Posted on 10/05/2005 9:26:43 PM PDT by Pikamax
WASHINGTON -- Two questions were asked in conservative circles Monday when it was learned President Bush had nominated his lawyer, Harriet Miers, for the Supreme Court. Question No. 1: "Is this what we fought for?" Question No. 2: "What was he thinking?"
The conservative Republican base had tolerated George W. Bush's leftward lunges on education spending and prescription drug subsidies to re-elect him so that he could fill the Supreme Court with conservatives and send it rightward. But the White House counsel hardly looked like what they had expected.
Nothing could have more quickly deflated Republican spirits. The antidote to the Iraq-Katrina malaise was the spectacular confirmation performance by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Republicans eagerly awaited Act Two: confirmation of a successor to social liberal Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. This was one issue where the wind was at Bush's back, not in his face. But he robbed his legions of spirit with the Miers nomination.
Miers hardly seems the true believer the Republican base was anticipating when the president's agents spread the word last week that his choice would please conservatives. In 1988, she was contributing to Al Gore's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. She is listed as chairman of a 1998 American Bar Association committee that recommended legalization of gay adoptions and establishment of an International Criminal Court.
Presidential adviser Karl Rove, recognizing the peril here, was on the phone Monday morning assuring conservatives of Miers's intrepidity. The line from the White House was that Miers should not be compared with Justice David Souter, who was named to the court 15 years ago by the president's father and immediately turned left. While Souter was a stranger from New Hampshire to the elder Bush, it is claimed no president ever has known a court nominee as well as the younger Bush knows his fellow Texan. Skeptics are assured she is sound on abortion and other social issues.
Assuming those assurances are well founded, Miers's qualifications for the high court are still questioned. Members of Congress describe Miers as a nice person but hardly a constitutional scholar. Indeed, she might trip over questions that Roberts handled so deftly. People who have tried to engage her in serious conversation find her politely dull.
In singing Miers's praises, Bush agents contend her every thought is of the president's best interests, not her own. That may be a desirable profile for a White House counsel, but it hardly commends a Supreme Court justice who will be around long after George W. Bush is gone. By naming his longtime attorney, Bush risks the charge of cronyism. After the Michael Brown fiasco at FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), Harriet Miers might seem the last person he would name to the Supreme Court.
Two weeks ago, Bush was seriously considering another Texas woman he likes and knows well. The nomination of Federal Circuit Judge Priscilla Owen would have been highly regarded in the conservative community. Owen was confirmed for the appellate bench only after the compromise forged by the Group of Fourteen, and Republican senators advised the White House they did not want to fight for her again so soon. But there is no rule that O'Connor must be replaced by a Texas woman who is the president's pal. Many well-qualified conservative men and women were passed over to name Miers.
The question recurs: "What was he thinking?" Bushologists figure the president was irked by repetitive demands that he satisfy the base with his Supreme Court appointments. He also was irked by the conservative veto of his Texas friend and Miers's predecessor at the White House, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. So, Bush showed the critics by naming another close aide lacking Gonzales's track record to draw the ire of the party's right wing.
Immensely enjoying himself was Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who let it be known to colleagues that he recommended Miers to the president. With Miers at his side, Reid praised her a little for contributing to Al Gore and a lot for being a "trial lawyer" -- no encomium in the GOP. With friends like Reid, Harriet Miers hardly needs enemies.
How soon we forget--he pledged to oppose CFR and then signed the bill for this First Amendment felony (regardless of what the New Agers over at SCOTUS ruled).
---If you disagree, give me some good examples of how he's acted like a real Republican. ---
NO NEW ANTI-GUN LAWS!
Bush! Bush! Bush!
We all thought it was unconstitutional, but SCOTUS didn't agree.
Without fanfare, it has earned its place in the market. Why just look at the outstanding gas mileage and the low, low price! And its an import, a European import we've demanded in keeping with the grand tradition of Mercedes, BMW and Volvo.
Yugo. It's obviously the best choice.
Bush has no control over the border, that is congress's job.
The dems and rino's block any attempt to make real changes.
A few months back there was a senate amendment for more border agents, the dems and rino's blocked it.
I think Kyl is going to propose for 10,000 more border agents, I've heard the dems and rino's are going to block it.
The executive branch has very little power in our govt system. Bush gets blame for so much that is starting to get laughable. Bush could be Jim Gilchrist and with the dems and rino's in congress there wouldn't be major changes.
Here are my comments, concerns and questions over the nomination of Harriet Miers (which I also believe was a betrayal by Bush to his majority conservative base. There were dozens of potential nominees more deserving and more qualified who have been bloodied and battle-scarred in the fight for social & cultural issues, pro-life, pro-pledge, pro-Christian, pro-heterosexual values, etc... but Bush dissed all of these to nominate a blank slate that we are supposed to simply trust Bush on). Anyway here are my comments and questions.....
Anything Schumer, Leahy, Reid, and Kennedy oppose, I am generally for. Anything they are pretty much okay with, I am usually very much against.
Which makes me all the more concerned over Harry Reid's glowing approval of Harriet Miers..... even Chuckie Schumer, Patrick Leahy and Barbara Feinstein spoke approvingly of Miers. I contrast their initial treatment and approval of Miers with their vehement opposition and filibuster threats if women like Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown or Edith Jones had been nominated. I am baffled and greatly curious over "Why are these Dims so approving of Harriet Miers and yet were so ferocious & outspoken against dozens of other conservative women or men that Bush could have nominated? What is it that they know that gives them such reassurance for Miers, who supposedly is an evangelical Christian, pro-life, anti-abortion and against special treatment for gays? Especially when they threatened to filibuster any other potential nominees that held these same views, especially if they were pro-life? Is it because they know in reality that Miers will break left on these issues once she is confirmed on the SC?
He cut off funding to abortion over seas, opened federal grants to religious institutions, cut taxes as the first order of business in his presidency, has named many many conservative justices to the court including renominating several who had been filibustered once his numbers in the senate had escalated. He invaded Iraq against the wishes of the U.N.. Increased the pay of military families, stemmed the tide of "age promotion" in public schools - allowed parents to choose other schools if their schools failed to improve. There are many many more examples. My point however, was only to answer your challenge.
While I think that Miers will turn out to be a pleasant surprise to many of the faithful, President Bush's spending habits are not those of a true conservative. He has increasd the sixe of Government and is proposing that all Tax-Payers foot the bill to rebuild the Gulf Coast - spending more money than the entire expense of the WOT.
But, I just don't see this man sitting in his office thinking about who to pick and thinking, "...hmmm I think I'll nominate someone who does not believe in the Constitution the way I believe in it". I don't think Bush could go around espousing his view on what a Supreme Court jjustice should be and then not hire a person under those same auspices. Bush has shown an incredible ability to have things turn out right. Give this lady a chance. If she's not the right person, then you can complain. For now, you have to trust the he has nominated someone who fits his idea of a good Justice.
"Bush has screwed the base, just as did his dear old dad."
At least get it right: Bush MAY have screwed the base.
You have no way of knowing. By the looks of things, he hasn't, but that's just it: you can't tell.
I do hope Bush gets another appointment. He's not missed with his appelate appointments or from the looks of things, Roberts. We'll see.
I agree, I feel betrayed. I gave money to both Bush campaigns, volunteered A LOT back in '04. I did it for the judges, judges, judges.
This is the thanks we all get for working our arses off.
Pray tell, why didn't she resign in protest?
Sadly, this decision and a few others calls into question the small decisions he makes daily in the prosecution of both wars-- maybe he makes daily incomprhensible goofs and that's why things aren't going better in either theater.
Yeah he was good when he needed us to give him the ability to go to war and get re-elected. Now he doesn't need us and he is crapping on us...
Give me a few years and I will think of one.
We need a 40 foot wall on the border and tunnel rats to get rid of the tunnels. It's a disgrace.
Thank you for posting that. Don't be surprised if people go right on whining.
And so far this is evidence of What?
And you should be embarrassed to have put anything suggesting this President is anything other than Ted Kennedy when it comes to immigration and the borders.
Shuffling INS around and Extending a VOLUNTARY workplace verification program ? Well, I guess that makes your list look longer.
How about something closer to the truth - "Presided over the greatest influx of illegal aliens ever"
Sounds like what a big, overgrown child would do---nothing a grown man, much less the President of the United States, would do.
Maybe we in the base should "re-irk" GW. Take away his candy and send him to bed without any confirmation.
Stop the Miers nomination. Withdraw it, GW.
Nice job.
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