(My, she's been in demand lately!
Posted on 10/11/2005 4:03:06 PM PDT by Crackingham
If you have praised John Roberts for his many charms, you will need to find other charms if you wish to praise Miss Miers. What was striking last week was the swift and certain verdict from conservatives that no competing set of charms was possible in the case of Miss Miers.
The conservative community wanted a stellar nominee and wanted Mr. Bush to fight. It seems likely to me that Mr. Bush placed a high value on avoiding the prospect of a High Court "nuclear option" scenario, in which Republicans in the Senate queued up a simple majority to change the filibuster rule in order to confirm a new justice. There are three plausible reasons for that: First, there would be a certain taint on a justice who assumed the bench on the basis of a rule change. Second, the nuclear option is itself an escalation — an escalation in response to a prior escalation in the form of a filibuster of a nominee, but an escalation nonetheless. Third, how certain is it that there are 51 GOP votes to change the rule? Is there really a nuclear option? In the course of his consultation with the Senate, Mr. Bush heard of Senate minority leader Harry Reid's now-notorious affection for Miss Miers. This perhaps looked like an opportunity to win without a big fight. He took it. A fight with the left, that is. The question for connoisseurs of politics now is this: Can the right make Mr. Bush pay a significant political price for his selection of Ms. Miers? This is more than a question about the blogosphere and the op-ed pages. Can the opposition to Mr. Bush over Miss Miers turn into declining approval for Mr. Bush among his conservative base, the bulwark of his support?
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
You, again?
Which is whatthe critics want. They really have nothing against Miers. They are just mad at Bush
They announced ahead of time that they were predisposed toward a woman and then they picked the least qualified one, based on her personal connections. It happens in institutional hiring all over America every day. There is no reason to wonder why government is inept. It starts at the top.
Discretion is the better part of valor
- Falstaff in Shakespeare's King Henry the Fourth.
The conservative community wanted a stellar nominee and wanted Mr. Bush to fight. It seems likely to me that Mr. Bush placed a high value on avoiding the prospect of a High Court "nuclear option" scenario, in which Republicans in the Senate queued up a simple majority to change the filibuster rule in order to confirm a new justice.
This is what I find most perplexing. That rather than fight with the left, GWB would prefer to fight with his base. Laura called me, and every other thoughtful conservative who opposes this nomination, a "sexist" today. The White House staff has been even more abrasive in their characterizations of us. I only wish they were half as forthright in going after Harry Reid.
IMHO, considering current Senate realities, Dubya figured he had a better chance winning a fight with his base over a known quantity (that the base will like), vs losing a fight over a publicly known quantity.
How do we know Miers is not as conservative as Scalia and Thomas? She may well be. The President has done an A+ job of picking judges the last 5 years and I don't see him messing up on his most important judicial selection after doing a flawless job the last 5 years. I believe that Miers is a stealth conservative, a Scalia disguised as a O'Connor. If this is the case, we have the best of both worlds, the conservative we want with no fight to get her on the S.C. I believe next July when the S.C. goes on recess, conservatives will never doubt the President again on judicial nominations.
How do you feel about the Charge of the Light Brigade?
"Can the opposition to Mr. Bush over Miss Miers turn into declining approval for Mr. Bush among his conservative base, the bulwark of his support?"
I think the author has made the case that Bush is now limited in what he can do in the future by the whims of the Mod Squad AKA the Gang of 14. Will they let future conservative nominees through or will they all have to be in the Miers "stealth" mold to pass muster with Reid and the RINOs? What about new tax relief, or social security reform, or other parts of the Bush agenda. They are now hostage to the Mod Squad's desires. And at the same time, he's pissed off a lot of former supporters (I'm one of them). The weaker he looks to the Republicans and Mod Squad, the weaker he becomes.
I find it hard to believe GWB did not anticipate the firestorm that would be coming from the base on this. He had to choose between fighting his base or fighting the moderates and Dimwits in the Senate, and he made the political calculation that we were the less formidable foe.
He knew the Dims were going to like the pick. Reid recommended her. Miers has a record of being someone the Dims can work with. Her law firm is a significant contributor to their campaigns, and she was quite willing to go along with most Dimwitted initiatives (with abortion being the one exception) when she was on the Dallas City Council. They see her as someone who is politically pragmatic and malleable (translation: Sandra Day O'Connor).
We aren't out her in the hitherlands singing "I'm just wild about Harrie...."
Perhaps you didn't see the show or the transcript. When asked if she thought it was "possible" that sexism played a part, she acknowledged that it is "possible." That is not an accusation. It is an acknowledgement of a "possibility." She did not say it was probable.
Should a First Lady, in that instance, reply that it is not possible? What if she were then proven wrong by some knucklehead who said he opposed Miers because she was a woman? Mrs. Bush can't "win" in this matter now, can she?
Well, someone else pointed out that, politically, he needs Harry Reid and the Dims more than he needs his base if he wants to move forward with any kind of agenda. Given what I've seen of his domestic agenda so far, I shudder to think what might be next. Can there possibly be another government boondoggle or pork barrel project we can throw more money at?
I hate to speculate, but I think it could be more. I think he is worried that the administration is going to take a big hit from the special prosecutor later this month, and he thinks he needs more friends among the moderate/liberal majority in congress . Given the growing unpopularity with the war, the fact that the Sunnis could go into open rebellion after the constitution, the yield curve flatlining and a recesion for 2006 looming, the hit he took on Katrina, his tanking poll numbers, etc. the timing was not right to put another difficult item on the agenda. So he took what he calculated was the easier course.
The brouhaha over Miers from the right is nowhere near as harsh and bitter as would be the brouhaha from the left and the MSM had he picked Owens or Brown.
The better answer would be say something like:
"Oh, I don't think so, we have these disagreements from tiime to time and it's good for our democracy. But I don't think it's appropriate to get into name calling."
Couching something as "possible" doesn't really take the sting out of it as far as I am concerned. And this has been the White House line for several days now.
No matter whether there is one or three vacancies on the United States Supreme Court, whether the hearings on replacement(s) begin in August or September, or whether Democrats make or break their "deal" and filibuster based on ideology, one thing is almost certainly going to happen: Mainstream media coverage of the battle will be biased against the Bush nominee(s) from the crack of the first gavel.http://www.worldmag.com/hughhewitt/hewitt.cfm?id=18063
Hugh Hewett - Lions' den - Jul 16, 2005
No she didn't.
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