For those of you who were unwilling to become part of the NYTimes "pay per view" for opinion pieces, you are missing a priceless
David Brooks column.
He must be feeling totally betrayed by Bush because he tears into Harriet Miers' capabilities with astonishing ferocity.
Follow me for a delicious excerpt after the fold:
"Of all the words written about Harriet Miers, none are more disturbing than the ones she wrote herself. In the early 90's, while she was president of the Texas bar association, Miers wrote a column called "President's Opinion" for The Texas Bar Journal. It is the largest body of public writing we have from her, and sad to say, the quality of thought and writing doesn't even rise to the level of pedestrian. ... nothing excuses sentences like this:
"More and more, the intractable problems in our society have one answer: broad-based intolerance of unacceptable conditions and a commitment by many to fix problems."
Or this: "We must end collective acceptance of inappropriate conduct and increase education in professionalism."
Or this: "When consensus of diverse leadership can be achieved on issues of importance, the greatest impact can be achieved."
Or passages like this: "An organization must also implement programs to fulfill strategies established through its goals and mission. Methods for evaluation of these strategies are a necessity. With the framework of mission, goals, strategies, programs, and methods for evaluation in place, a meaningful budgeting process can begin."
Or, finally, this: "We have to understand and appreciate that achieving justice for all is in jeopardy before a call to arms to assist in obtaining support for the justice system will be effective. Achieving the necessary understanding and appreciation of why the challenge is so important, we can then turn to the task of providing the much needed support."
This reminds me of a skit Garrison Keillor did on Prairie Home Companion this weekend - the show's "marketing guru" is going to rebrand the show as PraiHoCom (sounds like Pray Hokum):
"... at PraiHoCom, our long history of going above and beyond has fostered leadership in an industry full of potential while meeting and exceeding expectations both large and small.
... at PraiHoCom, the bottom line is all about quality and a special synergy and doing both the right thing and the right thing for business in a business that's all about quality and special synergy while focusing on the bottom line.
... My vision is to re-engineer our restructuring strategy of empowerment to meet the challenges of the paradigm shift with a tradition of excellence and a team of team players second to none in order to achieve my restructuring strategy vision. It's just what we do at PraiHoCom."
Could Harriet have said it better?