5-4: The Genius of George W. Bush

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/04/19/143114.php ^ | 4/19/07 | Rick Vassar

[M203M4]

I considered that scenario to be a possibility at the time, but there is no way to know for sure, even now, what the mechanics were behind the HM decision. I'm just happy things turned out the way they did, to put it diplomatically.

[HaveHadEnough]

This Court seems to be leaning towards a full ban on abortion...

No, it isn't. It's leaning toward throwing the issue back to the states. Some states will permit abortion and some will not.

[Paulus Invictus]

Here's what Hitlery had to say about the ruling and the Supremes: Its in the latest letter from Her Ghastliness. Even she recognizes the importance of conservative Supreme Court Judges. The four idiotic libs on the Court continue to support infanticide, even late term abortion. The very thought of her in the presidency is so repugnant, I can scarcely imagine anything worse.

Dear Friends, We already knew how important this election was for every American. Yesterday, the Supreme Court raised the stakes even higher.

The Court took a dramatic departure from decades of rulings that upheld a woman's right to choose and recognized the importance of women's health. Let's be clear: this allows the government to dictate to women what they can and cannot do about their own health.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg disagreed with this decision and warned, "This cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court -- and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives."

When the Senate debated the nominations of Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the Supreme Court, I spoke out on the Senate floor about the danger they posed to our constitutional liberties, including the right to choose. I urged my colleagues to reject them, and I voted against both of them. Yesterday, unfortunately, we saw the consequences of failing to stop their confirmations.

The decade of work that the far right has done to chip away at our rights was paid off in this Supreme Court decision. They worked hard to gain the presidency and the Senate so they could shape a Supreme Court that rewarded them by putting a narrow ideology above our constitutional rights. In their ruling, the conservative majority even used right-wing code language, referring to obstetricians as "abortion doctors."

There's one way we can respond: redouble our efforts to win the White House and more seats in the House and Senate. We need a president who understands that the best way to protect women's health and reduce the number of abortions is to expand access to family planning -- not to threaten doctors and patients. We need a Congress that will say no to rolling back the rights of women.

And here is my promise to you: As a senator, I will do everything I can to make sure women can protect their health, and when I am president, I will treat the health and well being of women and our constitutional rights once again as true American values.

I hope you'll pass this message along to your friends and talk with them about why this issue is important to you. I'll follow up with you soon with ways you can take direct action to protect our right to choose.

Sincerely,

Hillary Rodham Clinton

[Paulus Invictus]

But we would need to recover the Senate to do it.

[Always Right]

I don’t know that the Miers nomination was a ploy that in depth on W’s part, however, I do think he’s a very shrewd operator and recognized an opportunity which he wisely took.

Under the circumstances, Bush probably got the two best justices confirmed he could have. I really don't think Roberts and Alito are in the mold or Thomas and Scalia, but they should be reliable on conservative issues as Reinhquist. I really wished Bush has tried to get a more staunch conservative like Janice Rogers Brown first arguing we are just replacing a conservative with a conservative. Roberts and Alito are brillian enough and have such an outstanding judicial record that it would be hard to block their confirmation under any circumstances.

[George W. Bush]

I can just imagine the conversation at the White House: Harriet, we need to send you out there as the nominee. You’re going to get skewered for a month or so, and then you’ll withdraw, and we’ll send in Sam Alito before the opposition can reload. Then you just come back over here to the White House.

Nice try, Rick, but no cigar today.

Bush was dead serious about Harriet. He believed that we could never get a proper jurist on the Court which explains a lot about why he went with the stealth nomination of Roberts.

The way Alito sailed through and impressed everyone so much showed that we don't have to send in weak sisters to get them confirmed. A strong nominee, carefully chosen (as Alito's Italian and Catholic background was), helps confirmation tremendously.

The real great unwritten story is the full-fledged social conservative partnership between the GOP and conservative Catholic elements in America.

We Republicans have put 5 Catholics on the Court. They just all voted together on PBA, the four faithful ones reeling in the one who had gone off the pro-life reservation. This is a very Catholic thing that just happened, even if everyone is afraid to say so out loud.

I'm a militant Baptist but I'm fine with granting these justices possibly more power than any president that will be elected in my lifetime will likely hold. But maybe next time, we Republicans can find a superbly qualified Protestant or evangelical type. A little diversity on our team is a nice thing too.

[Quick or Dead]

President Bush is not dumb.

He does do dumb things from time-to-time. But we still like him.

[Badeye]

I voted for the President twice, and I’m not going to sugar coat it, he’s been a disappointment in his second term in my view.

Harriet Miers marks the moment the wheels came off.

That said, his Presidency will be treated kindly by historians a few decades from now, when the aging liberals rants won’t penetrate six feet of dirt above their heads.

And no matter what any of us think, he’s changed the USSC from left of center to right of center.

Not bad, not bad at all.

[yldstrk]

Great article.

[bukkdems]

It has been reported that Bush could skin his frat brothers alive in poker, and that he could bluff like B’rer Rabbit. I choose to believe this Harriet Miers head-fake in light of that. I also love the way the White House releases thousands and thousands of documents on Friday evenings whenever the Dems are demanding substantiation. They really know how to ruin a staffer’s weekend.

[Vision]

He wanted Miers on there.

[USS Alaska]

Harriet Miers fiasco was not intentional and this Court is at least 4-5 for Roe v. Wade. Kennedy is on record supporting Roe, and we still aren’t sure if Alito and Roberts would go that far. We still need to replace one liberal justice to have any shot at putting a stake in Roe.

Harriet Myers is really karl rove in drag. If you want a liberal opening, stop whining, either wait until one dies, or...

[Oliver Optic]

Harriet Miers fiasco was not intentional and this Court is at least 4-5 for Roe v. Wade. Kennedy is on record supporting Roe, and we still aren’t sure if Alito and Roberts would go that far. We still need to replace one liberal justice to have any shot at putting a stake in Roe.

Right on all counts.

[Terpin]

I was in on it and the nastiness was just part of the plan.

Always Right, you magnificent bastard. :-)

_______________________________________________________

Great job, Always Right! I wish I was a Magnificent Bastard like you. My wife says I’m half-way there, though.

....Now if I could only figure out how to be magnificent too.

[gov_bean_ counter]

Two things flew under the DBM radar after Roberts was confirmed, however yours truly attempted to point them out.

1. Roberts promised a more deliberative body.
2. Kennedy was an individual who could be turned by a good argument.

[ThePythonicCow]

Harriet Miers fiasco was not intentional

Perhaps it didn't start out intentionally, but rather Bush had good reactions - a good counter puncher as someone said above. His left hook missed, he got off balance and was hit with a couple of good punches, but that got the opponent off balance, and open to a solid right on the chin.

It's a mind thing. If you're good at what you're do, and believe your cause is just, then a couple of bad days are just an opportunity to win by coming at it from the other side, rather than some inevitable downfall.

[Oliver Optic]

I'm grateful for President Bush's judicial nominations ... but this Harriet-the-head-fake theory is pure fancy.

It seems to have been hatched by Bush loyalists who couldn't bear the thought that the outcry from the right sank the Miers nomination and gave us Alito.

All the same, even with Miers I believe the President was clumsily trying to keep faith with pro-life voters. His fear of another Souter led him to pick someone he knew well and believed he could count on to vote against Roe.

[MBB1984]

Reagan made a clear mistake in O’Conner, though not nearly as big a mistake as Bush I made with Souter. However, Reagan tried Bork and was shot down with Spector, Kennedy leading the voting against him. Reagan then tried Ginsburg (not Ruth Buzzie Ginsburg) and he resigned due to past pot smoking. Reagan then, tired after the Borking and Ginsburg resignation, gave us Kennedy.

[DrGunsforHands]

He just got complacent. Also, unlike John Kerry and Al Gore, it was never his lifelong goal to become President. He’s never had any sort of “grand vision” for transforming the country. He ran as a “compassionate” conservative, not a traditional conservative. And that’s pretty much how he’s run his Presidency. Miers was a Rovian plot, not bush.

[BigSkyFreeper]

I love how Dingy Harry is fit to be tied by political means, over this ruling, which he voted for in the first place.