Northern Valley Beacon

Right off the bat, the news media went ballistic on the nomination of Samuel A. Alito (aka Scalito) to the Supreme Court. Even National Public Radio on its Morning Edition devoted all its time to this nomination, as if nothing else was happening in the nation and the world.

Everybody knows that the ultra-regressives snatched a hold on the Bush scrotum during the Harriet Miers grab-ass fest and they squeezed until he was forced to say "Scalito." What few brain cells that are viable in the Bush dome signaled that Scalito's ultra-regressive stance will so agitate the progressives that the media will prattle and roll and the Democrats will prattle and bitch, and leaking Libby, the attempted conjugal crucifixion of Joe Wilson, the war on Iraq in which six more U.S. soldiers were killed today, Sen. Frist's outside frisk in insider trading, Tom DeLay's laundry business, and the 9th week of not letting Katrina victims know what the government intends to do will be submerged by progressive outrage over Scalito.

If the White House manages to shift the focus off all its incompetence and subterfuge to Alito, it will have succeeded in one of the most massive abortions of democratic process. In rhetorical jargon, the tactic is called misdirection.

To get America back to something like America, progressives will have to stop looking for roses to smell and take a good, deep whiff of the aromas emanating from the halls of leadership. And after they get done wretching, maybe they can get serious about cleaning up the mess. If the White House has to devote needed energy and resources to dealing with its messes, as it should, the Alito nomination may produce the kind of hearings that will show the people exactly who this man is.