Posted on 10/12/2005 12:26:51 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite
MIERS & LAST-MINUTE DROP-OUTS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A journalist friend just spoke with a top Texas lawyer who spoke with Priscilla Owen last week. He says that she "most emphatically" did not withdraw her name from consideration to the Court. If the White House spin is that Harriet Miers got the job because nobody else wanted it, it would seem that the White House is at a desperation point. Posted at 12:07 PM
You weren't around when Bush named Cheney as his Veep candidate. There was much blood in the water then, too. And from the usual suspects.
Hey it's just as good as speaking to a friend of a friend of Miers and hearing "whadda gal".
NO COMPROMISING WITH THE RINOS!
;0)
K-Lo continues making ill-informed commentary about Miers. (Yes, I'm aware of her colleague posting on NRO's bench forum about Miers' supposed anti-Federalist attitude)
excerpt:
It's too soon to judge this nomination. But my guess is that in the end it is the liberals who will have the most misgivings about Miers.
I came to that conclusion after a breakfast interview -- by coincidence the morning of the president's announcement -- with Leonard Leo, who is on leave as executive vice president of the Federalist Society to work with the White House on judicial confirmation issues.
The Federalist Society, an organization of conservative lawyers, has been influential in staffing the Bush administration and recommending candidates for the federal bench. Leo came late to the breakfast from a conference call, in which he was attempting to quash the arguments other conservative leaders were making against Miers.
He spoke as one who has known and worked with her for well over a decade, who has played host to her when she has been a Federalist Society speaker, and -- perhaps most significant -- who joined her in a battle to get the American Bar Association to rescind its resolution endorsing Roe v. Wade , the decision establishing a right to abortion.
~snip~
that is just another way to stifle dissent
"This is where we differ. I don't see GOP vs DEM as us vs. them. I see it as THEM vs. THEM"
This is where we differ :) The Dems are polar opposite of most republicans in the house, senate, and certainly the White House. Besides the border, over spending, and a couple other smaller issues, Bush has represented the conservates gallantly. He has been a moral, straight shootin, Reaganesque leader. Whereas almost anybody running as a democrat has a moral compass that is doing 360's, are aligned closer to marxism than JFK liberalism, and would outspend this White House easily (not easy to do). It's like night and day.
Not if you like Kool-Aid.
Toomey / Spectre was interesting too, but much smaller.
It's fairly easy to identify the posters who benefit from being in the GOP-power elite.
Those are all excellent reasons why you and I and most (if not all) of our fellow FReepers would not have nominated her. They even call President Bush's objectivity on the matter into question. What they fail to do is provide an actual reason to oppose her once nominated. She seems to satisfy the Constitutional requirements for the position. I may not like the choice, but I voted to have the President make that choice and now I have to live with it... right?
You are correct. I was not here when Bush chose Cheney. Let me guess, "too old", "a crony retread"... what else am I missing?
BUMP!
That's all the news media seems to require for airing a story. Why should we demand anything more, I ask you? ("Journalistic integrity"? What's that?)
I'm not a politician. I don't calculate this vs. that. I think what I think and I vote how I vote. If a Democrat comes along with a good platform, I'll vote for him. I couldn't give two craps about the GOP.
The White House is at a desperation point? This is someone asserting that IF the White House claimed that no one else wanted the job that would be untrue. The White House hasn't made that claim.
I think this nomination has drug every self important whiney conservative out of the woodwork to look for reasons to be offended. If they can't find reasons to be offended they start becomming offended about hypothetical possible reasons.
This seems to be a case where the hearins on the nominee might actually be useful and if we can get the Senators to ask questions and listen to the answers rather than talking to hear themselves talk, they might be informative.
She's been nominated. Get over it and wait until we have information from the hearings to form an opinions about her with.
Hm, your September 30 citation about Owen withdrawing has been ignored.
Probably so will my noting in post 204 evidence that Miers is not anti-Federalist Society as some (including the ever-shallow K-Lo at NRO) keep insisting.
"Could you imagine next GWB picks his personal CPA to be Fed Chairman?"
Chris, that's a darn good analogy.
Interesting historical facts:
Salmon P. Chase - resigned from Lincoln's cabinet after disagreements with the President. Lincoln then made him CJUSSC, and he swore Lincoln in for his second term.
Teddy Roosevelt offered WH Taft either the Republican party nomination or the CJUSSC. Taft, at his wife's insistence, took the White House. After his solo term in office, WG Harding eventually gave him the CJUSSC post as well.
Earl Warren's soldiering as a loyal Republican, both as Dewey's VP nominee and Governor of California, earned him Eisenhower's nomination as CJUSSC.
I'm sure BOTH sides can find ammo in the above, being just a few of the USSC nominations that could have "smacked of cronyism". But just so you don't think it's "unprecedented".
I think Bush honestly felt it would make his base feel better that he accomplished both of his goals:
1) Nominate someone who he KNEW PERSONALLY would be an originalist
and
2) would be confirmable.
I would be willing to bet that he is stunned, after going to the mat for YEARS on behalf of people like Owens, Pryor, Brown, Estrada, etc. that the base would question his committment to picking originalist judges. I still contend that he had been told, after they let Roberts off easy, that it would be nigh impossible for him to get a true conservative through on the next nomination. I think he thought he would be congratulated by his supporters for putting an originalist on the court that they couldn't use a paper trail on to reject this nominee.
I think the White House is in disarray by all of this because they are stunned that they aren't "trusted" by the base on this one after the numbers of nominees that they have stuck with to the bitter end. All you have to do is look at the way the BJ Clinton unceremoniously dumped Hillary's good buddy Lani Guinier to see the difference between sticking with your people with conviction, and running when "the going gets tough."
I think Bush thinks he had a person who he knew to be a solid originalist. I don't think he felt he was "betraying" the movement. I believe he felt he was fulfilling his campaign promise.
For what it's worth...
The nomination is already a compromise; it is self-evident to anyone that can reason. It's the parade of excuses that add insult to injury. Just come out and admit that while Meirs may not be the best qualified, she's the best qualified that can be confirmed. Works for me.
The GOP is acquiescing by silence, to a 60 vote hurdle erected by anti-constitutional activists. It ratifies the filibuster as appropriate.
Senate rules by their very nature are constitutional. If the Senate wants to enact a rule requiring a 60 vote super-majority, they have every right in which to do so. Likewise, if a Republican majority wants to change the rules to 50+1 for judicial review, they too have every right; they just need to exercise it.
The GOP-lead senate is deliberatly sitting on nominations that it properly has in hand.
Myers and Bolye have been voted out of Committee, and are on the Senate's Daily Executive Calendar. Haynes, Kavanagugh and Saad are in committee.
Yesterday you said these nominations had been withdrawn. Put up, or knock off the misrepresentation.
From the link you provided to demonstate Saad "was rejected" ...
For justice, Henry Saad deserves a vote. The Senate leadership ought to make sure he gets one. And with the debate on several other judicial nominations wrapping up, there's no time like the present.
You promised to never to post to me again. Now you have violated your own word. To save you from yourself I did not read your post.
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