All these histrionics over President Obama’s Cabinet selections – John Brennan at CIA, Chuck Hagel at Defense and John Kerry at State – got me thinking about something.

If congressional Republicans are so up in arms over these guys, wait’ll an opening comes up on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court right now has a narrow conservative majority. There are four reliably liberal justices: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer. The court has four equally reliable conservatives: Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and the chief, John Roberts. Then you have Anthony Kennedy, a so-called “swing justice” who tilts mostly to the conservative side.

Sotomayor and Kagan are Obama selections, so they won’t go anywhere. Of the liberals on the court, Ginsberg seems the most likely to depart, given her frail health. Were she to go, Obama would pick another liberal to replace her. The battle would be stout, but not as ferocious as it could get.

I keep thinking about what might happen if one of the right-leaning justices were to leave the court. It’s a decent bet that none of them would leave with a Democrat in the White House, just as left-leaning justices would wait were there a Republican serving as president.

Still, I keep envisioning the apoplexy that would engulf conservatives if, by the strangest circumstance imaginable, one of their political brethren would leave the Supreme Court before Barack Obama leaves the presidency in January 2017.

The world would spin off its axis. The planet would be pummeled by meteors. The sun would rise in the west. Martians would hijack the Rover rolling across their planet and fly it back to Earth.

Any confirmation hearings involving a Democratic president replacing a Republican-appointed Supreme Court justice would make the Kerry-Hagel-Brennan hearings in the Senate look like a Tupperware party.

If only …

You have to say this about the College of Cardinals that elected the newest pope: They know how to play to the strength of their church.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio is now Pope Francis I, chosen in the most secretive balloting process anywhere on Planet Earth. This pick is intriguing in at least one important sense: Pope Francis comes from a part of the world where the church is ascending, not plummeting. Francis is the first Jesuit pope and the first from a continent other than Europe.

He is the son of Italian immigrants who moved to Argentina, where young Jorge was born. Indeed, the church is growing throughout Latin America, unlike in Europe, where church numbers have been falling precipitously for decades.

The 266th pontiff is known as a man of extraordinary humility who rode the bus to work in the Vatican and who routinely visited slums to comfort the afflicted. I don’t think he’ll be riding the bus or touring shanty towns very often in his new role as head of one of the world’s pre-eminent Christian denominations.

The 115 men who chose the pope, though, know the political landscape to be sure. Even though the previous two popes were non-Italians – from Poland and Germany – they represented a region of the world where the church is in decline. By reaching across the ocean to the southern reaches of Latin America, the cardinals have picked a man who symbolizes the strength of the worldwide flock he now will lead.

I am not a Catholic. Thus, I don’t have a direct stake in this monumental decision. I cannot comment intelligently on church theology or where I think it should go under Francis’s leadership.

However, I can – and do – applaud the apparent political wisdom shown in the decision rendered by the College of Cardinals.

The wait is over. George Prescott Bush – grandson of a president, nephew of another and son of a former Florida governor – is running for Texas land commissioner.

Just when you thought you’d seen the last Bush seeking political glory in the Lone Star State, along comes George P.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/other-races/287703-george-p-bush-running-for-statewide-office-in-texas

I do not intend to denigrate the young lawyer, who now calls Fort Worth home. I don’t know much about him, other than Republicans all across the state – I’m assuming – are glad to have him in the political family.

The land commissioner’s office is an important one in Texas. The office administers the state’s veterans home loan program and watches over the state’s public lands, although there’s not much public land in Texas, compared to say many other states farther west.

The current land commissioner, Jerry Patterson, has his eyes on another office, lieutenant governor. But as is the case in every Texas election year, 2014 will shake out only after all the state’s constitutional officeholders decide what they intend to do. If the current lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst, runs for re-election, that could pit Patterson against a fellow Republican powerhouse. But what if Patterson decides he seek re-election? That means George P. has to challenge a fearless incumbent and it exposes him to losing his first-ever race for elected public office.

George P. is seen as an attractive Republican. He speaks Spanish fluently, which helps in a state with such a huge Spanish-speaking population. It doesn’t hurt that he’s “telegenic.” Nor does it hurt – at least in Texas – that he has last name of Bush, which might be the kiss of death almost anywhere else in America, given Uncle George W.’s record as president.

But if the young Bush has his eyes, also, on even higher political office, he’ll have to settle with boning up on issues pertinent to the General Land Office. I wish George P. Bush good luck as he tries to stay focused. Texas land commissioner might not be a glamorous job, but it’s a big deal to veterans needing a home loan.

The Transportation Safety Administration has come up with one of the goofiest ideas yet in this post-9/11 era of commercial air travel.

It says it plans to allow airplane passengers to pack blades when they fly.

And to no one’s surprise, flight attendants and pilots – pardon the pun – are up in the air about it. They think it’s a nutty idea; they believe it invites tragedy; they’re going to lobby TSA vigorously to take back this cockamamie proposal.

Maybe it should be no shock at all, given TSA’s occasionally awkward enforcement of rules designed to make air travel safer. It has allowed their air terminal agents to frisk old women and babies while looking for bombs, although one can argue that dedicated terrorists think nothing of planting bombs on the very young and very old.

Whatever. TSA brass seems to have forgotten that the 9/11 madmen walked aboard those commercial jetliners nearly a dozen years ago armed with box cutters, which they used to cut the throats of flight crew members before flying the aircraft into buildings – and ushering the United States into a new era of international warfare.

I cannot think of a crazier idea than this, short of letting passengers pack firearms or allowing them to engage in in-flight cellphone conversations on trans-oceanic trips.

I’m with the flight crew members on this one. They have a difficult enough job as it is. Why make it potentially impossible when passengers are armed with weapons?

Crazy …

California businessmen and women are coming to Texas to set up shop, apparently knowing all along that the Lone Star State is among the more business-friendly states in the Union.

And that is why Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s recent foray into California to recruit openly for business owners to relocate to Texas seems so gratuitous and, frankly, rather foolish.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/11/polling-center-californias-conservative-migration/

Perry made the showy trip to California, where he chided that state over its difficult economic circumstance. California Gov. Jerry Brown called Perry’s visit “barely a fart.” Perry laughed off the snarky rejoinder.

The evidence, though, is quite clear that Texas is a good place to do business. We have no personal income tax. Our regulatory hurdles are less cumbersome than many other states.

Are we the perfect place to relocate? Hardly. Look at the school financing picture. The courts keep ruling our property tax-heavy public school funding system as being unconstitutional, and the Legislature hasn’t helped matters by cutting so deeply into public education funds to help balance the state budget. That’s hardly a magnet to attract young families with children to educate.

But as the Texas Tribune reports, Texas’s relatively good economic health has helped it attract new residents at a blistering pace, while other states have seen their population stagnate.

It makes me wonder aloud once again: Why did Perry feel the need to prance and preen so publicly when the state is selling itself?

Whenever I write something about term limits, some of my Texas Panhandle friends almost always bring up U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry’s name and accuse of him of hypocrisy on the subject.

Here’s what I wrote recently on the subject of term limits:

http://www.johnkanelis.com/2013/03/term-limits-move-stirring-to-life.html

Now, let me try to set straight what I understand to be the record about Thornberry’s position on term limits.

The Clarendon Republican won his seat in the House of Representatives in 1994 after campaigning under the Contract With America banner, which included a provision to limit the terms of House members and senators. Thornberry supported all the terms of the Contract With America.

What his critics keep saying is that he has gone back on his word to limit the amount of time he would serve.

I will stipulate that I was not working in Amarillo during the 1994 congressional campaign; I took up my newspaper post in the Panhandle in January 1995, the very week that Thornberry began his congressional career. But I am fully aware of what he said during that tumultuous campaign.

He did not say he would impose term limits on himself, but would support – with his vote – any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to limit congressional terms whenever they came up. He has done so every time the issue has gone before the House. The proposed amendment, however, always has failed to garner the two-thirds majority it needs to refer it to the states for ratification.

Perhaps the now-veteran congressman was too cute with his promises back in 1994. Still, he never promised to serve, say, three terms and then walk away. He has decided to run for re-election many times since winning his seat nearly two decades ago. Thus, I’ll give him credit at least for refusing to box himself into a corner and then try to wiggle his way out of it by reneging on a promise he refused to keep – such as what happened with former Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., who did promise to serve for three terms after defeating Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley, only to take it all back, infuriating term-limits advocates in the process.

Term limits eventually may become the law of the land. I remain dubious of mandating such limits, given that voters deserve to make that decision without the law forcing it upon them. As for Mac Thornberry, he’s done a decent job representing most of his constituents’ views on many relevant matters, such as taxation, government spending and on some key social issues.

I suppose if the term limits idea comes to a vote in the House, Thornberry will say “yes” to it while maybe secretly hoping it fails yet again.

Seems as though the U.S. Postal Service is not immune to the kind of griping that occurs among the working folks’ ranks at most companies.

I was talking the other day to a letter carrier about the impending end to Saturday mail delivery. He doesn’t like the idea one little bit. The mailman told me the USPS is too top-heavy with executives who sit around and “do nothing” to collect their high-dollar salaries. The service needs to skim a few of those empty suits off the top of the chain of command before deciding when, where and how to cut the money it says it needs to save, according to the letter carrier.

Then he launched into the end of Saturday mail delivery.

“I’ve been delivering mail for 34 years and I’ll tell you it’s the worst thing they could do,” he said. My mail-delivery acquaintance told me “they think they’re going to save $2 billion a year by ending Saturday delivery, but they’re going to lose $5 billion a year in contracts they won’t be able to keep.” He explained that companies pay big money to ensure their mail gets delivered on certain days. Saturday, he suggested, is one of those days. I didn’t think to ask him which companies shell out that kind of money.

For me, the end of Saturday mail delivery isn’t that big a loss. And I surely would hate to see the Postal Service go under for keeps because it cannot save enough money to stay afloat.

The villain? It’s the Internet, which has greatly reduced people’s mail volume. Fewer of us write actual letters these days, or pay our bills using “snail mail.”

Time will tell if a veteran mail carrier has it right or if the “do-nothing” brass at the top end actually knows what it’s doing.

The issue of term limits is returning to the public policy arena in the Texas Legislature.

I’ve long opposed mandated term limits, believing that we already have them. We call ‘em elections, correct?

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/08/conservatives-revive-proposal-term-limits/

But not to be dissuaded from limiting the terms of officeholders, conservatives want the issue put to a vote, maybe this year in the form of an amendment to the Texas Constitution. As the story linked to this blog notes, opponents of term limits are posing an interesting argument: Term limits don’t always guarantee fresh voices and faces in Texas government.

Gov. Rick Perry served as agriculture commissioner and lieutenant governor before becoming governor. When was that? Seems like he’s been in office forever. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst was land commissioner before moving into his current office. Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson served in the state Senate preceding his current gig. Comptroller Susan Combs was agriculture commissioner. Attorney General Greg Abbott was a member of the state Supreme Court.

The point is that if we limit the terms someone can serve in an office, all he or she can do is run for another office – and probably win. Do we get new ideas? No. We get old ideas in new offices.

Legislators are about as likely to limit their own terms as members of Congress would limit theirs. Some lawmakers say they favor term limits and actually have voted for them. But to amend either the U.S. or Texas Constitution, we need a two-thirds majority of legislators to sign on. Capitol Hill hasn’t done it and I’m not sure it’ll happen in Austin, either – for precisely the same reason: Lawmakers like staying in office and are unlikely to cut their own political throats.

But a larger point is whether we should mandate a turnover if a majority of voters like the job their officeholders are doing. We demand state representatives to run for re-election every two years. Some of them – such as former state GOP Rep. Jim Landtroop of Plainview in 2012 – actually lose their re-election bid. Most of them win, but that’s the voters’ call.

Do we need mandatory term limits? No. We need an electorate that is prepared to make change on its own.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla., got his hackles up this morning when “Meet the Press” host David Gregory asked him about his possible – or perhaps probable – run for the presidency in 2016.
“Man, you guys are crack addicts,” Bush responded.
http://thehill.com/video/campaign/287211-jeb-bush-calls-media-crack-addicts-over-2016-presidential-race-speculation-
He said the press has an “obsession” with his future political plans.
My own reaction is, well, yeah governor. What is your point? The media pay reporters and commentators to speculate on these things and everyone with half an interest in politics in this country knows that Jeb Bush is entertaining the idea of seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. It’s in his genes. Jeb knows it. So does his father, the 41st president, as does his brother, the 43rd president. Even the ex-Florida governor’s son, George P. Bush, is likely to jump into Texas politics next year as he makes a run for a still-undisclosed statewide office.
Bush should know better than anyone that the only way to dispel this kind of discussion is to declare categorically he won’t run – ever – for president. Jeb won’t take that leap because, well, maybe he, too, is a “crack addict” who cannot wean himself of the political limelight.
Absent that kind of denial, the media would be derelict in their duty if they didn’t ask him the obvious questions about his political future.

President Obama recently broke bread with several Republican U.S. senators in an effort, the White House says, to bridge the great divide that separates the Democratic head of state from the loyal opposition.

Was it for real or just for show?

U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says it’s the real deal.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/09/obama-outreach-to-diffuse-gop-opposition-pelosi-says/

Then again, you’d expect the California Democrat to say such a thing. But the more interesting reaction actually has come from congressional Republicans who are expressing a similar view, that they also think the president is being sincere in his outreach.

I noted in a recent blog post some of the criticism that Obama has earned for being too aloof and acting as if he’s above the fray. One of my better friends in Amarillo, a high-powered educator and dedicated Democrat, said Obama needs a little infusion of Lyndon Johnson’s knack for cajoling the other side into seeing things his way.

He took the GOP senators to dinner at a swanky D.C. restaurant, then met the following day with House Republican leaders for lunch. And all those who attended said some kind things about the president.

Now, it remains to be seen how all this nice-making will translate into actual legislation and action that moves the country forward. The two sides have to reach some kind of budget deficit-reduction deal that forestalls future automatic cuts that already have kicked in. Economists across the board say the massive cuts and government workforce layoffs could send the country into a new recession.

Does anyone, even those who detest the president, really want that? I don’t think so.

Keep talking – and eating – together, ladies and gentlemen.