Posted on 10/12/2005 9:40:01 AM PDT by West Coast Conservative
President Bush said Wednesday that Harriet Miers' religious beliefs figured into her nomination to the Supreme Court as a top-ranking Democrat warned against any "wink and a nod" campaign for confirmation.
"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers," Bush told reporters at the White House. "Part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."
Bush, speaking at the conclusion of an Oval Office meeting with visiting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, said that his advisers were reaching out to conservatives who oppose her nomination "just to explain the facts." He spoke on a day in which conservative James Dobson, founder of Focus on Family, said he had discussed the nominee's religious views with presidential aide Karl Rove.
Religion should be the absolute last thing to rate someone on, unless it's TROP related. This is nuts.
Bush really wants Gonzales, he has all along. If we see statements like this lending themselves to Miers losing - this could well be a thought out strategy to then backfill Gonzales in there if she goes down.
Tell that to Constantine.
Congratulations, yours is perhaps the most ridiculous statement of the day. An atheist is not automatically an agent of Satan. In fact, there are plenty of agents of Satan masquerading as Christians these days.
yup. here comes Alberto....
And, don't forgot, Miers is a female. Filling a quota is far more important than finding a qualified originalist with a proven track record.
I have nothing against her. I'm against her nomination. If my mother was nominated, I'd oppose her nomination, too.
Why don't you? If it was not a qualifying consideration, then why did Bush bring it up? Just to spin the Evangelicals?
The Bushbots haven't yet figured out that Pres. Bush is self-destructing and threatening to bring the liberals to power for a long time.
Okay, why are you against her nomination?
But her religion means nothing unless she's going to to apply it to the cases before the Court -- so does Bush hope that she'll be voting the Bible where it disagrees with the Constitution? Sounds to me like a good reason for the nomination to die in committee.
Probably just to drive the liberals crazy.
It was never a stated criterion of the president, and to that effect, the White House went out of its way to assure the press that his Catholicism was NOT a valid point of argument. In this case, he's using Miers' evangelic faith as a PROMINENT point of argument.
If we live by the sword, we will die by the sword. Unless we restore the viability of above-board, examinable jurists to the confirmation process, we will have a future judiciary made up of stealth nominees appointed and confirmed in the dark. We will have validated the obstructionist tactics of the liberal whackos and made the filibuster part and parcel to the judicial confirmation process.
Where do the Bible and the Constitution disagree?
only for republican presidents choices. democratic presidents choices will get on the COurt just fine.
Is this an actual in context statement? What was the question that gave this response?
Come one people, why do many of you think that what the Pres. actually said has anything to do with the spin presented here?
"Where do the Bible and the Constitution disagree?"
They disagree where you find the 10 Commandments and the 1st Amendment.
"Thou shalt have no gods before me" of the 10 Commandments is inimicable with the 1st Amendment's freedom of religion, where a Hindu is absolutely equal in citizenship as the Christian.
There are many other instances where Biblical teachings would be illegal under our Constitution, I'm afraid. That is the beauty of a secular government. It allows for people to believe a set of religious doctrines without conflicting with the government.
The government must not care what your Bible, or your Baghvad Gita says. It is a secular government, and can be the government for the religious of any faith and even for those with no religion at all.
Our Constitution is brilliant!
Thus, there is never any reason to trumpet the religious leanings of a true originalist. That's what makes this statement by Bush so frustrating. I'm delighted that she's a strong Christian. I believe that! I'm ecstatic that Roberts is a practicing Catholic. Those are my personal preferences in the character of a judge, HOWEVER, if they were the ONLY things I could point to and say, "this is a good candidate", we may one day open ourselves up to an Islamic diversity pick or a Buddhist diversity pick or what-have-you - simply because of their religion.
This is not the last opening ever on the Supreme Court. The democrats are watching very closely to see what precedents get set here. This will come back to bite us HARD one day and we will have made it acceptable to have future Lani Guiniers on the bench at our own peril.
If this isn't the case, Bush truly is just as stupid as he is portrayed by his detractors.
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