I was wrong; so please join me in supporting Harriet Miers.

[A Jovial Cad]

"I do a lot of lurking"

Too bad you don't do a whole lot more of it...

[Torie]

What I said, is that he would send them to the floor. He will honor that, even if without his vote.

[sarasmom]

Your post confirms my decision to "wait and see", since I have already admitted my frustration regarding selecting judges on local levels.

I have several domestic policy issues with President Bush, but his not doing what he campaigned on, is not among them.
He generally seems to try to do exactly what he said he would do.

What floors me is the fact that many high profile partisan Republican "voices" squealed long and loud about this nomination.

I'm guessing the "problem" they have with Miers is that she may not be as rabidly politically partisan for their liking, not whether or not she is "conservative" enough on core constitutional issues.
I don't want a partisan Supreme Court Justice. I want thoughtfully conservative justices.

It will be interesting to see how this all works out.

[Guenevere]

Personally, I don't care if you think I have gravitas or not....

..I was tired of folks accusing PD of imagining this and I was trying to get their attention.

If you care to read forward, I do give more info.

[Paul_B]

I like it. Thanks for the insight. I think we need to not let the MSM divide us. We need to give the Pres. some room to maneuver. He's under enormous pressure, and we all cannot afford to lose sight of the value of incremental gains.

p.

[NixonsAngryGhost]

There is a real temptation to believe the best. This is a is also one of those so important times in American history where there could be subterfuge on both sides.Specter fashions himself Benjamin Disraeli reincarnated.

The anger here is definitely righteous. Lesser men than Bush would be in a rubber room but as things are looking he may be a true Neocon with socially progressive tendencies. Bottom line this White House has done a poor job communicating with his country and his base. Gillespie did not help and Bush's pathetic Press Secretary is the more suitable mascot for this administration. Limbaugh and alt media have carried too much water already.

[Torie]

Would you extend me the courtesy of copying and pasting the post to me as to what you think Hume said, exactly? I have asked you twice, and this is the third time.

[Bush 100 Percent]

I have to say that I didn't know about your issue #1, but I did suspect some of the favorite candidates might not have wanted the job. I knew Specter was a loose cannon and liable to pull just about anything, all the things in your second item ring true to me. I believe that Specter would never have voted for the Nuclear Option and needed to be added to the other defectors in any count.

I have been, however, arguing your third point since the Miers nomination and the criticism began. Which leads me to ....

The added issue is that conservatives who wanted a fight should have had it way back when the gang of 14 made their "deal". To sit back and, in hindsight, say we should fight amounts to not preparing the battlefield before the war and, then, second guessing the general who had to go with the field as is. Where were all these media pundits, then? I think the term "armchair general" was made just for them. They may have made some noise, then. But, if it wasn't enough, then, they're too late, now.

[Pukin Dog]

All I can say, is that if Brit Hume is saying what I just wrote here, you might cut me some slack?

[FreeReign]

Indeed it is OUR fault. It is us who have supported less than the best candidates for the Senate. We are responsible for Chaffee, Snowe, McCain, Graham, Lott, Frist and other persons of questionable courage. We should not be blaming Bush for our own votes. We selected the people that the President must rely upon to move his agenda forward. If they are losers, then he loses too.

You are correct about the political environment in the senate. Snowe, Collins, Chaffee, Specter, Voinovitch, Warner and others are liberals. McCain, Lott and Hagel are trouble makers. Your above comment about who is responsible for this mess is right on target. It's the voters who elect these RINO's and Democrats in the senate who are responsible.

So-called conservative commentators like Goerge Will, Robert Bork, Ann Coulter and Mark Levin can easily forget about that factor when complaining about why we didn't get the Utopian pick. I'll give credit to both Thomas Sowell and Rush Limbaugh and a few others who have mentioned the political environment the president faces when he makes his nominations.

All of that said, what you didn't mention is that it will still come down to the hearings and what Miers says. Either she'll show to be a strict constructionist -- an originalist -- or she won't.

If she is a strict constructionist, then we have won and we would not have settled. If she is not, then we have lost, and lost badly.

And BTW, a comment for conservative commentators like Will, Levin, Coulter and Bork: It is the laws of this country that are complicated -- it is the principles of the Constitution that are easy. Not being from a clicky Ivy League school or some Northeast think-tank is not a demerit. It's a positive. And grass root conservatives can easily come to that conclusion minus the elitist conservative talking-heads who risk becoming -- like the elitist Democrat talking heads we have long despised -- OUT OF TOUCH!

[Clara Lou]

You've made two snotty posts on this thread. I don't see anything "jovial" about you, but I guess "cad" works.

[Pittsburg Phil]

Maybe you're right. With all the RINOs in the senate, Mieers might be the best possible.

[Annie5622]

maybe Dog ISS Hume. ever see them in the same room??

[RobFromGa]

I'm glad that you are able to now see what has been obvious to many of us since about an hour after the announcement. President Bush is giving us someone who he believes will judge as we want, who he thinks he can get confirmed. He knows how important this is, and his options are limited by the political reality of the Senate. He also has other fights that require his political capital and he can't spend every dime getting one of the "name" jurists through the confirmation process, even if they were up for the fight.

We just need to trust that he has thought through all the possibilities and that he can't explain everything to us. We have to read between the lines and have a bit of faith. I certainly do.

[A Jovial Cad]

Cry me a river...

[Stellar Dendrite]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Guenevere]

Only if you say ....please :^

See post #229....if that doesn't satisfy you, find the transcript somewhere.

[Owen]

The point is Ginsberg made pot a precedent for rejection. Maybe it would be cool and hip in your view to to try to undo that precedent (for those who presumably need it undone), and even try to finesse it by saying people who were in the military can be "excused" for not having been potheads in their youth, but if there is a pot history in the FR rockstar judges, and Bush knew it, he can't nominate them. It would be a silly thing to do. It would be needless ammo to give to the left.

So on my list . . . way above here now in the thread, item #2 is valid.

[oceanview]

and if Stevens should pass away tomorrow - I guess that means we get Gonzales, because your source that is the only other person Specter supports. So I guess the entire SCOTUS judge selection process has been ceded to Specter apparently.

Based on your information, I hope Bush doesn't get to replace any other justices. Better to leave it to the next president, I'll take my chances there.

[Pukin Dog]

Exactly right. The gang of 14 just killed us. And you know who their leaders were, right? Some the same RINOs that will destroy our agenda should they ever gain enough power.