I Saw A Brown Person In Maryland Once

OK, so everyone's got their knickers in a twist over the nomination of Harriet Miers to be White House Chef...er...Supreme Court Chef...no, wait a minute...Justice. Supreme Court Justice. Yeah. Well, as we wrote yesterday, so what? Let's talk about someone who makes Ms. Miers look like Oliver Wendell Holmes, who makes Michael Brown look like Rudy Giuliani, who makes Don Rumsfeld look like George Patton, who makes Condoleeza Rice look like Martha Stewart...oops, forget that last one.

President Bush has nominated Ellen Sauerbrey, who twice lost bids for Maryland governor, to be assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration. "I think she is uniquely qualified for the job," Bush said. "After all, Maryland is a state with a small population, almost no refugees and hardly ever any migration. Works for me."

"I don't think we see the requisite experience that we've seen in other nominees" for the job, said Senator Barbara Boxer. "And by 'requisite experience' I mean the ability to find their way home without looking at the address on their driver's license. Heck even Brown could do that. Well, if you gave him a couple of do overs."

In the wake of ousted disaster relief chief Michael Brown, Democrats especially have complained that some of Bush's nominations carry the whiff of cronyism because they lack experience in the jobs for which they are nominated. "Whiff?" said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. "Is that all? Well, nobody ever said the Democrats had a good sense of smell. After all, Bush has been pulling these nominations out of his a...well, let's just say it's a very select pool of candidates and leave it at that."

Despite the criticism, Sauerbrey is expected to win Senate confirmation. When asked why she thought Sauerbrey would win confirmation even if she didn't appear to have the qualifications, Senator Boxer replied that if qualifications were the primary criteria for government work, "We'd all be saying 'Hello, welcome to Walmart.'"