Kick-ass!
:)
Posted on 10/11/2005 10:45:51 PM PDT by Ol' Sparky
Republican staff lawyers on the committee -- normally the ones building the case to confirm a Republican nominee -- say they are despondent over Mr. Bush's choice and some are actively working to thwart her.
"I don't know anybody who is buying what the White House is selling here," said one Republican staffer.
"They're putting out a bunch of positive rhetoric, but they're not putting any substance behind it," said another.
Since her nomination last week, Republican staffers privately have complained bitterly that Miss Miers isn't verifiably conservative. In one staff meeting last week in the office of Judiciary Committee chief counsel Michael O'Neill, a staffer reportedly cried in disappointment.
Mr. O'Neill sent out an e-mail yesterday warning staffers to tread carefully when talking about their dissatisfaction.
A second meeting last week between staffers and White House officials devolved into a confrontational affair. Republican Senate aides who attended that meeting say the White House no longer returns their phone calls and e-mails seeking information about Miss Miers.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
As posted on an earlier thread, the Dems will immediately ask Miers about her advice to the President on GWOT-related issues: GITMO, Abu Ghraib, detention of US citizens, Patriot Act, etc. She will naturally invoke attorney-client privilege and reveal nothing. Fine.
Next the Dems (or Reps) will ask her if she would recuse herself should a GITMO/torture/Patriot Act-related issue come before the SCOTUS, having legally advised the President on these matters. If she says "Yes, I'd recuse myself." then her presence on the SCOTUS to help Bush (and America) fight the GWOT would be pointless. If she says "No, I would not recuse myself." then she has to explain why, why there would be no conflict of interest, how what she knows having advised the President would not bias her opinion on the SCOTUS, which goes back to attorney-client privilege.
And if the White House gives limited waivers for her to answer certain questions, they will have opened the floodgate for more information, on Miers and every nominee in the future.
Give her a fair hearing, she's DOA. This is a foolish blunder by the President that will be capitalized on by his political enemies and his BOHICA'd Base.
Counterpunch posted the Catch .22 scenario on another thread. Credit where it's due.
Kick-ass!
:)
Circular Firing Squad
Somehow I managed to avoid the Womens Studies department-even though there were about two dozen courses offered as electives in that field-throughout my entire sojourn.
Something tells me this woman is not in the "mold of Scalia."
Call it a hunch.
If we didn't have the Supreme Court making the law in America, we wouldn't have to torture its nominees and demand an anal exam and a quart of their blood.
They are appointed for life and they screw us royally for years and years without our having any recourse.
Judges, as untouchable tyrants, are destroying America.
The "hearings" are a red herring. They are always were.
The nominees give long answers to questions that were not asked, and the Senators puff and huff for the cameras. This is a Kabuki dance. It is never was about a search for truth on where a candidate stands, and it never will be.
The hearings do serve one purpose: a political show. They may (or may not) reveal a person's character. Justice Thomas showed he had the mettle to stand up to monsters on the committee. Judge Bork and Justice Roberts proved they were ten times smarter than their detractors.
Justice Ginsberg showed us colored drawings of herself drawn by her grandchildren (and she got away with it, compare that to the treatment of Thomas).
But let's drop all of this rhetoric that "Miers Deserves a Hearing!" She isn't on trial, and these hearings will tell us almost nothing.
You are dead wrong. While much of it may be fluff and fumpery, to those of a serious mind, it allows us to gauge the ability of the nominee to aruge a legal case with fact and logic. Maybe you cannot appreciate it, but some of us can.
Do you trust me or your own lying eyes?
Exactly!
She isn't on trial, and these hearings will tell us almost nothing.
Only to the unobservant.
The hearings .... may... reveal a person's character.
Yep.
This is a Kabuki dance
You're in good company. Schumer agrees with you.
I don't have a picture of Harriet to show you. But I have a little poem about Schumer to share.
Schumer
Day Three of the Roberts hearings II
Chuck calls the hearings absurd
But he barely lets John say a word
He talks of old pictures*
As he sets up his strictures
Chuck's comments are getting quite blurred.
(*Casablanca)
Good point!!!!
I watched the Thomas Hearings very closely.
The mistreatment of Thomas in the hearings and in the press certainly opened my eyes. I left the Democratic Party.
See...
we can learn things from hearings.
And other folks could learn a lot from the Miers hearings, too. They can learn
about Miers,about the press,about conservatives,about Republicans,about liberals.
About decent treatment of fellow humans. About the nastiness of some people.....etc
Those Republican staff aides are the core group that's needed to move the nomination through the Judiciary Committee and then the Senate. If the WH isn't returning "phone calls and e-mails seeking information about [Ms] Miers[,]" then the nomination is in real trouble. The failure to provide that type of information shows there's little legitimate basis for this nomination.
Trepidation is also warranted by the fact that every one of the seven "trust me" nominees by every Republican President in the last fifty years, starting with Eisenhower, either began as a disaster or eventually morphed into one: Warren & Brennan (Eisenhower), Blackmun (Nixon), Stevens (Ford), O'Connor & Kennedy (Reagan), and Souter (Bush I). With Republican Presidents batting 0 for 7 on "trust me" SCOTUS nominees, we'd be really dumb not to have the greatest doubts in looking at this eighth "trust me" nomination by another Republican President.
Another interesting point about this article is that it reports the WH has stopped returning Republican staffers' requests for information about her. I wouldn't be surprised if those requests include requests for information related to the recusal issue.
All of this says she's a horribly unqualified nominee who probably obtained her nomination by being deliberately disingenuous and who should now request the President to withdraw the nomination to avoid further damage to his presidency.
What a mess.
I hate to see possibly wonderfully adept people being 'borked' before they even have the first chance of publically defending and introducing their qualifications to the judiciary committee.
It is so, well, liberal like.
"There are plenty of folks here on FR that would believe the moon was made of swiss cheese if George W told them it was."
You're claiming its not?! Obviously you're a DUmmie troll!
"the whole "golly gee , im waiting for the hearings!" is so dumb."
I agree. Because unless she comes out 4 square against their favorite cause they'll immediately declare her performance a resounding vindication of Bush's choice.
Let's face it. They're going to do that no matter what.
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