But that's the whole point. We are talking about the Supreme Court here. It's not like he is asking us to trust him on his appointment of the comptroller of the currency or something.
from the Southern Appeal Blogspot. This seems to dissect precisely the source of concern for many of us as posted by a liberal on the Publius blog:
Publius on Miers and conservative dissent: My liberal buddy Publius makes some excellent observations/points in this post:
Let’s start with our friends across the aisle who finally seem to have lost patience with Bush. What’s important to realize is that Miers isn’t really the source of the frustration – she was the catalyst for the repressed frustration that’s been brewing for a long time and has finally bubbled to the surface. The question that I suspect is on many a liberal mind is – why now? . . . .
The answer is judges. Many liberals simply don’t understand the intensity of this preference – and that the intensity approaches infinity for the conservative base. Although the base – especially the social conservative base – generally favors a wide range of Republican positions, judges trump everything else. I can’t tell you how many times I heard or read someone reluctantly justify their support for Bush solely on the basis of judges. For the sake of shifting the Court right, many of them were willing to overlook everything else. Until, of course, today . . . .
And for years and years, they’ve dreamed of having an opportunity to hoist one of their own on the Court to shift the balance their way. And with O’Connor stepping down, their long wait had ended. At long last, the moment had come – and Bush failed them.
It’s not so much that the conservative base dislikes Miers. I think the anger stems from the opportunity costs rather than from Miers herself. If social conservatives were ever going to get their man (or woman) up there, this was the best chance they’ve had – maybe ever. And looking ahead to the 2006 Senate elections with all the top Republican challengers dropping like flies, it will most likely be the best chance they’re going to have for a very long time to come. Roberts was ok, but he wasn’t loud and proud. This was their moment – the time when they had the White House and 55 Senate seats. Now was the time to get one of their own up there. Instead, they get another unknown and another implicit rebuke.
And it’s more than just a favorable head count they’re after. I think there is also a deep yearning to have a Justice – like Thomas and Scalia – unabashedly and unapologetically affirming their constitutional views. I mean, social conservatives have never really won that battle in the Senate. The intensity and even radicalness (that’s descriptive, not normative) of Scalia and Thomas’s current views were not known during confirmation. I suspect too that there is some lingering resentment that Roberts had to pretend like he wasn’t a social conservative in order to get confirmed. When you feel as strongly about your views as these people do, I think it’s hard to stomach the continuing refusal to nominate a “loud and proud” nominee. Say what you will about social conservatives and the Federalist Society, they have strong convictions on this issue. And that may be another reason why Miers smells so funny – she looks a lot like an opportunistic brown-noser who shifts in the wind according to which party is in power.
The other really interesting question is what in the sh*t was going at the White House. I for one was suspecting some real red meat for the base. Bush is many things, but he’s usually not politically dumb. He and his advisors could see that his support had dwindled down to only the base. If the base were suddenly demoralized, the bottom really would fall out for him – after all, this is the 40% that I thought would continue supporting Bush even if he shot their dog. . . . .
But the interesting question is how Bush could have misread the base so badly. I mean, I suppose it’s possible he knew that they would revolt but didn’t care. That’s possible (see below), but I think the more likely explanation is the one my conservative friend emailed me. For the most part, Bush has delegated judicial nominations to the Federalist Society (which I believe is currently housed in OLC).
This nomination, however, is clearly all Bush. He interjected himself in the process and it shows. And the reason it shows is because it’s a reflection of his disconnect with the world around him – and of the dissent-free yes-man-ism endemic to this White House. Bush doesn’t read and isn’t curious and probably gets all his news through his staffers (see, e.g., Katrina DVD). In this sense, Bush is incapable of making sound decisions as a matter of epistemology – i.e., he lacks the information necessary to make informed decisions because he lives in a bubble.
Francis