A pitbull in size 6 shoes!!
Posted on 10/07/2005 3:06:16 AM PDT by Crackingham
Edited on 10/07/2005 3:37:55 AM PDT by Lead Moderator. [history]
Conservatives who have for years contributed time, money, and sweat to help elect Republicans have often been justifiably outraged at the way the Republicans have then let them down, wimped out, or even openly betrayed the promises on which they were elected. Much of that frustration and anger is now being directed at President Bush for his nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Why not someone like Judge Janice Rogers Brown or any of a number of other identifiable judges with a proven history of upholding conservative judicial principles under fire?
Looming in the background is the specter of people like Justice Anthony Kennedy, who went on the High Court with a "conservative" label and then succumbed to the Washington liberal culture. But while the past is undeniable, it is also not predestination. This administration needs to be held responsible for its own shortcomings but not those of previous Republican administrations.
Rush Limbaugh has aptly called this a nomination made from a position of weakness. But there are different kinds of weakness and sometimes the difference matters. President Bush has taken on too many tough fights -- Social Security being a classic example -- to be regarded as a man who is personally weak. What is weak is the Republican majority in the Senate.
When it comes to taking on a tough fight with the Senate Democrats over judicial nominations, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist doesn't really have a majority to lead. Before the President nominated anybody, before he even took the oath of office for his second term, Senator Arlen Specter was already warning him not to nominate anyone who would rile up the Senate. Later, Senator John Warner issued a similar warning. It sounded like a familiar Republican strategy of pre-emptive surrender.
Before we can judge how the President played his hand, we have to consider what kind of hand he had to play. It was a weak hand -- and the weakness was in the Republican Senators. Does this mean that Harriet Miers will not be a good Supreme Court justice if she is confirmed? It is hard to imagine her being worse than Sandra Day O'Connor -- or even as bad.
The very fact that Harriet Miers is a member of an evangelical church suggests that she is not dying to be accepted by the beautiful people, and is unlikely to sell out the Constitution of the United States in order to be the toast of Georgetown cocktail parties or praised in the New York Times. Considering some of the turkeys that Republicans have put on the Supreme Court in the past, she could be a big improvement. We don't know. But President Bush says he has known Harriet Miers long enough that he feels sure. For the rest of us, she is a stealth nominee. Not since The Invisible Man has there been so much stealth. That's not ideal by a long shot. But ideal was probably never in the cards, given the weak sisters among the Republicans' Senate "majority." Full article
Miers is mediocre.
"There are millions of mediocre Americans, and they, too, deserve to be represented in the United States Supreme Court!"
--Sen. Roman Huskra in support of Richard Nixon's USSC nominee G. Harrold Carswell , who was not confimed in 1970.
"The senators found Frist acceptable as an alternative to Lott. It turns out he isn't much more effective, but honestly, at the time, could you have imagined anyone worse than Lott?
The Senate has depths of incompetency that we have yet to plumb."
Heh. Who can argue with that? At the end of the day, Frist, though spineless, probably is a step in the right direction from the starting point of Lott....
I wish Coburn and Cornyn weren't first-termers. Can you imagine anything more terrifying to libs/mods than if one of those guys became majority leader?
I like the nine guys that had the stones to vote against the new guidelines on interrogation. I think Sessions was in there also, a half dozen more.
yes...
But to paraphrase a great man, you 'go to war with the senate army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.'
I wish that the Senate would have named Jeff Sessions the Majority leader. Don't know that he could do much better with the Rinos but I don't think he would quietly stand by when they embarrassed the party either.
Democrats, in congress, (and in state governments in many states) act like scorned and spurned women. Ever try "negotiating" or talking to a woman in a huff and high dudgeon? Gotta get her best friend, her mom, or a negotiator in -- just to communicate. To my way of viewing it, that's what Specter and McCain fulfill. Sure, they have their own agendas and ideas, but they can be mighty useful as "negotiators". Hatch, too, sometimes.
I agree with you to a point, at this juncture in time. Take CA, for example, Dems hold most all the reigns of power. Not enough "conservative" power to negotiate, yet. IMHE. But, the situation is continually improving as Dems fall on their swords playing 2-foot-high blindman's bluff with the population.
Kennedy was not thought of as third-tier, but he was the third choice. I recall that Souter came pretty highly credentialed. To the extent he was a stealth nominee, that stealth extended to the President as well, unlike Miers.
Great response. It really doesn't take all THAT much intelligence to decipher the constitution and apply what it actually says. It DOES take a lot of "intelligence" to warp it into purported emanations and penumbras.
I didn't attend an elite law school (University of North Carolina) but I did learn enough to know that too many supposedly intelligent elitists try to hide the ball through intentionally complicated language so as to try to enhance their own image and camouflage their bending of the law to suit their own ends.
I continue to be concerned at the vitriol leveled at President Bush and Harriet Miers. Even if you disagree, man are you guys rough on them!
It really doesn't take all THAT much intelligence to decipher the constitution and apply what it actually says. It DOES take a lot of "intelligence" to warp it into purported emanations and penumbras.The fact that I agree with you on this is not to say that Miers is not intelligent. I suspect she's more intelligent than I am. More intelligent than a lot of people.
But what she obviously is not:
She is obviously not an ivy league ivory tower self-appointed genius who knows better than the rest of us.
That's because the Republican Party stands for nothing besides being reelected. A party with principles would ensure that people like Jim Jeffords be employed as bus drivers, not party representatives.
I hope that I didn't leave the impression that I thought Miers was not an intelligent person either. I am truly disturbed by the fire in the eyes of some who oppose her.
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