"When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day." - Dick Gephardt



When Dick Gephardt uttered these words earlier this week almost no one noticed. Recognition of the chilling effect of Gephardt’s message is only now starting to sink in to the American psyche as more news outlets are giving this sentence of his some airtime.

Let’s deconstruct this sentence a bit to see just how extreme Gephardt’s views on the issue are. Let us start with “we’ll do executive orders.” Gephardt implies that he and other Democrats in his administration would scheme and devise ways to subvert one of the most fundamental checks and balances in our Constitution by usurping the power of the Legislative branch in general and SCOTUS (Supreme Court of The United States) in particular. He would use the Executive branch’s power of Executive Order to accomplish this plan. “[T]o overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does.” Gephardt goes on to define the parameters around which his policy of dictatorial style rule would be based. Anything he and his administration deem to be “wrong” that the Supreme Court is fair game in Gephardt’s view to be subject to overturn by executive fiat. The grandiose visions Gephardt has for his own views and his willingness to act in a close-minded and reactionary way to a ruling by SCOTUS demonstrates a serious break from reality and either an ignorance of our governmental system or an insatiable lust for power. Neither should be a reassuring thought for any American voter. Finally, we have “tomorrow or any other day.” At the end here, Gephardt indicates that his views are not limited to this issue that was to be resolved by the Court at the time, University of Michigan’s affirmative action policies. Gephardt is willing to rewrite any SCOTUS opinion to come into line with his own narrow beliefs regardless of what the rest of the country, Congress, or the Judiciary have to say on the matter.

Not long ago, Trent Lott made an equally un-American statement at a birthday party and was nearly thrown out of the US Senate for his gaffe. Can we expect equal treatment from the other side of the aisle? I’m, not holding my breath.

Economic Recovery

The jobs market is surely lagging behind the rest of the economy right now. If anyone had any doubts about the recovery of the economy overall, though, they needed look any further than the announcement that Oracle is buying PeopleSoft for $5.1 billion. I expect to see technology companies with lots of cash still left start looking for undevalued assets wherever they can find them. It's hard to imagine what Microsoft can buy without running into regulatory problems, but keep an eye on Cisco.

Martha's Miserable Mess

It is often said that the 1950s didn’t really end, at least not psychologically, until the death of President Kennedy in November of 1963. While there were bigger days that signify the end of the 1990s, most notably 9/11/2001, today we saw the final nail being put in place and readied to seal the coffin on the 1990s. The indictment of Martha Stewart today on nine federal counts that put her in line for as many as thirty years behind bars. Good news emerged earlier this week on ImClone’s now infamous cancer drug Erbitux, which is at the heart of the web that has ensnared Stewart and threatens the very existence of her publicly traded company. Surely Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, masters of far more than their own domain in the 1990s, could not have written a better ending to the long and wild ride of Martha Stewart. The stock she sold because the drug that was rejected turns out to be a hit just as she and Sam Wacksal make reservations at Club Fed. The situational irony of these events is enough to make all but the most obtuse give a hearty chuckle.

For Stewart, her rags to riches to nicely striped prison jumper with matching slippers and complimentary hair ribbons story must seem all the more surreal as ImClone is set to rally with the rest of the markets now that Erbitux has been given a favorable review by the FDA. While some may think that only the likes of Karl Rove could have brought such a confluence of events together in such a way, I prefer to find true justice in the irony. For years now Martha Stewart has offered “a good thing” to women across this country wrapped in the dream of quick and easy do-it-yourself projects made from left over wrappers and a garden that fits only in the most spacious of exurban yards. Of course, there was Martha, always with a hand out asking for magazine subscriptions, clothing, linens, and furniture. Always Martha, wrapping “a good thing” around an average thing and marking it up an extra little bit to make sure that Martha had all the good things her little heart desires.

Perhaps Martha thought that if her sale of ImClone stock was questioned and she then starting digging a hole with the Federal authorities that once the hole was deep enough she could simply offer up a lemon-snap, bat her eyes, and let the prosecutors know that it was “a good thing” and on her way she would go. Well, Ms. Stewart, welcome back from the 1990s. The biggest target of just about every aspect of society in the 21st century has become ‘the lie” and that truly is a good thing.

Item of Interest from The History Channel


Watching a special on Saddam Hussein and his demonic sons it has been reported that in response to Uday killing Saddam’s bodyguard/food tasters/friend Saddam ordered a warehouse that housed over 1,000 exotic cars owned by Uday burned to the ground. Now, running the numbers on that, let’s suppose that the average value of one of these exotic cars was $75,000. Now, that is probably low, but I want to be conservative. At 1,000 cars, that is a total of $75 million in cars destroyed. I was dumbstruck when I did the math.