Happy Martin Luther King Day, first of all. If you got the day off from work with pay today, bravo to you. I didn't, and I don't mind. As a member of the only generation ever to be branded (that's an 'X' on my flank, thank you), there are a few things that are endemic in my psyche, things that older Americans saw come about, like nuclear war. It's something that was already history when I was born; my mother was pregnant with me the day he was assassinated. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the first people I learned about in the socialist-'70s primary school years, the early phase of my experience with public education.

About the same time our young minds were made to understand the concept of political assassination (they start with King and then move on to Lincoln and later Kennedy, skipping right over McKinley), we were also exposed to the Bicentennial celebration. In the elementary school parade, I pushed a gaudily painted lawnmower frame decked out with plenty of red, white and blue crepe paper.

It was impressed upon us that our country was two centuries old, and that America stood for equality, and equality meant fairness. Laws were written, not in order to promulgate fairness, but to guarantee it to all of us by punishing those who chose not to be fair. We didn't know these lessons were for the purpose of instilling civility in us, to prevent us from becoming, rather than feral beasts, decent human beings who would practice and pass on those civic tasks that make us the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. Indeed, we pledged our allegiance to that notion every day.

Ergo, you can understand the disdain I am about to spread before you over the installation of Justice Charles Pickering to the federal Appellate bench, a calculated chess move made by George W. Bush whilst his opponent was away from the board. You see, while Congress is out and about, the president has the option of making an executive "recess appointment", placing a judge wherever one might be needed. Such appointments last for one year, after which said judge must be nominated and confirmed by the Senate in proper fashion.

Bill Clinton did this with Roger Gregory, who was later nominated by Bush, and was then confirmed. Eisenhower made three recess appointments to the Supreme Court. One of them was Earl Warren. Overall in American history, there have been about 300 recess appointments, but Bush did not utilize his executive powers to provide a stopgap so much as he was making yet another procedural end-run in order to get his way, conveniently bypassing the representatives of the American people.

Democrat candidate Howard Dean appropriately called Bush's tactic a "polarizing move showing the president's utter disdain for constitutional checks and balances." In other words, it was not in the interests of fairness, and will do very little to foster fair play in the future, on either side. Or, as Senator Charles Schumer (D., New York) says, it is "a finer in the eye". But this is how Bush, the MBA CEO, does business.

Bill Clinton did the same thing with Gregory, whose nomination (like hundreds of others from 1992 to 2000) had been held in perpetual captivity by Republican Senators who would rather filibuster than debate. So eyebrows arched all across the political spectrum when Bush described Senate opposition to Pickering as "unprecedented obstructionist tactics." It is hardly unprecedented. Look no further than the office of Bush's own Attorney General for a fine example of how an obstinate Republican (John Ashcroft, then representing Missouri in the Senate) went to great lengths to sully the good name of a Clinton nominee, for no reason other than to freeze the bench until the time when a Republican president would be doing the nominating.

Pickering's critics are many. Among other things, he played a key role in giving a lightweight sentence to a white guy who had burned a cross on the property of an African-American family. This did not take place in the tumultuous days of the Civil Rights era, but in 1994. It is for that reason alone that Schumer decries Pickett: "A man who defended cross burning does not deserve elevation to the bench." Good enough for me. However, Bush has had a Pickering fixation for a long time - the entire GOP has. Who defends him, or his appointment?

Naturally, the president defends himself. "Again, I call on the Senate to stop playing politics with the American judicial system and to give my nominees the up-or-down votes they deserve."

Trent Lott, the Republican Senator from Mississippi: "With each passing day, more people are coming to know Judge Pickering as we Mississippians do - as a man of unquestioned character and an outstanding jurist of distinction, with skills and integrity that will be well placed on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, obediently echoing Bush's big words, called this move a "proper response to unprecedented obstructionism" by those Senate Democrats who turned Pickering down in 2002.

"Opponents have only themselves to blame," pipes up somebody named John Cornyn (R., Texas). "They've prevented an up-or-down vote, and the president exercised a constitutional option to end an unconstitutional filibuster." (For the record, there is no such animal as an "unconstitutional filibuster".) And Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) announced that he expects Pickering to "continue to serve the country with distinction in this new position from the federal bench."

So there you have it. On Martin Luther King Day, Charles Pickering's recess appointment is publicly backed by the former Senate Majority Leader who lost his chair for supporting a fellow Southern segregationist, by the avid GOP fund-raiser who replaced him, by a rookie Republican Senator from the president's home state, and by the guy who says he wants to blow up your computer for downloading music files on the Internet.

To Dr. King, I humbly apologize. Despite your life and your dream, despite the tragic nightmare of your death, I am witness today to a nation in which the extreme-right edge of a single political party is represented in my government. That's not what you would have wanted to see. That's not what any American should ever want to see.

You complain about being branded Gen X, but then go ahead and act just like your whole generation.

"Good enough for me", you say when told one thing about Pickering.

Do you question the information given to you? Do you say "well, now what's his side to the story"? No. "

Good enough for me."

So let me ask you this question. If the "ring leader" in the cross-burning incident got no jail time, should the follower go to jail? Would that be a fair outcome?

Pickering didn't think so. And so now, deceivers like Sen. Schumer say he "defended cross burning".

And you say "good enough for me". That's all it takes for the evil doers to win my friend.

First, I didn't complain about being a Gen-Xer (wouldn't have it any other way, in fact).

Second, I acknowledge the other point of view on Pickering's slap on the wrist for the fellow who ignited the cross. Whether or not he was the "ringleader" doesn't diminish the crime, and shouldn't have lessened the punishment. If the courts didn't have the wherewithal to go after everyone involved, that's a flaw in the system. Nothing that Pickering did, or attempted to do, changed that flaw.

"Good enough for me" was obviously a comment on the depths of Senator Schumer's disgust. If Schumer wants to take offense at Pickering's flypaper sentencing of a open-and-shut offender, I have no problem with that.

I notice you have to run a few laps around the track to defend Pickering. I guess there's no easy way to do such a thing. Keep it up, though. You've got exactly one year to support him, and then he goes down in flames, like he did before.

PH

A few laps around the track to defend Pickering?

That's a bit o' Blarney me friend.

4 sentences. That's what it took to explain Pickering decision to let the man go with no jail time.

Maybe, rather than complaining about being "branded" with an X on your flank (not that you're complaining!), you could look up a bit of Pickering's backround before just taking ol' Chuckie Cheese Schumer's word as gospel.