Posted on 10/11/2005 5:30:20 AM PDT by conservativecorner
'It's not a rebellion, sire: It's a revolution." With those words, the duke of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt broke the news to Louis XVI that the Bastille had fallen. Looking back on the events of the past eight days, I wonder whether the Bush White House does not feel the same way.
The President's decision to replace retiring Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor with his White House counsel and former personal attorney, the underwhelming Harriet Miers, has detonated an uprising within the President's own party.
Conservative commentators Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, George Will, Patrick Buchanan, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Michelle Malkin and many, many others have condemned the choice.
Washington's tight-knit and usually close-mouthed network of conservative jurists and lawyers is dismayed by Miers' thin record and weak abilities. One Republican lawyer told me of a briefing session to prepare Miers to enter into her duties as White House Counsel a year ago. A panel of lawyers who had served in past Republican White Houses was gathered together. After a couple of hours of questions and answers, Miers left to return to the office. There was a silence. Then somebody hopefully piped up: "Maybe if we can find her a really strong deputy ..."
The anger of conservative legalists and opinion leaders is echoed by rank-and-file Republicans. Last week, I asked readers of the conservative National Review Online Web site to tell me how they would vote on the nomination as U.S. senators: They voted 5-1 to reject the nomination. And while the aye votes were usually expressed in cautious and uncertain terms ("I think we just have to trust the President"), the nays were furious ("not just no -- hell no!")
These impressions are confirmed by opinion polls. A CBS poll conducted last week found that the Miers nomination was the most unpopular since Robert Bork's in 1987. Gallup found that while 77% of self-identified conservatives had supported the Roberts' choice, only 58% supported Miers. Both those polls were taken before at the very beginning of last week's spasm of negative media commentary.
CBS last week also released new presidential approval numbers, based on a survey conducted October 3-5. Bush is down to 37%, the lowest presidential approval rating since the Carter years. That number is buoyed, though, by the President's continued high approval rating among conservatives: 80%.
But Oct. 3 was the date that the Miers nomination was announced. As conservatives digest their disappointment and betrayal, their approval of the President is likely to decline. It's hard to say how powerful this effect will be overall, but here's one clue: A poll Monday of 200 right-of-centre bloggers by the RightWingNews.com Web site found that 49% regarded the appointment as a "bad or terrible" decision. Only 9% rated it "good or excellent." And while 4% of the bloggers said that the decision raised their opinion of President Bush, 53% made them view the President less favourably.
While it would seem unlikely that conservatives overall would react as strongly as these intensely political bloggers, the trend and tendency are both clear.
The problem is made worse by the White House's publicity campaign in defence of Miers. Advocates of the appointment have accused critics of "sexism" and "elitism" -- charges that have been echoed by left-wing Democrats like Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski. There are probably few tactics less likely to impress a conservative audience -- or more likely to convince that audience that Miers is indeed the unqualified crony her critics say she is.
The only thing worse may be the White House's second talking point: emphasizing Miers' personal qualities. Former White House aide David Kuo tells this story in an op-ed posted on the beliefnet.com Web site:
"Harriet used to keep a humidor full of M&Ms in her West Wing office. It wasn't a huge secret. She'd stash some boxes of the coveted red, white, and blue M&Ms in specially made boxes bearing George W. Bush's reprinted signature. Her door was always open and the M&Ms were always available. I dared ask one time why they were there. Her answer: 'I like M&Ms and I like sharing.' "
This anecdote almost invites the retort: Well why don't we go all the way and put Barney the purple dinosaur on the court?
More seriously, it disregards and insults the seriousness with which conservatives have worked for three decades to bring change to America's high-handed courts. There is no domestic issue that conservatives care about more, nothing for which individual conservatives have made greater personal sacrifices than to get ready for the day when a conservative president and a Republican Senate would at last hold the power to fill that crucial swing seat on the court.
President Bush's decision to award that seat to his personal attorney in thanks for her years of service to himself personally has enraged his political base. Ann Coulter expressed that rage in her inimitably astringent way two days after the nomination was announced: "Being on the Supreme Court isn't like winning a 'Best Employee of the Month' award. However nice, helpful, prompt and tidy she is, Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on The West Wing, let alone to be a real one."
Offending your supporters has real-world consequences. With one grave misjudgment, George W. Bush has shattered the coalition that brought and returned him to power in 2000 and 2004.
Even though I do have a bad habit of judging food before I taste it, I don't like to judge people before they have a chance to speak for themselves.
Bring on the hearings!!!
i agree with you 100%. bush is probably also going to give the rats the house and senate. i for one am very teed off at this guy.
LOL!...Thanks...This thread needed a shot of humor to lighten it up a little.
Hmmm, you left out the part where he wasn't alone and was talking to a professor, too, who gave a valid and persuasive argument that she is qualified.
Like I said if you can't count, give it up. The undecided could not be considered against Miers. So, using 10% as undecided and the 58% approval, it would be safe to say that nearly 70% of conservatives are unopposed to Miers' nomination.
LOL! The thing that was pathetic was your reply #57.
I've said this in every thread I've participated in on this topic, and I'll repeat it: We missed the chance to invoke the constitutional option, and I would be utterly surprised to see another chance come around without massive change in the Senate. Because while there are 55 Republicans in the Senate, there are not 55 movement conservatives, especially movement social conservatives. So for those spoiling for controntation and a fight with the libs over this, IMHO at this point in time, on Oct. 11, 2005, it's not likely to be a winnable fight. It would make us feel good and we could look in the mirror and say that we've stood on principle, but at the end of the day, again this is my .02, we lose because I do not see the constitutional option to break a Dem filibuster as an achievable option right now.
I am not thrilled with Miers, but I'm not ready to throw the president over the side (which is what a Senate rejection of this nominee would accomplish) or opt out of 2006 and 2008 in protest either ... to those who want to opt out of 2006, keep repeating this nine-word mantra, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."
As of a few minutes ago:
Free Republic Opinion Poll: Do you approve of Harriet Miers for Supreme Court?
Composite Opinion Yes 34.1% 2,133 Need more info 32.7% 2,046 No 28.1% 1,758 I'm voting Hillary! 3.1% 194 Pass 2.0% 123 100.0% 6,254 Member Opinion Need more info 39.5% 1,097 Yes 30.4% 844 No 26.1% 723 Pass 2.3% 64 I'm voting Hillary! 1.7% 47 100.0% 2,775 Non-Member Opinion Yes 37.1% 1,289 No 29.7% 1,035 Need more info 27.3% 949 I'm voting Hillary! 4.2% 147 Pass 1.7% 59 100.0% 3,479
It is a clearly dividing issue.
Instead of a principal debate (long overdue) between the Right and the Left about constitution and what is good for the country, we have an uninspiring candidate that divides conservatives.
What other issue divided conservatives so much lately?
It is an entirely self inflicted (by Bush) pain.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Why indeed! Never have so many been STUCK-ON-STUPID!
They suggest that "she should be voted down" before a hearing?
My suggestion is that she should get a hearing first .
Supposedly principled people who insisted on "up or down votes" for nominees, merely 6 months ago, have reversed course.
Perhaps these renegers are too near-sighted. They only defend nominees who are in danger of filibuster....when they can pick a good "consitutional" fight. Harriet doesn't fit their scenario.
I think that is the main problem. Folks were primed for a good fight against the libs. When that evaporated they turned their energy against Bush.
What do leaderless soldiers do, historically, when they are all dressed up for battle and the battle doesn't take place? They pillage.
We've had enough justices appointed with long judicial histories who's job had been to rule based on the law as had been decided by higher courts. When placed on the high court, their actions there were significantly different that what was expected by those appointing them.
Appointing someone who is not competent for the job because of friendship is a very bad thing.
Appointing someone who you know well and feel would do a good job and uphold the constitution is a good idea.
There are some people I would have liked to see appointed, and Miers was not among them, but I've yet to see a good reason why she shouldn't be confirmed.
I would have rather that he appointed a tough conservative constitutionalist to the court, and aggressively fought the senate to get them confirmed.
Unfortunately our president doesn't appear to have the backbone to butt heads with the Senate and has taken the easy way out by choosing a candidate without a record on many contentious issues.
That doesn't mean that she isn't a qualified, conservative, constitutionalist. It means we end up having to trust that Bush has chosen well, which is something we are uncomfortable with for a variety of valid reasons.
However, in the end, it's the president that gets to pick the nominee, and he's chosen a person who is well versed in the law. She is as qualified as many who have served on the court in the past.
Thanks, still sitting at 70% unopposed.
And yet they don't overtly object to colture abuse. No outrage that capitulating to the gang of 14 effectively limits the President's power to nominate overtly conservative candidates.
While having the perfectly reasonalbe case, the GOP has asserted silence, acquiescence, and capitulation. The President hasn't done anything productive with this perfectly reasonable case.
Wussies.
Neither a revolution, nor an uprising.
Pillaging and vandalizing by soldiers when the long-awaited battle is called off.
So we've got James Dobson, Harry Reid, Pat Robertson, Hugh Hewitt, and some professor in support of this nomination. Three shills a Demoncrat and a no-name.
What would happen if you spelled slowly?
They are too vainglorius to plea for help. They will insult you into submission.
You nailed it. That's most of what's going on here. As far as what folks like Coulter are saying, IMHO she's representing the mindset of a lot of Ivy League legal eagles who've worked hard and invested a lot of time and effort in trying to position themselves to get on the SCOTUS, and probably see it as their birthright ... folks can flame away, but there is a touch of elitism involved ... and then the president has the audacity to pick someone who went to ... GASP! ... Southern Methodist.
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