TODAY’S CREATIVE LOVING PROFILE
Notoriously -- and accurately -- tagged "Zig-Zag Zell" for his political vacillations as far back as his first, failed Senate race in 1980, Miller has never been afraid to revisit a policy position.
These days, however, the supposedly moderate Democratic senator's aggravating consistency in supporting a right-fringe Republican president's every move has us yearning for a bit of flip-flopping.
In his past couple of years in office, Miller has argued in favor of Bush's unilateral war on Iraq, praised his go-for-broke tax cuts and even defended the repugnant "TIPS" program that would have recruited ordinary Americans to snitch on their friends and neighbors. (It's "exactly what newspapers do on a daily basis by asking folks to call in with tips," Miller reasoned at the time.)
But now the former governor threatens to do real harm in his misguided mission to carry water for Bush by attempting to do away with the Senate filibuster rule. Filibusters may seem old-fashioned and even a little juvenile, but with the Senate in the hands of a rabidly right-wing GOP, they're all that stands in the way of some really distasteful jurists oozing their way onto the federal bench.
Imagine Pat Robertson with a law degree and you've got Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor in a nutshell. He's as anti-abortion as the most unhinged right-to-lifer; is an unabashed promoter of radical Christianity who advocates organized school prayer and the public display of the Ten Commandments; and claims the recent decision overturning the Texas anti-sodomy law "must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia," yada, yada ...
In short, Pryor, who Bush has tapped for a seat on the Eleventh Circuit Court in Atlanta, is so far out of the rational mainstream that pushing him back under his rock should be a no-brainer.
Yet Zell has joined with Senate Republicans calling for a confirmation vote that would certainly give this ultra-partisan yahoo a lifetime career as a federal judge.
Zell, it appears we hardly knew ye.
The Weekly Scalawag is now accepting nominations. E-mail scott.henry @creativeloafing.com.
