Kneel and kiss his ring

The Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court reveals just how far this cult of personality government has gone. On Meet the Press yesterday, Dr. Richard Land, your typical slick and slicked back hair, holy than everyone man of God was defending W and his selection of Miers. Land confirmed he participated in a White House initiated conference call to their conservative partners to bolster support for Miers. Land proudly admitted he said on the call, "I'm from Texas, George W. Bush is from Texas, Harriet Miers is from Texas and in Texas we have two important values: courage and loyalty. If Harriet Miers didn't rule the way George W. Bush thought she would he would see that as an act of betrayal and so would she." After taking a sip of Kool-Aid, Land told the Tim Russert, "If someone is disloyal, if someone betrays a trust in Texas they're right down there with child molesters and axe murders."

So there you have it. The W administration in a nutshell. There's just one problem. It depends on what the meaning of the word "loyal" is.

Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Finance Committee has accused the White House of trying to kill "his measure to pay for health care for those poor and uninsured Katrina victims who are not eligible for Medicaid, such as childless adults and pregnant women with incomes modestly above the normal - very low - cutoff. 'The White House is working against me behind the scenes, and I resent that, considering how I have worked for the White House in the past several years,' Mr. Grassley said." Sounds like disloyalty. Calling Patrick Patrick Fitzgerald. Add child molestation and axe murder to your indictment list.

And then there is Cathleen Rowley, the FBI agent who was prevented, before 9/11 from pursuing al Qaeda and whose whistleblowing memo got her thrown out of the FBI before she was named Time's Person of the Year in 2002. In an op-ed piece in today's New York Times she writes, "Presidential administrations seem more often than not to make loyalty paramount. While loyalty in marriage, family and among friends is the glue that binds society, government employees owe their ultimate allegiance not to their supervisor or president but to America: its Constitution, laws and citizens."

The "Dr." Lands of the right-wingnuts see it differently. They see loyalty to W, their glorious leader, to be the only principle they hold. It explains nearly everything done by this administration.

This kneel and kiss the ring of W was warned against by none other than Alexander Hamilton in the Federalists Papers #76 which has been dug up and throw about by blogs and the MSM. Its so good its worth citing again. "He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure."

Sound familiar? So the very thing Hamilton, a Founding Father so revered by the right wingnuts, warned against is the very reason why they argue Harriet Miers should get confirmed. Loyalty to W the man and Bush the family forever. So much for an independent judiciary. Surprised Faux News or "I get a Rush from Oxycontin Limbaugh hasn't accused Hamilton of being a Clinton supporter and a closet America-hater. The day is young though.

Republicans. Loyal to the man, never the country. Maybe they should take their oaths of office on a Bush photo album instead of the Bible.