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.
JRB has already passed Senate confirmation to the Federal District Court. Why do so many supporters of this Miers nomination neglect to mention that fact. It would have been interesting to see the hoops the democrats would have had to jump through to deny her appointment to the SC at this point. It was all set to go and Bush blew it. And naming Roberts CJ was a slap in the face to Scalia and Thomas...both or either of whom should have been moved into the first chair.
-bump-
That's worth repeating.
Perhaps because we don't expect to learn anything relevant about Ms. Miers during the hearings. Like Ginsburg and Roberts she will (rightly) refuse to answer any questions which reveal how she might rule on matters that come before the court and by the time the hearings are over we will still be in the exact same position we are now. We will have to trust the President as to whether or not her judicial philosophy is conservative or more importantly originalist.
As another poster correctly pointed out, if the hearings were revealing, how did we get Souter?
The President's political appointments lately have been highly suspect. Remember his appointment of Bernard Kerick who turned out to be just short of a criminal to head Homeland Security? And more recently we get Julie Myers heading ICE and she has no discernible qualifications. And then there is Mike Brown at FEMA. And Alberto "the illegals are otherwise law abiding citizens" Gonzalez as Attorney General. In his first term the President appointed a really strong team. His second term appointments have been weak and have shown rather poor judgment tainted by undeniable cronyism.
I am not inclined to blindly trust the President. I won't speak for others but I want the nomination derailed (withdrawn or voted down) and I think it is more likely to happen if we raise hell before the hearings then if we wait until they happen and we have learned nothing that we don't already know. I rather doubt I'll succeed but at least if there is yet another Supreme Court nomination by President Bush I have a feeling he is not going to be anxious to repeat this mistake and that in itself is worthwhile.
Again, everyone is presupposing that this was a winnable fight simply because she was confirmed before. There isn't an automatic connection between the two.
The biggest problem here is the fact that we blew the one chance we had to invoke the constitutional option and fix this problem once and for all. We are paying for that. Thank you, Dr. Frist.
I understand your fears.
And all this stuff will start going around and around again.
David Frum puts his pants on the same way you do, one leg at a time. But when they are ON, he makes gold records.
I remember the charges during his first term that he was chosing his father's cronies.
His father's cronies were acceptable, but his aren't?
He snookered us with Harriet Miers and maybe he snookered us with fake reasons for going to war.
"Thanks, still sitting at 70% unopposed."
You are an idiot,,,you are counting all undecideds for Miers lmao.
BTW folks, the scientific Gallop poll is actually showing more conservatives against the nominatin that FR. Kind of a surprise,,,FR is actually less conservative than the mainstream conservative in the Party.
Exactly the type of comment that makes her deserve a hearing....to defend her self from the rock-throwers.
The nuclear option is still on the table. Finding a reason to disqualify a candidate you had already confirmed once before would be difficult.
And "Trust me" sounds to much like "read my lips".
Because Bush didn't nominate JRB.
A substantial fraction of FR parictipants are party hacks. Of course they agree with what their leader has done, and their participation skews the FR polls.
You are absolutely correct.
I didn't realize that President Bush was a masochist.
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