Posted on 10/08/2005 9:52:18 AM PDT by Allen H
Since I’m sure there are still many conservatives out there who are still upset and whining about Bush not nominating who they wanted, I’m wondering. Do you wish Bush had nominated who you wanted, even if it meant them not being confirmed and Bush being forced to pick a milk toast? I don’t think anyone can argue about the fact that the Republican majority in the Senate haven’t exactly acted with a spine or any kind of united strong conservative voice the four years they’ve been a majority. And it seems the larger their majority gets, the more its spine gets watered down.
This is a reality lesson in life. There are two ways to stand strong to your convictions and beliefs and not waiver. You can go about your life, putting your beliefs into practice, never bending, never breaking, never compromising, and whenever anyone asks what you believe, you tell them, politely, civilly, like how Miers has done it. OR, you can do it another way. You can be all those same things above, and you can also be very vocal, very "in your face", very confrontational, outspoken, and be very well known as to what you believe and stand for, so that if you come up for a position like Supreme Court Justice, it’s known immediately which side of the court you will always come down on. The Scalia / Thomas side, or the Ginsburg / Stevens side. The latter is the kind of person that Michael Luddig, Pricilla Owens, Edith Jones, or David Pryor, who I would sure support. Frankly that’s the kind of person I am, and I was hoping they'd of gotten this nomination. I’m not quite "in your face" with liberals unless confronted, but I also will not sit like a wall flower while people say stupid liberal things in the face of reality. I wouldn’t expect to be nominated for the SCOTUS either. Being that way is not bad in any way, but it is a problem. It’s guaranteeing a nasty, long, drawn out, ugly fight that would not even guarantee ALL the Republicans standing with the President. If Bush thought that the Republican majority in the Senate actually had a spine and would stand up to a fight, I think he would have likely put up someone like Juddig or Jones. I think this pick is an indictment on the complete and total lack of conservative will in the Senate majority. Heck, this woman he did pick stands as a solid conservative nominee with all those who have endorsed her, and not all Republicans are backing her. The bottom line is, Harriet Miers WILL be confirmed, and she much more likely than not, will prove to be a conservative, indications show she will be much like Scalia and Thomas. And if you voted for President Bush both times, like I did, or just one time, then you have to trust that he will keep his promise on Judges, like he has so faithfully kept it to this point. There hasn’t been one single Judge on the district, appellate or federal court level that Bush has nominated that hasn’t been a strong unbending conservative. And this is one fact I STILL can’t get around that frustrates me with those opposing Miers. Miers was pivotal in choosing ALL the Judges that Bush has nominated to all the courts the past five years, all of which have proven to be good solid conservatives that all the conservative voters have liked so much. Yet somehow the person who found, supported, and brought all those good conservative judges to the President, somehow isn’t good enough to be a judge herself when she’s accomplished all the things she’s done in her life? That is simply the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Especially after it’s been proven she said now she was worried that perhaps John Roberts might not be conservative enough. And some conservatives are still not supporting her? ARE YOU FRIKKEN KIDDING ME??? THAT is just simply elitism and nothing else.
I was worried initially, because I desperately wanted an Owens, or Luiddig, or someone just like them, someone that was nose to the wind, finger pointing and shaking to the left, well known vocal hard conservative, BUT, if the person put up instead of them is just like that, with the same conservative ideological beliefs, just isn’t a well known confrontational person who will unite all liberals and democrats and milk-toast weak RHINO Republicans against them, then I will choose the Miers over the Owens or Luddig EVERY TIME, because frankly I have NO FAITH in the Republican Senate majority, and while I am more like the judicial Luddig’s and Jones’s, I’ve still seen nothing that yet shows she’s any less conservative than they are. When she gave money to algore, he was pro-life and hadn’t taken the pink liberal without reason pill yet, and since then she has been nothing but a conservative loyalist on all levels, professionally, personally, and religiously. She voted for Reagan in ‘84, she voted for the first Bush in ‘88. Once she became a registered Republican she stayed Republican and voted and worked and donated that way even when clinton was President, even in ‘91 and ’92 when the democrats controlled both Houses of Congress. Not one person who really knows her has come out against her nomination. Frum is the only one I’ve heard of who has worked with her and doesn’t support her, and that was years ago and it’s not as though Frum doesn’t have his own agenda. None of Bush’s judges has disappointed. They’ve all been proven to be very conservative constructionist judges, and there is no reason to believe Miers will be any different. The arguments is stale and smacks of elitism at this point. I prefer someone who hasn’t been indoctrinated by the snobbery of Yale and Harvard liberalism, and has lived most all of her life in very conservative Texas. Even when Texas was majority Democrat, it was conservative and had nothing in common with the radical New England and left coast liberal bases of operation. Instead of being a judge she’s been actually arguing law from the conservative perspective, not sitting on high on a bench disconnected from reality. What is so wrong with that? She will be confirmed, and more and more, I believe she will prove herself to be a dedicated defender of the Constitution and what it REALLY says, not what stevens and souter and ginsburg wish or think it says. Her votes I believe will consistently fall right with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and John Roberts, and when that time comes, I hope all here who eviscerated her just because she’s not some elitist insider snob, or a speak first think second hothead that would inflame all democrats and RINOs in the Senate, will remember just how vacuous the opposition to her really was, and just how wrong it has proven to be. Given the past 20 years of her life, I can’t see any rational way she will betray all she has proven to stand for the past two decades. And if you voted for and supported W. Bush last year and in 2000, then for Pete’s sake, show just a little faith and trust in the guy and believe that he would have gotten to know this woman the past 10 years he’s had a close relationship with her. Have a little faith. With faith as small as a mustard seed, a mountain can be moved. I choose to have faith and pray that Harriet Miers will be the conservative strict-constructionist Justice that this nation desperately needs right now, and pray that she will have the strength and wisdom to adjudicate in that way, and continue to display and enforce the beliefs and convictions on the bench, that she has so strongly lived in her life.
Thank you. 8)
Over the years, you're one of the people who give me pause if we disagree, mainly because you're always so damn fair......LOL.
And you might have loved it, but I'm catching flack for it; of course, the facts back up that assertion, so I'm not worried!
Because she is a Christian conservative.
And not once, not one little bit, did your post criticize Miers as a person or potentially outstanding jurist. It criticized the stealth, and the message that George Bush is using to defend the pick.
Good post, and in the spirit of the Federalist Society, I hope somebody steps up and rebuts it in a substantive way.
I won't, but that's because I agree with your analysis.
Tactically, I think it would have been better to nominate a known conservative. The reason is that the dems now get to sit back and watch our infighting. I would rather have dems be on the defensive trying to destroy a just nomination than have republicans on both the offense and defense at the same time. No matter how Miers turns out, we have lost something by choosing to avoid the fight.
Every high school has a bully that feeds on others' willingness to get along and try to achieve their ends without a brutal confrontation. If it is utterly impossible to win, the smart man avoids the fight. But if it is possible or even likely to win, only a fool avoids destroying his enemy. Liberals will continue to come back and bite our heels until they are destroyed as an ideology. Admitting their strength and making decisions based on their strength, while appearing to be embarrassed to be a conservative, only lends the enemy credibility.
I don't see how President Bush can ever expect to tow a conservative line again during the remainder of his presidency. He has all but admitted that conservatives will lose any fight they enter. He has ceded the high ground to the dems by choosing to avoid the confrontation.
By the way, it doesn't matter if Miers turns out to be great. Bush has avoided giving a political ass whooping to the dems--a whooping that has been long over due. It would have made more sense to put them on the defensive, spewing their bigoted garbage. Conservatives only win, in the long run, by exposing dems and their vile ugliness while providing a clear picture of a better way to do things. This better way is CONSERVATISM, but to have any power it has to be named. This nomination spares us the dems ugliness, and foisters upon us our own. This is a big PR blunder. Every time the dems have Wellstone memorial incident, we gain in strength. This is another attempt by the president to rehabilitate his enemy, and is pure stupidity.
Yep.
Like the Republican majority backed Bush and the military in allowing them to decide how best to interrogate terrorist captives last week? Yeah that worked well. 2/3rds of the Republicans FOLDED! The Republican Senate Majority has LONG been proven to be spineless and withtheir own agenda that is more secular moderate/conservative compared to the House, which is more firmly Conservative/Christian in the majority of it's votes. If the House decided SC Justices, I think Bush would have put up a Luddig or Jones. But when you have a bunch of jellyfish as your fighters, you do what you can to get the best result possible. I think when some democrats came out saying nice things about her before the nomination, Bush jumped at the chance to put her up knowing the kind of Justice she'd be.
Thank you, your comment means a lot to me.
The problem is not Bush. The problem is the Senate. Arlen Spector (yes, I know Bush helped him in primary) said he would not support a candidate that was filibustered so that leaves out Brown and Owen. I heard his interview with Clement did not go well. My choice would be Luttig too, but can you really expect to get 60 votes with this Senate? The Republicans would not have gone nuclear for Michael Luttig or for Edith Jones. Bush is taking all the heat for the Republicans in the Senate.
What is your evidence?
And so I ask you as I asked others. Name me one Judicial nominee that Bush has put on the court that has adjudicated as ANYTHING BUT a strong conservative strict constructionist Judge. JUST ONE! EVERY JUDGE Bush has put up has been the kind of judge he said he would put up in 1999. And you can't prove otherwise. I with that Border control was tighter and the budget was smaller, but that doesn't mean I'm going to turn on Bush because he isn't doing it the way I would. He's the President, not me, and he has information that you and I do not and never will have. And he KNOWS Harriet Miers. YOU do not.
For starters, try:
The Beltway Boys on Harriet Miers
Kristol: What Is To Be Done? (A bad week for the WH but, in a way, not-so-bad for conservatism)
Why did Bush do it?
HARRIET MIERS WRITES -- YEESH
Dollars to doughnuts, there's every sign that Miers isn't up to task
I don't know how much that tells us. Left-wing pro-abort Moby is also a "born-again" Christian, as is Jimmy Carter. Hillary Clinton fancies herself an Evangelical. I'm not sure that Bush genuinely favors a Constructionist approach to interpretation of the Constitution, and I have come across "Culture of Life" statements in which he has said he opposes the reversal of Roe v. Wade and subsequent illegalization of abortion in some states, as our culture is "not ready" to stop terminating children. I don't know if this is the "born again" approach to the issue. I'm also curious about the fact that Miers and Bush have been attending St. John's Episcopal Church in recent years. Episcopal churches in large cities are not usually the best place for conservative Christians, but would fit better with Bush's support of Embryonic Stem Cell research. Maybe liberal religion is the source of his change of heart on gay civil marriage?
And when the GOP advanced Bob Dole.
Milqtoast conservatism is NOT a winning political strategy.
I blame the GOP, not the voters.
Where exactly is what I said whiney? I said WHAT IS, very matter of factly, and if someone doesn't like it, that's their problem. Give me an example of something I said that is inaccurate, or is it just that you disagree and think you could have picked a better person than Bush? It's easy to coach a game from a recliner while you watch it from a big color TV in a/c comfort.
Given that yuseguys need to work real hard to elect more truly conservative Senators in order to solve the
real current problem, I'm concerned that you are expending your valuable {if not finite} energy flailing away at the straw man.
It seems that there are two central camps:
1. Those who see this as the best chance to engage the enemy head on, draw copious quantities of blood and leave the enemy utterly vanquished. Or, willingly die on the battlefield content that they've sacrificed themselves for a noble cause.
2. Those who see the war as a war and are not yet ready to define it in the terms of a single, bloody battle; regardless of the momentary satisfaction of bloodlust it may bring.
The scope and extent of the arguments of generals rarely are shared with battalion commanders, platoon leaders, sergeants and corporals. Yet, when the generals decide, the rest of them must go forward. Front line grunts may disagree with the choice made, but forward they go.
Active debate between the blood spillers and the decision makers is a healthy thing, in the main. However, there is always a small, quite vocal at times, minority - both generals and corporals - for whom the immediate battle both defines the war and determines its outcome; usually due to the inability to shift from the narrow focus of the task at hand to the overall stratgey required to triumph in the end; for a variety of reasons not all of which either are explainable nor are logically evident.
The logical conclusion in this instance seems to be to maintain the ability to constructively and realistically criticize the process by which this decision was made. However, any specific, personal criticisms of the nominee's abilities, capabilities and probable future performance cannot logically be done until more insight is gained; which will only occur during the hearing process. Only then, will it be possible to render a cogent, logical decision; unless of course, one is in the habit of making such decisions from a foundation of emotion rather than logic.
Here's another interesting variable to throw into the argument. I wonder how many of the senators who may vote "No" on this nominee, yet who voted "Yes" for Ginsburg (and also, those senators' supporters who continue to vote for them in election after election and are FR posters) - knowing that they fundamentally disagreed with her ideology, her beliefs and her general world-view - will be able to logically justify that "No" vote if this nominee's positions more closely mirror theirs.
No, the problem is Bush.
While I could spend weeks excoriating the pathetic excuse for a "deliberative" body known as the United States Senate-which takes the idea of defining mediocrity down seriously-the fault lies at the feet of President Bush.
As the adage goes, "the buck stops here."
Bush has created a disturbing precedent in choosing Roberts and Miers. He has sent the unmistakable message that known conservatives need not apply. Some will say, "...but look at his appellate appointments." Sure, he made excellent appellate appointments, but he left them to twist in the wind in his first term. He won re-election (thanks to Jerome Corsi and John O'Neill) otherwise the appointments he abandoned in his first term never would've made it this time around. I'm sure the stealthy nature of his SC nominations are not lost on his appellate appointments, either.
The backlash to this appointment is about the fact that Bush has done nothing to earn the faith that you give him freely.
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