In the news this week, as Bill Clinton embarked upon his national farewell concert tour, President-elect George Bush said goodbye to his home state of Texas.

Regarding Clinton's televised farewell speech last night, White House mouth Jake Siewert said, "It was an opportunity for the president to thank the American people for their support over the years and talk a bit about how America has changed for the better." That explains why it was one of Clinton's shortest TV speeches on record -- unless, of course, you count the one when he declared, "I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."

For his part, Mr. Bush told a gathering of 10,000 supporters in Texas, "Our deepest values in life often come from our earliest years," he said. "It is here in Midland and in West Texas where I learned to respect people from different backgrounds. It is here where I learned what it means to be a good neighbor at backyard barbecues or just chatting across the fence. It is here in West Texas where I learned to trust in God. I leave here really upbeat about getting some things done for the people, getting something accomplished for the people of this land by putting aside all the partisan bickering and name-calling and anger. You see, I've never been a cynic about public service."

Regarding Democratic opposition to his agenda, Mr. Bush said, "I took firm positions on important issues and didn't back off. And I'm not backing off.... Quite the contrary, I'm going to take those issues I campaigned on and campaign hard for their enactment. Because I believe it's the right thing for the country."

Arriving in Washington Thursday, Mr. Bush was greeted by the Left's "partisan bickering and name-calling and anger" in hearings for his Cabinet nominees. For the moment, he has chosen to ignore the din and focus on the delivery of his inaugural address (which we will review in detail next week). Before listening to Mr. Bush's inaugural comments, read this week's Second Opinion feature, "Inaugural Admonitions."

Leftist blowhards in the House of Lords are indulging themselves at a borkfest -- a borking frenzy. You recall the reception Teddy Kennedy gave President Reagan's Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork, in 1987: "In Robert Bork's America...blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters; rogue police would break down citizens' doors in midnight raids." Kennedy's attack was so vitriolic that it was coined as "borking." First on record using the term was NOW feminist Flo Kennedy ranting about Clarence Thomas's nomination in 1991: "We're going to bork him. We're going to kill him politically." Last week, the New York Times had a special section rating the Bush cabinet nominees as "likely borkees and their probable score on the bork-o-meter."

This week, Judge Bork himself commented, "It's beginning to feel like homeweek with all the old crowd -- People for the American Way, National Organization of Women, AFL-CIO, National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League and scores of other Leftist groups and senators -- gathered round to bring down and pick the bones of another presidential nominee. It's enough to make a man nostalgic."

Once again, Teddy Kennedy was at his worst, attacking Bush Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft with a vigor heretofore unseen. Of his former Senate colleague, Teddy bellowed and blustered: "I think this nominee owes an apology to the people of the United States for that insinuation, talking about our government now being the source of tyrannical oppression. That's what I think, senator. I don't retreat. I don't retreat on any one of those matters."

Of course, Mr. Ashcroft is to be praised for seeing and calling the central government what it really is -- to the dismay of Sociocrat tyrants like the Senator who killed Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick, but has, for almost 40 years, retained the throne he uses to assail men of virtue like John Ashcroft.

Fearing he is short on votes to defeat Ashcroft's nomination, Kennedy plans to filibuster. But in 1995, Kennedy had this to say about filibustering presidential nominees: "It is wrong to filibuster this nomination, and Senators who believe in fairness will not let a minority of the Senate deny [the nominee] his vote by the entire Senate. We do a disservice to [the nominee], the Senate and the Nation as a whole by prolonging this process." Of course, Teddy has never let a double standard get in his way!

Seconding Kennedy's complaints about Mr. Ashcroft's strong faith, Sen. Charles Schumer asked, "How do you just turn it off?" Did somebody mention "faith profiling"?

Memo to Teddy and Charles: "...But no religious Test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." --Article VI of the U.S. Constitution

Numerous Leftist cadre principals chimed in, such as the NAACP's Kweisi Mfume who warned, "Senators who vote for Ashcroft will not be able to run away from this and assume people will forget. We are going to fund major information campaigns for the next four years in states where senators voted to confirm." Ms. Keiana Peyton, of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, added, "We will not let it be forgotten that African-Americans are the most loyal constituency in the Democratic coalition." In other words, 94% of blacks may vote against Republicans in the next election rather than just 93%.

Speaking of the Left Reverend of Hypocrisy, Jackson declared this "a week of moral outrage" leading up to Mr. Bush's inauguration Saturday. And speaking of "moral outrage," Jackson also announced, "I am father to a daughter who was born outside of my marriage (AKA -- adulterer). This is no time for evasions, denials or alibis." Apparently the time for "denials and evasions or alibis" was when Jackson jumped to the defense of Clinton's "internal" affair but failed to mention he, himself, had a little dalliance on the side.

The recipient of Reverend Jackson's affections is reported to be a former Rainbow Coalition staffer Jackson has parked in a $365,000 LA home (that's not "Lower Alabama") on a monthly stipend of $10,000. Jackson added, "I will be taking some time off to revive my spirit and reconnect with my family before I return to my public ministry." In LA, we suppose....

Back to the borkfest, Leftist media bigots were also out in force. A representative sample comes from the San Diego Union-Tribune's James Goldsborough, who concludes, "If Bush had won a clean victory, one might make a case for these [cabinet] choices. Had he won a landslide, he might claim that naming a fundamentalist, homophobic, anti-abortion, racially suspect attorney general was his right, one ratified by voters."

Ah, the comfort of knowing that the Leftist rhetoric of the last week is nothing more than a warm-up for the next four years.

There are a few Sociocrats in the media who are giving the Bush team a more objective look. The Washington Post's Richard Cohen writes, "Bush has not put together a Cabinet to my ideological liking, but he has managed to avoid the unsightly search for this or that token -- a black, a woman, a Hispanic, etc. He has one or more of each, for sure, but none of them was picked solely on account of ethnicity or sex."

Courtesy of The Federalist
www.Federalist.com

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