"Actually, I prefer Capitaine.
But at least you aren't calling me "Surely".
Posted on 10/09/2005 3:28:25 PM PDT by Pukin Dog
MIERS: A HISTORY [Jonah Goldberg]
I've heard enough of them from enough different people that I'm willing to make a tentative prediction about how this will be remembered. Much of this is conjecture and hunch, of course. Here is what I think historians will say:
Bush/the White House decided for whatever reason (Senate pressure, polling, etc) they needed to pick a woman. They went through a list and found that many of their top female candidates weren't confirmable or had quantifiable problems (we've heard mention that some had suprising "activism" in their records. I think Brit Hume even said so on TV on Sunday). Meanwhile, by the time they reached Miers' name they'd already bought so deeply into the "logic" of picking a woman they couldn't back out and Bush felt so strongly about Miers and the vetting was so poor they felt she made the most sense as a reliable "stealth" nominee. The added pressure that Bush and others think so highly of Miers contributed to the inability of wiser heads to say "Maybe we should go another way" or "Maybe we should give her a more thorough vetting." Then they cleared her with Dobson and a few other evangelicals who they mistakenly believed were perfectly good stand-ins for the entire conservative movement. When the blowback on Miers hit from the wider conservative world, they were caught off-guard and fell back on bad arguments (she's loyal, she's evangelical, she was a fair and honest lottery commissioner) because they had so little ammo in her record.
Then -- and this is the moment we're in now -- they got stuck in a two front war. In order to placate conservatives they needed to demonstrate that she is really a rightwinger. But for every reassurance they offer to the right, they sow more doubt on the left -- including among squishy moderates like Arlen Specter (who, by the way, Hugh Hewitt carried so much water for against a real conservative). This created an incentive for the squishes and the lefties to buy into the "she's not qualified" argument as a way to seem tolerant to both her ideology and her gender and make Bush look bad. Eventually, the surprises in her relatively unvetted-record added complaints on both sides. She withdrew before the vote.
Obviously this last bit is wild conjecture. But that's my gut feeling as of 1:51 PM, October 11, 2005. And while much of this may not pan out, I think the trust-Bush-he's-got-a-secret-plan theory will not hold up to scrutiny when more facts are known. She may still turn out to be a great justice, but it will have been a Hail-Harriet pass not some brilliant executed strategy.
I dont know who is whispering in his ear, but apparently the sentiment is spreading.......
The silence from the WH is deafening.....
LOL, heck there are women here who one day told me that our calling is to marry, stay home and raise children.
It's more spin. "Harriet was the best we could do." Always blame the RINOs. Here's the solution, you stop supporting the RINOs when the run for re-election. You support Pat Toomey over Specter or Gaffey over Chafee in the primaries. I can't accept that Bush supported Specter and now Chafee and now Bush's people blames them for having to put through a mediocre candidate.
If you're not Brit Hume, you must be Jonah Goldberg :))
and what's wrong with that :)
Ah cute, hadn't seen that before.
Dring most of the 20th Century, except for the Presidency, we had what amounted to a one party country, namely the Dems.
During the 60 years from 1932-92, the Dems controlled the House of Representatives for all but two election cycles and the Rep majority during those two cycles, 1946 (about 50) and 1952 (less than 10) were both small and short-lived compared to the Dems. During the 1930s their majority rose as high as almost 250 more Dems than Reps. During the 1960s and 70s the Dems held majorities of 150 on three different cycles and held control of Congress for 40 straight years. The Rep majority from 1994 to 2004 pales in comparison in terms of majorities and control. Today it is a high water mark of 30.
In the Senate the Dems held sway in all but two cycles from 1932-1978, i.e., 1946 and 1952 with Rep majorities of less than 10. In contrast, the Derms held huge majorities for much of the period with the 1936 cycle seeing a Dem majority of almost 60 senators, i.e., there were only about 20 Rep senators out of 96. The Reps held the majority in the Senate for three successive cycles, 1980-1984, but the majority never reached 10. The Dems then resumed control from the 1986 to 1992 cycles with majorities no less than 10. The Reps regained control for the past decade with the exception of 2000 and the Jeffords switch. Today's 11 senator majority to the Dems (not counting Jeffords the independent) is the high water mark since 1928 when the Reps had almost a 20 seat majority.
Is it any wonder why the Dems, especially the old-timers, believe they are entitled to hold the reins of power? And why the Reps are tentative in using their small but current advantage? The Dem hubris predates Nixon by decades. Roosevelt essentially destroyed the GOP for almost 60 years. I get the feeling that many of the old time Reps would like to return to being the minority party and the young ones don't have any appreciation for what it took to get that majority.
It is laughable to hear the MSM and the Dems talk about the rights of the minority and the need to involve them in the process. If the situation returned to "normal," such talk would be non-existent. This is what makes Conservatives so angry about this nomination. The Reps control the WH, the Senate, and the House and still lack the cajones to exercise power and take on the Dem minority.
I knew it!
If someone (Arlen Specter) is not a part of the Conservative Movement, how can he be a traitor to it?
"Actually, I prefer Capitaine.
But at least you aren't calling me "Surely".
Mark Levin on Hugh Hewitt:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1500742/posts
Mark Levin on Hugh Hewitt:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1500742/posts
We disagree about this Supreme Court nomination, but I'm really, really sorry about Delta Air Lines, man. It was a fine airline, much as Continental was before Frank "Chicken Lips" Lorenzo (Frank be Predator, behold, Frank went to Harvard Biz -- behold his greatness, the aura of his mano, the mightiness of his loins!) got hold of it, he and his equally thin, taut, tan, and chicken-lipped goferboy, Phil Bakes. They stunk up my home town for years while they were ruining Continental and screwing its longtime employees.
Delta was the only company I ever heard of whose employees put their own money in a sack and dragged it up to Sea-Tac to buy their boss a new Boeing. And not a stripper, either -- a brand-new 757, a $30 million airplane. Damn!
What the . . . . You mean there's something else?
For the record, absolutely nothing in the world is wrong with that...I just don't think other choices are wrong either :)
bump
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