Okay, what do Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) and William of Ockham have in common?
You know, William of Ockham … As in Ockham’s Razor? ⦠What? You don’t know what Ockham’s Razor is?!?! Geeeeezz!!! Okay, okay, don’t worry, Talking Points will hook you up.
William of Ockham was a fourteenth century scholastic philosopher most remembered as the originator of what came to be known as Ockham’s Razor. The Razor is a logical principle which states that “plurality should not be posited without necessity.”
And what the hell does that mean? Basically it means that when a question needs answering the simplest explanation which covers all the data is the preferable one. Albert Einstein had a more aphoristic way of stating this principle when talking about scientific hypotheses. “Everything should be as simple as possible,” he said, “but not simpler.” (Smart guy that Einstein!)
Anyway Talking Points thinks Ockham’s Razor rocks and he uses it all the time to find clarity through the muck of political obfuscation. Ockham’s Razor helped Galileo demonstrate that his simple heliocentric model of the solar system was better than the weird-ass Ptolemaic system which the Middle Ages had inherited form Antiquity. And today you yourself can use Ockham’s Razor to show that Evan Bayh is voting against John Ashcroft and Russ Feingold may vote for him because Evan Bayh wants to run for president and Russ Feingold doesn’t. (Get that last one?)
Now you are probably asking yourself: where the hell is Talking Points going with this William of Ockham crap?
Bear with me!
Let’s go back to our original question. What do Senator Zell Miller and William of Ockham have in common?
Answer? Not a damn thing. Because even with the clarifying magic of Ockham’s Razor there’s nothing that can explain why the new Georgia Senator is practically falling over himself to carry water for George W. Bush.
Last week Miller was the first Senate Democrat to officially announce he’d be voting to confirm John Ashcroft. That at least was understandable on political grounds. In a state like Georgia you get points for standing up to liberal, Washington-based interest groups. But yesterday Miller announced he was cosponsoring George W.’s megalithic tax cut with Phil Gramm.
Even a lot of Republicans are telling Bush that that just ain’t gonna happen. Most people didn’t even think Miller wanted to run for another term in the Senate. But if he does, he won’t be up again till 2004. Bush’s tax cut isn’t even all that popular in Georgia. So it’s hard to figure why Miller needs to back it to cover his right flank. And certainly he doesn’t need to cosponsor it.
So why is he doing it?
That’s what I mean: no one knows! Talking Points checked with some conservative Southern Dems today and some other folks from Georgia and even they can’t figure out what Miller’s up to. He couldn’t find anyone to defend Miller’s course. And it’s not even like Miller was all that conservative during his two terms as governor of Georgia. By Southern standards he was pretty progressive.
The only thing Talking Points could come up with was this: When Miller was appointed to serve out the term of the late Paul Coverdell, a Republican, he kept on some of Coverdell’s staff. (Miller and Coverdell were actually close friends.) In particular, he kept on Coverdell’s Senior Policy Advisor, Alex Albert. In December, after Miller had won election in his own right, he appointed Albert his Chief of Staff. Coverdell was very tight with Phil Gramm and pretty much all the rest of more partisan Republicans.
Maybe Albert’s just got Miller’s ear. But it’s hard to Zell.
