That was then, this is now. That was now proven Thomas, this is now unproven Miers.
"...I can see this strife, if it continues, as having a MAJOR negative impact on the national conservative movement if people don't tone the rhetoric down."
Any major negative impact that may ensue is more properly laid at the door of Bush, Rove and the White House. They have done a miserable job of preparing the conservative base for this and an equally lousy job of defending and/or selling this pick. Don't blame the conservative base for being concerned and asking questions. "Trust me" isn't going to get the job done.
"What worries me is that so many conservatives have so easily become so vocal and against a Republican President, with a total lack of real hard evidence to substantiate that strong vocal opposition."
If you really believe this statement, you're no conservative. Actually, the base has been pretty patient with past missteps by Bush. Not this time--it's too important.
"And so far, there is still a total lack of facts to substantiate this divisive conservative split where so many have come out against Miers..."
The burden of providing facts to support his nominee is on Bush, not the conservative base.
"So it is not logical that Miers, a person he actually knows personally for many years, will be a dud that will betray the conservative ideal...but until I have some evidence that it may happen with Miers, something tangible, something I can see and prove, I just don’t think it’s at all prudent to break from faith with Bush"
More "trust me". Not good enough. The issue is too important.
"I wonder how many of them were just one year ago demanding that democrats fold and give Bush the right to nominate for the judiciary who he wanted, that there were consequences to a President being elected and re-elected, so on and so forth...And now, some or many of those same people are saying that Bush doesn't have the right to nominate who he wants because some of the base doesn't like her."
This is very thin soup and a non-argument. The base neither "likes" nor "dislikes" her. Again, it is up to the President to provide sufficient information to sell this nominee to the base. So far, he hasn't done so.
"...I don’t know Miers, W. Bush does, and he hasn’t failed in putting up firm hard conservative strict constructionist judges. That cannot be ignored or brushed aside in this argument.
A good point, helpful but not determinative of the issue. But I'm not sure we can say those lower court judicial appointments were all "strict constructionist judges", although most of them were good appointments. This, however, is the SCOTUS we're talking about. The bar is, therefore, set much higher.
"Why couldn’t Bush just have nominated Precilla Owens or Edith Jones."
Same question we're all asking.
Don't you see the problem with that? It may have been then, but back then, conservatives didn't feed on their own if they didn't get just what they wanted when they wanted, and they didn't fly off the handle on emotional tirades, set to burn someone to the ground without a basis in fact. If that is what the conservative movement is like now, and you think that's okay and reasonable, then the conservatives need to be a minority again and start from scratch, because how some conservatives have handled this Miers nomination, setting out to destroy someone without a basis in fact to back up their actions, is everything that's wrong with politics, and is NOT what conservative ideology stands for. This rash emotional witch hunt without factual information to back it up is ridiculous, and there's no excuse for it.
Any major negative impact that may ensue is more properly laid at the door of Bush, Rove and the White House. They have done a miserable job of preparing the conservative base for this and an equally lousy job of defending and/or selling this pick. Don't blame the conservative base for being concerned and asking questions. "Trust me" isn't going to get the job done.
The mistake Bush has made is actually thinking that the 55 million people that voted for him last November would actually trust his judgment on someone he's known for over a decade that has picked all those great Judges conservatives love so much. And if "trust me" isn't going to work this time. Why? When it comes to judges, what example of a betrayal of that trust does any conservative have to stand on their opposition to Miers on? I've asked this many times in this thread and no one ever had a response. Name me one judge that Bush has put up that has NOT been a firm conservative constructionist judge? Just one. If you can't do that, then there is NO reason NOT to trust Bush on this nomination. Reagan didn't know kennedy or o'conner. Bush 41 didn't know suiter. Two of those three were made Justices because the first choices, well known conservatives with paper trails failed in the Senate, and the Senate isn't much more friendly to a hard conservative with a paper trail now than 20 years ago. Bush has not failed even just one time in five years to put up conservative judges, and that makes this total lack of trust in him on Miers nomination, totally unfounded.
If you really believe this statement, you're no conservative. Actually, the base has been pretty patient with past missteps by Bush. Not this time--it's too important.
Oh, so because I want facts and want to hear from Miers her philosophy to substantiate burning someone to the ground, I'm not a real conservative. THAT is a stupid statement. It's because this IS so important that people should have ALL the facts before they go off half cocked saying stupid things which have no basis in fact, which only inflame and hurt the situation on the whole. You don't need to tell me how important it is. I've been personally effected by TWO of the supreme court rulings the past year, two rulings that hit me on a very real personal level. NO CONSERVATIVE behaved this way during the Thomas nomination, and that clearly demonstrates a more mature conservative presence in the movement. I wish there was more of that patient, mature, forward thinking, rationality.
Further more, I have yet to find someone here that is as socially and ideologically conservative as I am, and have been since I was several years too young to vote! If being a "real conservative" means treating other conservatives the same as liberals because they want to be patient and get more information, yelling and screaming like a banshee without having facts to back up the complaints, and being so disrespectful like some in the "torch Miers" camp have been here in this thread, then you're right, I'm not a conservative. I refuse to join that kind of irrational emotional speculation driven not fact driven hysteria. THAT is NOT social and ideological conservatism. I challenge you to go read ALL my posts in ALL threads before the Miers nomination, there are more than a few, and then come back here and accuse me of not being a real conservative. Compared to Laz and H20, I haven't said anything here that would lead someone to think I'm not a real conservative.
The burden of providing facts to support his nominee is on Bush, not the conservative base.
And because there haven't been any real hard facts put out on Miers yet, that is the VERY reason that all this emotional frothing wanting to burn Miers to the ground for who she isn't, not who she is, is TOTALLY outrageous, and frankly, inexcusable. You just said yourself facts haven't been put out yet. That proves right there, this emotional loud torching of Miers and Bush, and for that matter those of us not rushing to judgment, is premature, with a total lack of patience and maturity. What I have seen in most of the people against Miers to this point, is a bunch of people given to give in to emotional impulse and a sense of self-importance because they haven't gotten who they wanted, as though Bush doesn't have the right to pick who he wants, especially since it's someone he knows and has known for many years, and of the over 300+ judges he has appointed, ALL of them have been conservative constructionists.
More "trust me". Not good enough. The issue is too important.
Already went into that. Because it's so important, the need for mature patience and prayer and faith is more important and more desperately needed, than the rash giving in to emotion and the desire for "WHAT I WANT AND HOW I WANT IT NOW! OR ELSE!!!" And THAT is what the vicious anti-Miers crowd has sounded like the past week. Can you not see and understand that? There isn't much difference in some of the people who want to cut Miers off at the knees before knowing about her, from the radical cooks at moveon.org that always had the camera when protesting the war. That's been what's made me so sick over this whole thing. I never thought it would be possible for conservatives to sound so much like rabid frothing irrational liberals. That's been the single most disappointing thing in all this to me. I hope as months go by, I can forget what I've seen in the behavior of so many conservatives about this. It's really disappointing and destroys the belief I had that conservatives were on a higher level of respect and maturity and rational thinking than liberals. The anti-Miers hysteria sure hasn't demonstrated that belief I have held for the past 18 years of my adult life.
This is very thin soup and a non-argument. The base neither "likes" nor "dislikes" her. Again, it is up to the President to provide sufficient information to sell this nominee to the base. So far, he hasn't done so.
Oh bologna! The anti-Miers rhetoric has been almost nothing but how she's weak, she was a democrat eons ago (leaving out the "conservative lifetime Texas" part), how she's a crony, how she gave money to algore (leaving out the "he was pro-life at the time" part), how she's a light weight, when her career accomplishments prove otherwise. How she has no paper trail, when she has 30 years of well documented professional acts, on and on and on. The whole anti-Miers argument has been totally supposition. It's been half who she isn't, being Owens, Jones, Luddig, etc, when there's no factual evidence she's NOT, and half who she is, being a crony, not experienced, not this, not that, which there is also no evidence to back up, forgetting the fact that she picked all the hard conservative Judges for Bush to nominate the past five years. There is so much more reason to believe she will be a conservative constructionist Justice than there is reason to believe she will not be that. But to listen to those who want to burn Miers to the ground, and Bush with her, you'd think Miers was a card carrying member of the aclu, supported abortion in the 80s, had homosexuals in her lifestyle, made money from an imminent domain case, and had argued for higher taxes, and a smaller military. And NONE of that is true. But that's the tone of the rhetoric against her by many conservatives that don't want her to be a Justice, and it's ridiculous and gets more shrill and supposition driven as the days go by.
A good point, helpful but not determinative of the issue. But I'm not sure we can say those lower court judicial appointments were all "strict constructionist judges", although most of them were good appointments. This, however, is the SCOTUS we're talking about. The bar is, therefore, set much higher.
Well you're the first person I've seen suggest that not all Bush's judges were conservative constructionists. Can you provide names of ones that weren't? If it were true, would not the rabid kristol anti-Miers gang be chanting those names hourly? Further, that above is not just a "good point", it is THE POINT! Bush has kept that promise to the American people, above and beyond even that which he promised and did on tax cuts, restoring the military, medicare reform, faith based initiatives, fighting terrorism and protecting the country, or any other conservative issue that he promised and then did. Bush has bat 1000 on Judges the past five years, and there is NO reason to doubt him. It is even more encouraging because he KNOWS Miers personally and has for over ten years, has spent nearly every day talking to her for a whole decade! That's far better than Reagan or Bush 41 did with kennedy, o'conner or suiter, and there wasn't all this attacking of Reagan or Bush over them, and there were more question marks with them than with Miers. I mean, conservatives have been saying for over six years, Bush is smarter than libs give him credit for. Now the conservatives against Miers are acting like he's too stupid to be able to read a person in ten years. After seeing him as President for five years, and living in Texas his whole time as Governor, agreeing with most of what he's done, and disagreeing with some, I see no reason to throw patience and rationality to the wind, and turn on him in an area that he's been above and beyond the most conservative of any President in Republican history. Judges.
Same question we're all asking.
The difference is, myself and those like me are asking those same questions, and then praying and waiting to get some facts on the matter, NOT flying off the handle, lighting the torches, and putting together a figurative Spanish Inquisition to burn Miers and Bush out of fear for what might happen, without any facts to support that emotional position, giving fuel to liberals for the next set of elections. I question, but sit and think and wait for facts before acting. Apparently, to those against Miers, all that's needed is displeasure at who Miers isn't, and fact vacant fear about what may or may not happen, and with all that, it's enough to split the conservative movement and feed on their own. Very sad, and NOT what conservative values and ideals stand for. I don't know how you can't see that it is possible to disagree with respect and patience and that you can disagree and be concerned without creating a loud ugly split. You wait until there are facts that prove a supposition to get loud and ugly. And at this point, no facts of that kind have come to light. If all the conservatives against Miers were reacting like Limbaugh, this would be a MUCH more respectful and intelligent and mature discussion, and wouldn't be this split that the kristols and ingrams have turned it into. That kind of rash emotional lashing out doesn't help anything, except give the liberals some great political ads for next November.