Duh.
Posted on 01/30/2007 6:53:15 AM PST by shrinkermd
The lefties were praising her. To high heaven. That should have been everyone's first clue. She was a halfbaked pro-abortion feminist with no discernible philosophy much less a strict constructionist. She was shot down by conservatives because she promised to out-do Sandra Day O'Connor in being a go-along-to-get-along scatterbrain--raw meat for the Ginsberg/Breyer/Souter cabal to subvert.
I have to say, that's one of the finest posts I've ever read on this forum. I haven't seen better analysis from any other source.
I didn't express any feelings about you. I critiqued your comment. Ann Coulter is not the subject of the thread but since you brought her up--in addition to being an astute observor, she is an attorney and former Law Clerk for a Supreme Court Justice. I think that gives her some credibility in evaluating potential court nominees, besides her well-grounded conservativism.</p>
Duh.
Thank you you are very very kind to say so and I genuinely appreciate it especially after having been accused of publishing "bilge."
That fact got lost in all the accusations.
Looking at this thread, this particular nominee who never received a hearing, was enough to sour them against Bush! (as admitted by two posters)
What is even more disturbing, is that the majority of this forum is waiting with baited breath for the media to announce a front runner Republican candidate so that they can go on the attack. LOL!
Might as well write this turkey off fellas......We ain't goin anywhere soon. We are "Meired" in the political muck called hubris.
Harriet Miers did get judged harshly. However, if you looked at the scant record of David Souter prior to his appointment, you would think he was a conservative, so I can well understand conservatives being skittish about Miers.
Also, Senate hearings of SCOTUS nominees tend to be short on information. Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sandra Day O'Connor, and others repeatedly said, "I can't answer that -- it would be a violation of ethics." William Brennan went even further -- he kissed Joe McCarthy's butt when he didn't have to.
So no, the time to present your views on constitutional issues is before the nomination is made, not after.
So who does that? In practice it is the MSM, pundits left and right and various special interests.
They in all their wisdom do not use reason. For the last 200 years we have believed rational inquiry leads to truth. Presently, postmodernism has infected the body politic such that we engage the social beliefs the person has rather than the reasonableness of their nomination, opinions of the nominee or the nominee's ability to be fair.
Presently, SCOTUS, I repeat, is nothing but a supra parliament and to claim great experience in Constitutional law was necessary in Miers case was ill advised and wrong. It is true that virtually every SCOTUS Justice since 1851 has been a lawyer but until very recently people not in the practice of law or on the bench were routinely accorded nomination and approval.
All the big, necessary political battles center on who gets to nominate SCOTUS and, then, if they can win Senate political approval.
Once accomplished we are all then to obey a judicial oligarchy who have lifetime appointments and no way to remove short of impeachment. The only thing we will know for sure is they are vetted for being "elites" and possessing a disposition favorable to one political view or another.
Bush won with the help of CONSERVATIVES. When it came to Supreme Court appointments, it was PAYDAY for CONSERVATIVES.
We wanted the real thing, not 'conservative lite'.
Aside from what is and what is not a conservative, how are you so sure selecting a person on political views affirms the Constitution? Are you not saying this is a supra parliament and we have appointed a partisan for our point of view? Surely, not something described in the constitution.
President Bush submitted H. Miers name after knowing her for decades and understanding her philosophy of life and proven capacity to serve in an understated manner. Just what the Court needed IMHO--a person not prideful of making arguments before the Court or having spent a lifetime working up to become a SCOTUS justice. Miers was quite possibly a person who could better represent everyday Americans than those grasping for a chance to be a judicial oligarch and master of all laws and customs.
The Miers nomination was a mistake on Bush's part.
The mistake was corrected.
I love a happy ending.
You can't really logically compare her with Souter. Souter had a track record. It was that record that prompted his peers to recommend him to the president at the time, and the president went with the recommendations.
Once Souter was Washingtonized, as I call it, his natural tendencies and personality came to overcome his so called conservatism.
Miers is a totally different personality. She would not have become a singular force on the court. She is a team player, and a dedicated one. One of the best.
The intent was to get her on the court where she would have teamed up with Scalia, Thomas and with her mentor Roberts, and they would have been consistent in their opposition to the liberal mindset of European thinking that has infected SCOTUS.
The choice of Alito, without the benefits of a team player, has added a variable to the court that will not be consistent.
Alito has conservative views, but does not play well with others, and will, in time, become a singularity as he opposes Thomas and Scalia for nitpicky personal reasons, and this will make consensus difficult for Roberts. Miers was to be the person that would negate what I call the "I" syndrome, and make Scotus more of a "We" platform for some serious legal challenges that are coming down the road and soon.
All this is lost now. The next pick will replace a centrist with a centrist and no further changes are possible or likely to happen.
Miers, would have been the better pick in the long run. I would not be surprised, if Bush put her back up. This is too important to set aside, and I believe he may try it again, knowing that the results would likely be the same. Bush does not give in to party BS, and he stays focused of the prize. This is why we have a Hispanic heading the party at this time, in order to get Bush's immigration measures through congress and the reticent right wing.
The fact is, that the nonsense thinking regarding amnesty being anything but deportation of 12 million illegals is just plain stupid.
Bush is not stupid. he knows that his presidency will be the last social conservative administration for the foreseeable future. The trends will not allow another one for some time to come, perhaps never.
What he does to adjust the balance of the SCOTUS will determine how long it takes to redefine America as a classical liberal European style government, and this redefinition has been accelerated for decades and needed to be slowed.
Just as the tax cuts reduced the government take from the economy, and slowed the growth of government as a result, despite all the rhetoric to contrary, Bush's big picture changes in SCOTUS will change the dynamics in the law.
The stupid base politics that have been employed have totally damaged his efforts, and may have put the country in dire jeopardy. He will proceed as if it never happened however, and I hope he has some success, regardless of what the party base does. The party base, is now ineffectual and no longer relevant. As a leader, Bush will proceed without them and I appreciate everything he has done and will do for the country. It is unfortunate that so few can understand what he has accomplished, and the underlying basis for the things he did.
None the less, he has accomplished about 70% of his goals, and that is a win, by any political measure. We can only be the loyal opposition now, as the democrats strengthen their power base. We have done this task effectively before, and for many decades, so we will do it again.
I have totally lost any hope that I once had for a Republican controlled Congress, after the debacles of the past 4 years, and frankly, they don't deserve to lead. The party base is schitzo, and cannot lead. When it tried, it went off the reservation every time and damaged it's reelection prospects. Just as it is doing today. It is blinded and incompetent. It must be destroyed, and rebuilt and this will take some time.
By 2014, which will be the second term midterms for the coming democrat administration, the country will be ready to accept a Reaganesgue party with national security credentials, focused on the economic condition of the U.S. and a platform void of social claptrap, other than personal responsibility and freedom. This is what we do best and always have.
When we get back to basics, we will succeed. Until then, there will be much political pain. Much pain indeed.
Millions go home on their own. The clearest thinking I see is to make the treck to where they belong the best option for them. Dry up the benefits; severely punish those who employ them. Make the deportation process VERY rapid for those we do catch during traffic stops, etc.
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