Posted on 10/11/2005 12:49:28 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite
White House Pours More Gasoline On The Fire
It's either feast or famine at the White House with the Harriet Miers nomination. Given the chance to lay out a positive, substantial case for her nomination to the Supreme Court, the Bush administration has remained largely silent. However, given an opportunity to smear the base that elected them, the administration has seized practically every opportunity to do so. The latest comes from the normally classy First Lady, who again promoted Ed Gillespie's barnburner accusation of sexism among the ranks of conservatives:
Joining her husband in defense of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, Laura Bush today called her a "role model for young women around the country" and suggested that sexism was a "possible" reason for the heavy criticism of the nomination.
"I know Harriet well," the first lady said. "I know how accomplished she is. I know how many times she's broken the glass ceiling. . . . She's very deliberate and thoughtful and will bring dignity to wherever she goes, certainly the Supreme Court." ...
Asked by host Matt Lauer if sexism might be playing a role in the Miers controversy, she said, "It's possible. I think that's possible. . . . I think people are not looking at her accomplishments."
Perhaps people haven't looked at her accomplishments because this White House has been completely inept at promoting them. We have heard about her work in cleaning up the Texas Lottery Commission, her status as the first woman to lead the Texas Bar Association, and her leadership as the managing partner of a large Texas law firm. Given that conservatives generally don't trust trial lawyers and the Bar Association and are at best ambivalent to government sponsorship of gambling, those sound rather weak as arguments for a nomination to the Supreme Court. If Miers has other accomplishments that indicate why conservatives should trust Bush in her nomination, we've yet to hear that from the White House.
Instead, we get attacked for our supposed "sexism", which does more to marginalize conservatives than anything the Democrats have done over the past twenty years -- and it's so demonstrably false that one wonders if the President has decided to torch his party out of a fit of pique. After all, it wasn't our decision to treat the O'Connor seat as a quota fulfillment; that seems to have originated with the First Lady herself, a form of sexism all its own.
Besides, conservatives stood ready to enthusiastically support a number of women for this nomination:
* Janice Rogers Brown has a long run of state Supreme Court experience, got re-elected to her position with 78% of the vote in California, and has written brilliantly and often on constitutional issues. She is tough, erudite, and more than a match for the fools on the Judiciary Committee, and would also have made minced meat out of any arguments about a "privileged upbringing", one of the snide commentaries about John Roberts in the last round.
* Edith Hollan Jones has served on the federal bench for years, compiling a record of constructionist opinions. She is younger and more experienced than Miers, and has been on conservative short lists for years.
* Priscilla Owen has a record similar to Brown's on the Texas bench and has demonstrated patience and judicial temperament that would easily impress the American people to the detriment of the opposition on the Judiciary Committee.
* Want a woman who litigates rather than one from the bench? One could do worse than Maureen Mahoney, who has argued over a dozen cases at the Supreme Court, clerked for Rehnquist who also later named her as Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission, has been recognized as one of the top 50 female litigators by National Law Journal, and even worked on the transition team in 2000-1 for George Bush.
How does endorsing that slate of candidates equate to sexism in opposition to the unremarkable Miers? It doesn't, but as with those practiced in the victimization smear, the facts really don't matter at all. This kind of argument we expect from the Barbara Boxers and the Ted Kennedys, not from a Republican White House.
It's enough to start making me think that we need to send a clearer message to George Bush. The White House needs to rethink its relationship to reality and its so-far loyal supporters.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin notices this, too.
We shall see my fine feathered friend. We already know her personal accomplishments are suspect; unless Ms Miers impresses the panel with the carriage, intellect and character expected of the position, the Senators will be left asking one primary question: why (ie on what basis) was this woman nominated? It will then be up to them to perform their constitutional duty in rejecting this nominee, unless, of course, she withdraws her name first.
There's nothing to see my fine three toed sloth. What I said was accurate.
I'm perfectly willing to have our respective records reviewed by objective judgement.
samantha, Laura said we were SEXIST. How cheap a shot is that!
Her friend, Harriet, is not Scalia or Thomas!
The POT threads are just to make sure the addicted ones don't go unchallenged here. I don't get trilled with the social liberal agenda of the drug activists that post for addiction there.
The President with his choice has someone who he's known for fourteen years. He knows how she would vote.
Bush by not putting a known Bork type up there avoids giving Democrats the ability to fund raise tens of millions.
I don't doubt I hold a minority conservative view in how I see the Bush strategy, but I think my point does have merit B-SST.
trilled = thrilled
How on earth could you think it's sexism? Do you really think people would be overjoyed with a man who had her middling qualifications? Her opponents have a whole slate of women justices they would happily endorse, so you can't say they object to women justices. On precisely what grounds do you claim the opposition is likely to be sexist?
A good chief executive doesn't have to be fair to both sides--he can just go with whatever case feels right in his gut. A good chief executive can cut through legal niceites-- a judge has to deal with them. A good chief executive can be purely pragmatic-- a judge has to not only solve the case before him, but do it in a way which is consistent statutes, regulations,common law principles, and sometimes centuries of legal precdent. They are very different jobs.
Of course, she could have said no, it's not sexism. She could have said that some conservatives underestimate Miers, but that she doens't believe there's any sexism on the Republican side.
Or she could have laughed it off, and said "Don't be ridiculous, in this day and age almost no one objects to a woman judge."
Instead, she turned on her husband's base.
"Give me a break, the MF law in NO WAY "enviserated the First Amendment." Read the law. Butting easily avoided restrictions on political parties has ZERO impact upon the First Amendment which was not intended to apply to political parties but to individuals. Read the law. Individuals lost NO rights by MF."
Save your condescension for somewhere else. I've read it and here's what it does. It bans issue ads from outside organizations in the final days of an election.
It bans my political speech through the NRA. It bars the NRA from running ads. That is unconscionable.
I was never prouder to be an NRA member than when they filed the lawsuit contesting that law the day GWB signed it. Sadly, we lost, but, we're not done.
The disciplinary demands are different, but they require the same type of intellectual equipment.
A good chief executive is capable of being a good judge -- in the same way that a good athlete is capable of being either a football player or a baseball player.
They require very different temperments. There's a good reason why only one US president was appointed to SCOTUS.
Great post bump!!!
They are not his cronies unlike this lady.
Our beloved SINKSPUR:
http://www.catholiccitizens.org/platform/platformview.asp?c=26405
This surprises you? Bush is the same man who created the single biggest new entitlement program since the 1960's, hasn't vetoed a single spending bill, failed to act against racial quotas when given a chance, expanded the Federal Role in education, lobbied for an illegal alien amnesty, and refuses to enforce our borders. The list just goes on and on.
Is this the way a conservative acts? And now you're surprised he's not nominating conservatives to SCOTUS or playing the sex card?
When the history of the Bush years is written, it will be noted that Bush did more damage to the conservative cause than any democratic president ever dreamed of doing (excepting, of course, the extreme examples of FDR & LBJ).
is that joke?
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