Posted on 10/20/2005 1:15:35 PM PDT by Pukin Dog
“The army is not properly equipped for an invasion of an enemy's territory. It lacks much of the material of war, is feeble in transportation, the animals being much reduced, and the men are poorly provided with clothes, and in thousands of instances are destitute of shoes. Still we cannot afford to be idle, and though weaker than our opponents in men and military equipments, must endeavor to harass, if we cannot destroy them. I am aware that the movement is attended with much risk, yet I do not consider success impossible, and shall endeavor to guard it from loss.” – Robert E. Lee (September 3, 1862 – Letter to Jefferson Davis)
Last week, with considerable difficulty, I posted that I had changed my mind and decided to support the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. I hope that this post will help some of you understand why this nomination must be supported until it is either withdrawn or it succeeds in gaining Senate confirmation.
I make no bones about the fact that I believe that the nomination of Harriet Miers is a very, very large mistake by the Bush administration, probably the biggest mistake that they have made in office. I believe the choice to have been one made in the heat of battle, under duress and strain over the surprise decline of prior selections, against the goal of completing Senate confirmation before the end of November. A selection of a willing candidate had to be made, and the President mis-stepped in rushing to select Harriet Miers without proper vetting.
So, in light of that, (which is all true) why am I now suggesting that Harriet Miers should be supported?
Because this is war.
We Conservatives are at the brink of victory, where the enemy is most dangerous. Just as you have seen in Iraq, at the time of nearing victory is exactly the time when the enemy becomes more violent and deadly in their attacks. It is not because we are losing the war, that we find our leaders either attacked in the media, or worse; the continued attempts to criminalize Conservatives through the legal system. It is happening because we are winning.
We are winning in spite of the fact that our Conservative Army is in very, very bad condition after years of battle against our Liberal opponent. Our leadership in the Senate consists mostly of tired, beaten, scared members, most of them unwilling to take the fight to the enemy for fear of losing the ground they have gained.
In any war, it is always a goal to destroy leadership first. You target and attack the enemies Generals as a common early tactic. Our enemies have never been able to defeat the likes of Tom Delay or Karl Rove on the battlefield of ideas, so they now seek to remove them from the war altogether through continued attempts to remove them from their winning positions. The enemy if successful can weaken our leader by removing his warriors from the fight. Our enemies understand the unfortunate truth that there are only a few true warriors left in our political army, and if they can get to them (through our failure to protect their flank) they can then gain ground simply by limiting our ability to attack them. No war is won on the defense, and on the defense is where we are. We are not on the defense because of the decisions of one George W. Bush; we are on the defense because his Army is tired and weak, and also there are phony among them.
Anyone who believes that an Arlen Specter or a John McCain is going to fight to the death for Conservative principles is an absolute fool. If you think that Trent Lott or Orrin Hatch won’t sell your Conservatism down the river for another 6 years feeding at the public troth then respectfully, you are dumber than dirt.
In war, you must have no weak areas for the enemy to attack, and we have a lot of them. We attack Bush for signing Campaign Finance reform much more than we attack John McCain for creating it. We attack Bill Frist for not going Nuclear; instead of attacking the RINOs who would have obviously defeated the measure had Frist tried it.
In the Miers nomination, I believe the President looked at his situation, and the conditions of his troops, and took the path of Robert E. Lee; choosing not to lose, when faced with a situation where the condition of his troops made it impossible for him to win. In doing so, he repeated a mistake that many, many leaders have made before him. He made a decision from weakness, and that cannot be denied.
We can (and should) attack George Bush when he makes poor decisions from a weak position, but now is the time to attack those who put him in the weak position to begin with. You can’t really blame the Democrats, because they are who they are. We know their tactics and should be better prepared for them. You can’t blame the RINOs for the same reason. If you know your enemy, then there is no excuse for allowing him victories against you.
So where does that leave us?
As has been made clear before; “You go to war with the Army you’ve got, not the one you want”. That is where we are. Right now, we may not feel so great about our Army, but are we going to let them be defeated because we don’t agree with their tactics and methods? Sure, we can stand back and wait, or leap from the train because we are mad at the conductor, or we can dance with the one who brought us, people.
Now, forgive my over-use of clichés, but that’s the best I can do at the moment.
We voted for the man, we stood with him and defeated our enemies at every turn. Victory is near, and our enemy has ramped up their attacks, hoping we will shrink from the fight.
Let us stay the course, and stay on the side of President Bush. He is not a perfect man, but he is our man. In war, sometimes that just has to be enough. Now can we lower our voices enough to remember what side we are on in this fight? Every one of us has the right to criticize the general direction our leadership is taking at the moment. Whether it is spending, the borders, Miers, Iraq, whatever. We should never forget that those in Washington work for us, and are subject to our approval. That does not mean however, that we should help our enemies defeat us by handing over our leaders at gunpoint.
I believe the debate can only strengthen us, but we should keep it as debate and not open warfare against our side. The war for Conservative ideas will not be won during the term of our current President, but I think if we want more and better Generals down the road, we need to stand with this one.
Win or lose, I’m standing with President Bush.
"In the Miers nomination, I believe the President looked at his situation, and the conditions of his troops, and took the path of Robert E. Lee; choosing not to lose, when faced with a situation where the condition of his troops made it impossible for him to win. In doing so, he repeated a mistake that many, many leaders have made before him. He made a decision from weakness, and that cannot be denied."
The error was that the position of "weakness" was an error of perception, it was not in fact true. It was put forth by RINOS like Specter who wanted to provide a "moderate" to placate liberals and themselves. Yet these same "moderates" in fact found it difficult to not support an astute originalist like Roberts. The idea that the GOP Senators could not have prevailed with another Roberts-like candidate (of which they are a number available) was a liberal Democrat/moderate Republican myth attempting to fulfill itself in a false pre-emption of other choices; choices that again, like Roberts, would have been confirmed. The only victory here was the victory of the Dims to use moderate RINOS to convince Bush of a strenght the Dims in fact did not and do not have.
In any war, it is always a goal to destroy leadership first. You target and attack the enemies Generals as a common early tactic.
So our general walks to the head of the lead advancing column with his newest, untrained raw recruit as his body guard? This was not a choice anyone forced on Bush. He had many other options, no matter what were the perceived limitations.
Lastly, Bush can still rally the troops. Accept his error and give them a champion lieutenant that he knows they will fight to the death for - like a Janice Rogers Brown.
Elections have consequences. We have a duty to fight the next time we face confirmation of a RBG, but ultimately, Madame President Hillary and Majority Leader Reid would have most of the power there. We make decisions and let the voters decide if they like them and live with what happens.
PD would happily author another vanity just like this should Bush nominate Hitlery herself. Fight for Bush -- right or wrong!
He's not infallible; I found his decision not to veto CFR to be reprehensible and a stain on his Presidency.
GWB never campaigned as a Goldwater / Reagan Conservative. Depending on the issue, he's somewhere between those gentlemen and his father. But he was FAR superior to John McCain (his main opponent in 2000) and FAR, FAR superior to either Al Gore or John Kerry.
In 2008 we might have to choose between McCain and Giuliani for the nomination. They are likely to be the two top contenders if they both run.
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Exactly right. And if I accept your premise, how exactly do I fight the war?
Do I come here post complaints? Do I threaten them with retaliation?(i.e. no votes or donations) We're told that McCain has already conceded that he has lost us, and he thinks he can win without us.
Trent Lott was the victim of a media witch hunt, and was unable to escape, despite being the majority leader of the Senate.
John Bolton couldn't get an up or down vote despite our loud cries of protest.
I love the fighting spirit, but we can't let our passion obscure reality.
I think Dubyas incrementalism is the only way, even though it is very frustrating.
The one thing I think could change that would be a good mid-term election. If we can at least hold serve and defy history, that may send the message we need to send, and put some fear into those senators in red states.
"we can dance with the one who brought us, people."
That's "brung us" but I'll have to agree with you PD.
I never completely understood why HALF of Us were so pissed off anyhow.
Pukin Dog...........Brilliant!
Nothing Conservatives can do will cause 50 Senators to support JRB to the point that they'll go nucular to get her through. There are 44 'Rats, one turncoat (Jeffords), and easily at least six weasels (Snowe, Collins, Chafee, Hagel, Warner, Specter, McCain, DeWine, Voinovich, Graham). Nobody with any political sense as President starts a bloody battle unless you reasonably expect to win.
It makes me sick that the goalposts have been moved with the abuse of the filibuster. Sick, sick, sick. The only long-term solution is to get 50 Senators willing to go William Tecumseh Sherman on those damned Dirty 'Rats. We're not there yet.
Thanks.
I mention this as I recall reading about members of a parliament of some small country getting kicked out of their party, forbidden to represent it and run for re-election under its banner after failing to toe the line. Here in paradise, anything goes!
Miers, out of loyalty to the president, should withdraw on the grounds that her nomination has riven the president's constituency.
Perhaps you'll object that Miers opponents should, out of loyalty to the president, cease opposing the Miers nomination, but that would misjudge the situation. These opponents aren't loyal to the president but rather to the conservative agenda.
Pray for W and Our Victorious Troops
With 50 Senators willing to do in the Senate what Tom DeLay does in the House. We aren't there yet. We need more Senators who love the smell of toasted 'rat in the morning!
Your problem is that you cant manage to have a disagreement without getting stupid. Typical, and just like the idiots who want to make this personal, is the clear conclusion that you have nothing left in your argument. I can argue the point all day without making it personal. That you apparently cannot, says more about you than me.
It is certainly understandable if candidates decided not to go through that. I believe the bigger issue though is we are unlikely to even get that lady an up-or-down vote.
The other option is to nominate someone that has been through bitter political fire and that the Senate can't filibuster -- a Republican Senator like Jeff Sessions. However, IMHO we need to save that bit of strategery for replacing a vacancy left by a liberal like Stevens or Darth Vader Ginsberg.
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