've cut deals in exchange for testimony against other criminals. In addition to the sheer deceitfulness of such a move, Ashcroft is thwarting law enforcement for the sake of his own ideological zeal. But even this, too, is happening under most radars.
Then there are the far-right nominees to the courts being hurried through the Senate. First on the list is a man some Democrats see as a human stealth bomb himself, Miguel Estrada, whom the Senate is fiercely debating (and the vote may even be over and done with by the time you read this).
A partner with a Washington law firm, Estrada has no experience as a judge—thus no record that can be carefully evaluated—and yet he has been nominated to the nation's second most powerful court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, from whence came Ruth Ginsberg, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Estrada indeed is rumored to be on Bush's short list for the Supreme Court. This White House may be opposed to 'racial preferences,' but one of the characteristics that it keeps touting about Estrada is that he's an Hispanic. That is, of course, the same strategy that Poppy Bush utilized to successfully put the far-right ideologue Thomas onto the high court—using race to blunt attacks from the left and while satisfying hardcore conservatives.
Bush's Justice Dept. refuses to hand over Estrada's memos from when he worked in the U.S. solicitor general's office during the Clinton years, just about the only paper trail available from which to view his opinions. Estrada's former boss in the Justice Dept., meanwhile, told The Los Angeles Times that the nominee is so 'ideologically driven that he couldn't be trusted to state the law in a fair, neutral way.'
It's hard to disagree with Sen. Chuck Schumer's characterization of Estrada as a 'sphinx-like' candidate when the guy won't even answer questions on whether or not he believes such Supreme Court decisions as Roe v. Wade and Romer vs. Evans were decided properly. (Romer vs. Evans overturned a Colorado anti-gay amendment.) Under Senate Judiciary Committee questioning, Estrada claimed not to have read the briefs or listened to the arguments in those cases, so he couldn't offer an answer. But as journalist Joshua Marshall noted on his Web site, Talking Points Memo, Estrada worked as a Supreme Court clerk for the pivotal Justice Anthony Kennedy when Roe v. Wade was challenged in '89. He had to have read the briefs.
Schumer asked Estrada about a report in The Nation that suggested anti-gay bias on Estrada's part—another question Estrada waffled on. According to the article, a potential applicant for a clerkship at the court was told by Estrada not to even apply: '... Miguel told me his job was to prevent liberal clerks from being hired. He told me he was screening out liberals because a liberal clerk had influenced Justice Kennedy to side with the majority and write a pro-gay-rights decision in a case known as Romer v. Evans ... .'
Estrada has refused to answer questions about environmental cases and labor-rights issues as well. Oddly, though women's groups and environmental groups have publicly opposed the nomination precisely because Estrada has no record and won't fess up, Estrada's lack of a record is exactly the reason why some gay groups say they haven't opposed him.
'We've been opposing nominations where the individual has an anti-gay record or paper trial, public positions or articles in law reviews,' said the Human Rights Campaign's David Smith. The group has taken a position on other nominees soon coming before the Senate, including Trent Lott buddy Charles Pickering (who's written anti-gay opinions in law reviews). Two others that HRC is opposing, Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and former Colorado Solicitor General Tim Tymkovich, reveal such anti-gay sentiments in articles they've written that even the Log Cabin Republicans' head Patrick Guerriero says he has 'real concerns' about them and is likely not to support one or both of them.
It's understandable that HRC might not want to come out against every nominee for fear of overdoing it. But there's something to be said for coalition building and concentrating activities to torpedo a stealth nominee who may be destined for the Supreme Court, thereby taking on Bush's entire approach to the courts.
It's not as if those other nominees are likely to be voted down anyway.
The way Bush & Co. keep their strategy under the radar, only a concerted and local push by the entire fleet of civil-rights groups is going to have even the most remote chance of exposing it.