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White House warns holdouts
U.S.News.com ^ | 10/13/05 | Kenneth T. Walsh

Posted on 10/13/2005 5:47:35 PM PDT by baystaterebel

White House officials have a message for conservative Republican senators who have expressed doubt about supporting Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.

The West Wing types argue that she will turn out to be just as conservative as President Bush says she is, and voting against her would be an embarrassment over the long term. This message is intended for holdouts including Sam Brownback of Kansas, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

"If Miers is confirmed and she winds up being what the president says she is, Republican senators who voted against her will look quite foolish," says a GOP insider. This could cause a backlash against these legislators from conservative Bush supporters at the grass roots.

(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: miers; scotus
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To: trubluolyguy

Do us all a favor and sit home now. We don't want you. We don't need you.


481 posted on 10/13/2005 11:48:06 PM PDT by af_vet_1981
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To: Cboldt
And the president acquiesced. He is weak.

He might be as slow as everyone else to recognizing that the filibuster is the core problem, but I think he's waking up now. I wouldn't call him weak.

482 posted on 10/13/2005 11:48:26 PM PDT by Kryptonite
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To: fish hawk
Wow you really sound down and out, kinda like a Democrat.

They all sound like Democrats, or Jim Jeffords.

483 posted on 10/13/2005 11:49:33 PM PDT by af_vet_1981
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To: trubluolyguy

Which is precisely why I'm no longer a Republican. I'm sick of the bull ----. When party "loyalists" can't even be honest with themselves, let alone others, it's time for reassessment with regard to what the RP reality actually is.

Big spending, erased borders, harmonic reconfigurations of nations... This is what passes for conservatism in the RP?

Lofting the likes of Bill Clinton to represent the U.S.?

Is there no insult large enough to wake people up? Evidently not!


484 posted on 10/13/2005 11:49:47 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (US socialist liberalism would be dead without the help of politicians who claim to be conservative.)
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To: Kryptonite
He might be as slow as everyone else to recognizing that the filibuster is the core problem, but I think he's waking up now.

If he picked the nominee, thinking he needed 60 votes (or a promise to not filibuster or whatever you want to call it), then he was not willing to fight for a power that rightfully vests in the Office of the President.

That ain't "stong."

485 posted on 10/13/2005 11:50:22 PM PDT by Cboldt
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To: af_vet_1981

That's right, the RP doesn't need him. And what that portends is lost on you, and the party at large.

Does it every bother you that we can't beat the likes of Clinton, Gore or Kerry by a wide margin?

There's a good number of people sitting at home on Tuesdays in November and you don't think you need them.


486 posted on 10/13/2005 11:55:42 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (US socialist liberalism would be dead without the help of politicians who claim to be conservative.)
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To: Cboldt

He resigned himself to respecting the power grab by the Gang of 7.

Would it have been smart for him to ignore the power grab by the Gang of 7? Maybe it didn't appear that way when he nominated Miers, but it better appear that way now.


487 posted on 10/14/2005 12:00:02 AM PDT by Kryptonite
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To: TontoKowalski
Like me, he's taking a "wait and see" attitude. Of course, he gets a vote and I don't.

Unlike David Frum and his dopey petition, designed to derail to judicial process.

488 posted on 10/14/2005 12:00:58 AM PDT by BigSkyFreeper ("Tucker Carlson could reveal himself as a castrated, lesbian, rodeo clown ...wouldn't surprise me")
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To: DoughtyOne
Does it every bother you that we can't beat the likes of Clinton, Gore or Kerry by a wide margin?

I can't think of a single conservative patriot who did not vote against any of those three candidates (and I forgive the Perot voters in 1992 as long as they are penitent; there are no excuses not to have voted Dole/Bush/Bush in 96/00/04).

Some people are more trouble than they are worth. There will be a backlash based on Harriet Miers' votes. You can count on it. There will be a price to pay for one group or another. Bush's whole legacy is at stake and he knows her well enough to bet the farm on it. If nothing else, this has shown me that Brownback is definitely not Presidential material.

489 posted on 10/14/2005 12:03:41 AM PDT by af_vet_1981
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To: Kryptonite
Would it have been smart for him to ignore the power grab by the Gang of 7? Maybe it didn't appear that way when he nominated Miers, but it better appear that way now.

The President and the GOP-lead Senate, the press and the DEM party are all hoping the outrage burns itself out. They do not want to "go there." They are content to leave things broken, "out of sight" to all but a few of us who see it and are somewhat alarmed by it.

490 posted on 10/14/2005 12:04:29 AM PDT by Cboldt
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To: af_vet_1981

If Bush were simply betting his farm, I'd be more than willing to sit silently in the sidelines. Hell, for the most part I do anyway. No, it's not just Bush's farm. It's the nation's future. The left is very aggressive in pushing it's agenda, and if we wish to even maintain the status quo, we MUST be damned sure that our appointments pass muster with regard to actual conservatism. Moderates need not apply.

When folks who have been solidly conservative for a long time expending their tireless efforts to keep this nation on the straight and narrow take a stand, we simply cannot toss them out of the lifeboat on a whim. They deserve more than that, and we have a future that will require their continued faith in a party that claims to represent Conservatism.


491 posted on 10/14/2005 12:11:11 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (US socialist liberalism would be dead without the help of politicians who claim to be conservative.)
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To: baystaterebel
"If Miers is confirmed and she winds up being what the president says she is, Republican senators who voted against her will look quite foolish," says a GOP insider. This could cause a backlash against these legislators from conservative Bush supporters at the grass roots.

And, if they end up voting for her and she ends up being another Souter or O'Connor, there careers could be over. What's a greater risk, angering an increasingly lame duck President or facing a voter backlash for supporting a liberal justice to the Supreme Court when you party held a 55-seat majority?

In fact, I see no downside to demanding a candidate with a proven track record.

492 posted on 10/14/2005 12:20:34 AM PDT by Ol' Sparky
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To: baystaterebel
How times are a changing. Its getting hard to tell Ann Coulter from Alan Colmes these days.

Actually, it's hard to tell whether George W. Bush or Harry Reid is President these days. Reid seems to be the one picking the Supreme Court nominees, though.

493 posted on 10/14/2005 12:23:08 AM PDT by Ol' Sparky
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To: Ol' Sparky
In fact, I see no downside to demanding a candidate with a proven track record.

I see no upside to accepting a candidate of stealth, and big trouble if that becomes de rigour. Everybody is gambling in that scenario. What a nutty way to run a serious government.

494 posted on 10/14/2005 12:24:56 AM PDT by Cboldt
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To: baystaterebel
Some of them aren't Republicans; some of them aren't conservatives; as a result, they want to see Bush fail. They are afraid that Miers is everything the President has claimed she is.

Others are believing what they read.

495 posted on 10/14/2005 12:29:15 AM PDT by Chunga (Mock The Left)
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To: garbanzo

"Twelve months ago, people here were fretting over the closeness of the election polls. Who would've thought that a year later, many of the same people do not consider Bush's word and judgement worth a bucket of warm spit. Strange..."




Not so strange...Some of us remember his being burned or embarrassed, in the past, by placing his trust in the likes of Bernard Kerik, Paul O'Neill, Linda Chavez, and let's not forget Doug Wead and Christy Todd Whitman. His stand on border patrol, calling our honorable minute men vigilantes, raises a lot of doubts as to whether his judgement is as good as he thinks it is.


496 posted on 10/14/2005 1:09:40 AM PDT by Proud Conservative2 (Protect America....Help stamp out gutless wonders in the Senate.)
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To: Proud Conservative2
Tommy Thompson-to my everlasting shock-was also a pretty big disappointment at HHS.

Certainly not what we've come to expect from the man.

497 posted on 10/14/2005 1:14:26 AM PDT by Do not dub me shapka broham ("We don't want a Supreme Court justice just like George W. Bush. We can do better.")
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To: DoughtyOne

"We'll be stuck with her for decades..."

It could be decades, I suppose, since they serve for life. But she is already 60, so it might be only a decade and a half.

However, should she go wobbly, she'll become a darling of the media which will probably ensure she'll stay on well into dotage.

The woman cannot write a coherent sentance, of the wee bit of writing I've seen from her, it is all goboly-gook non-speak. That really bothers me.

Bush had the bases loaded after Roberts, and he's trying to bunt in a run. He should have hit a homer, but he didn't.

Very annoying.


498 posted on 10/14/2005 1:14:48 AM PDT by jocon307
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To: jocon307
I don't know how any incumbent senator-or any one currently fence-sitting-can support her nomination after reading that David Brooks op-ed in the NYT.

:(

499 posted on 10/14/2005 1:16:54 AM PDT by Do not dub me shapka broham ("We don't want a Supreme Court justice just like George W. Bush. We can do better.")
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To: Cboldt
It is nutty, or at the very least, extremely reckless.
500 posted on 10/14/2005 1:17:40 AM PDT by Do not dub me shapka broham ("We don't want a Supreme Court justice just like George W. Bush. We can do better.")
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