Wake up, Freepers, this is war.

[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 I hope that this post will help some of you understand why this nomination must be supported until it is either withdrawn or it succeeds in gaining Senate confirmation.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.

[bray]

Your close but no cigar. This is between the Christian Conservatives and the Secular Conservatives. I voted for Bush Sr and Dole only because they were the only choices not because they were Repubs. You are miscaracterizing us. We are looking at a Pro-Life justice period.

Pray for W and Our Victory Troops

[tumblindice]

The best lack all conviction while the worst are
full of passionate intensity. W. B. Yeats

[indcons]

bray - read his post again......I don't think he is calling Bush stupid as you allege. You Bush bots are really grasping at straws, aren't you?

[Map Kernow]

Win or lose, I’m standing with President Bush.

As I've sad before, I don't recognize das Fuehrerprinzip as a conservative principle, nor as an American principle, nor as a patriotic principle. When GW is right, I'll support him. When he's wrong, I'm going to let him know it. To quote Orrin Hatch ca. 14 years ago, "This is America, dammit!"

[Prophet in the wilderness]

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/holidays/july4/winter.htm

[bray]

Grasping at straws is better than name calling. Bushbots?? Could you come up with something less cliche?? I would match wits with you but you wouldn't stand half a chance!

Pray for W and Our Victorious Troops

[Wuli]

Under fire in any hearings, Janice Rogers Brown would present as poised and intelligent, non-beligerent and hard-to-argue-with reasoned defense of her nomination as did Roberts. In fact, after Roberts success, the positions of Janice Rogers Brown will be harder for RINOS and the no-fillibuster coalition to take offense with. They will continue to try to use the back-door-lobby method with Bush, to avoid such a nomination, but, they do not have winning reasoned arguments to publicly oppose her and they know it. The Dims will scream, and use personal assassination attempts on Rogers. But their screams will be, in the final analysis, beyond the no-fillibuster coalition's "extraordinary" circumstances. Like the back-door lobby efforts with Bush, they will try to use the MSM to kill a Janice Rogers Brown appointment. It is an effort that would be very intense, but it is one they would lose when the final Senate vote was held.

Bush has listened too much to those who are like Lincoln's early generals, who refused to take the battle to the enemy, battles they could have won. He needs to find his General Grant.

[cardinal4]

This is Pukin Dog's last vanity post.

Yawn..

[edsheppa]

The question is....are we going to be so "mad" about it that we riot and burn down our own neighborhood, defiantly yelling..."That'll show 'em!"

Exactly - the administration should stop being mad, stop accusing us of being sexist snobs, and withdraw the Miers nomination.

[Pukin Dog]

Lincoln replaced those Generals who would not fight. Bush should have followed suit and allowed Specter and now Chaffee to lose. We gain nothing by having them on our side.

[Pukin Dog]

Thank you for the link.

[indcons]

I would match wits with you but you wouldn't stand half a chance!
Oh...you may be right. But, you need to start learning to read people's posts first. Good luck there.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

I stand in agreement on that with you, I may not like his choice, but, we need to support our President so the Democrats/MSM/Liberals won't again any ground.

[edsheppa]

What do you mean "stand with Bush's decision?" You mean remain silent when Bush whacks us on immigration or SS reform or ...? Is the administration so blind it doesn't see that it is in a coalition with us?

[Pukin Dog]

Find anywhere in my post where I said we should remain silent and post-quote it to me?

[cardinal4]

Find anywhere in my post where I said we should remain silent and post-quote it to me?

That will be in next weeks "last vanity"..

[ez]

Better Bush nominating Harriet Miers than Kerry nominating Laurence Tribe...[[[shudder]]]

[andy58-in-nh]

It's hard to argue with someone who claims both principle and pragmatism, especially when they do so honestly. But you must know that President Bush has put his supporters in a miserable situation: support a nominee whose qualifications are far-less-than-stellar, or oppose that nominee and give aid and comfort to the enemy. Thanks, George. In principle, I want to tell my Senator (who lives a mile down the street so it's not a long way to yell) to reject this nominee and wait for one who is both Conservative and qualified. Pragmatically, I find myself biting my damn toungue (a lot) in the hope that Ms. Miers will somehow comport herself famously before the Judiciary Committee, revealing the President as "misunderestimated" once more, and a great victory will be thus snatched from the jaws of defeat. Well, I'm still biting, and my tongue is getting awfully sore. So, I'll support my President, too, but it's sure hard to see what the Hell he was thinking here.

[ez]

The Constitution was written so that anyone of average education and intelligence can understand it. It's not necessary to have the pointiest head on the block to deciper its intent. It is only necessary to appreciate the principles it was written to support and have the will, the energy and the desire to discern how the mechanisms it employs were designed to achieve that end.

Hallelujah, no more pointy-headed intellectuals in the SC!! The smarter-than-thou crowd is always seeing eminences and penumbras where they don't exist.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

As far as Gen. George McClellan was concerned, he was a great organizer ( would have been better a Secretary of Defense, as long as he had the will to fight ) and engineer, but, he lacked leadership in the actual sense of the fighting spirit.
Gen. George McClellan would have made a better supply General than a fighting General.

http://www.civilwarhome.com/macbio.htm.


President Lincoln gave General McClellan everything he requested and asked for, and built up a might fine army, but, when it came the time to go after his emeries, he choked, and waited days or even weeks were he had a clear advantage to win to go after his enemies.

Imagine that ? the civil war at a few times, could have been won and over with than when it finally ended.

Imagine that ? having a well organized army, superior fire power, superior supplies, and more troops, and still McClellan felt still that he was not ready.