Posted on 10/25/2005 11:57:05 PM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
< /snip>
Those who claim that it is only Washington eggheads and activists who are disillusioned, misunderstand and underestimate the consequences of such Washington-based problems. The current Washington Republican negativity to Mr. Bush is as a stone thrown into a lake -- it will ripple outward until it causes waves on the distant shores of the heartland.
< / snip>
More importantly, the president is perilously close to duplicating the estrangement his father experienced from his congressional allies when George H.W. Bush raised taxes in 1990. Just a year out from congressional elections, Republican congressmen and senators are in the process of making the practical judgment whether to distance themselves from the president to save their skins. I don't blame them. (After all, it's not as if he is currently championing their principles and policies domestically.)
If they decide in the affirmative, their constituents will hear criticisms rather than support of the president for the next 12 months. The most dangerous time for any politician is not when his opponents say rude things about him, but when his own partymen do. They will start out respectfully disagreeing, but will build to more flagrant rhetoric as their Democratic Party opponents start raising and spending more money and start rising in the polls.
< /snip>
First, withdraw the unfortunate nomination of Harriet Miers. Not only is there almost no enthusiasm for her nomination, I have never seen as much outright hostility and even anger at an appointment from a president's own party. Replace her with a highly qualified, full-blooded, proven conservative nominee. (Any number of his appointments to the courts of appeal will do.)
Then he can have a principled fight between conservatives and liberals...
< /snip>
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
That may be true, but if it is, it shows that Bush isn't thinking clearly.
You go by a just a person's writings, but their judicial track record. What a person writes or says is just their thoughts of the moment - how a person has ruled in actual cases demonstrates their judicial philosophy. There is no way to hide from that.
That has been the thought going on for years now and all that has happened is that we've been compromising our ground away. Gun owners are tired of it.
As for the Dems putting pro gun legislation forth, watch in the next few years as they do just that. The move is to the right on the gun issue in the Democratic party because they know gun control is why they are losing power. I know this for a fact and it's going to surprise the hell out of people like you when they start doing it but I'm telling you now, it's coming. Yes, there will be division in their party because of it but the tide is moving to the right on the gun issue.
For the life issue, you are absolutely right... they are going to sacrifice the gun issue in order to gain strength on abortion... by sticking to the RINO is better than nothing rhetoric we are just helping them in that goal.
Thanks but no thanks, I'm voting for whomever passes my litmus test on guns. I'm withholding my vote for anyone who doesn't.
I, like more and more other gun owners, am refusing to vote for the lesser of two evils from now on.
Mike
I mean reading somebody's diary written out in the form of legal opinions is okay.... but it ain't in the top two ways in my mind.
Did they give him a lifetime contract when he was first hired? You see, that is the point. You just don't give an unknown a lifetime contract.
But Harriet Mies is not an unknown to our president. She is to you... but not to him, or to his wife.
with the constant elite hang wringing and the desperation to only allow "judicial monestary" access, I doubt very much eve 10% of the population cares.
This is an inside the beltway tempest and the only people watching of the political "sports fans." Everyone else is busy working for a living.
A president has no idea what cases will come before the court in the next 30 years. Do you think anyone anticipated Kelo, CFR or the Patriot Act 20 years ago?
That is why you look at the person's judicial philosophy. A person that has an originalist or textualist philosophy will tend stay on the right road. A person that just happens to share the president's view on abortion and gun control is totally unpredictable in other matters.
I mean reading somebody's diary written out in the form of legal opinions is okay.... but it ain't in the top two ways in my mind.
What are you talking about? I am referring to studying their ACTUAL DECISIONS - you know the words that a judge writes when they specify their ruling and why they ruled the way they did. Who said anything about a diary?
Yes she is. Bush and even Miers have no idea how she would rule as a judge because she has never been in that situation.
You know... I remember when my father was first elected to a city council. He was in the outnumbered block. They spent the next two elections getting 2 complete bozo's elected. These two guys were old, uninformed, etc. I'm not sure one of them could have tied a pair of shoes. But they talked to their "neighbors" a lot etc. And in the end... the would vote exactly as you told them to... because they felt like they owed you. That worked real good for a lot of years.
That's where we are with this court. Like it or not... that's where we are until the constitution is ammended and congress takes back it's power.
How hard is to tell her... "you vote with Thomas and Scalia"?
So who are any of us, not trained as Con Law scholars, to dare defy the pronouncements of the Harvard and Yale Justices who know far better than us??
I disagree with those that think nonlawyers can be on the Court. The job requires the ability to understand legal concepts and write high-quality opinions. But one also has to be careful not to give the impression that the job is only open to legal scholars from the "right" schools, or that there is only one acceptable path to SCOTUS (District or Circuit Court judges).
Frankly, Harriet Miers's knowledge of commercial law on a practical level does not exist on SCOTUS, and such knowledge is necessary for the Court to have. Not every case faced by SCOTUS is a Con Law case.
If a person has a long term track record (10+ years) of following an originalist philosophy and deferring to supreme court precedents when applicable then the odds are good that he will continue to do so.
What is certain is that once a judicial activist, always a judicial activist. Even one that tends to lean right will not be a reliable vote and will eventually veer to the left as all activists do.
Weed out the judicial activists and any who don't have enough of a track record to make an informed judgment.
A very nice template. Well done.
One little problem. There is at best considerable doubt that the Senate would have a vote on a nominee fitting this template. It is quite possible that the President was told privately by several Republican Senators (the usual gang of weasels) that such a candidate will NOT get a vote because there aren't 50 Senators willing to go "nucular".
I personally would have loved to see Janice Rogers Brown nominated and the 'Rats utterly crushed. Nothing would have pleased the vast, vast majority of us more than to see her tear Fat Ted, DiFi, Plugs, Chucky, Leaky Leahy and the other 'Rats to shreds. I was PISSED when Bork was Borked, PISSED when Thomas was lynched, PISSED when Jeffords jumped, PISSED when the Gang of 14 deprived us of what looked like total victory, and I'm PISSED now.
We don't have 50 Senators willing to ram JRB through right now. I hate that. But we don't have the votes.
So the President made his choice. I'm supporting it because any other option is worse. I'd rather be counting down the hours to JRB, but that's not going to happen whether Miers makes it or not. We don't have the votes.
Angus Reid Global Scan) – More adults in the United States are questioning whether George W. Bush’s most recent Supreme Court nominee should serve in the tribunal, according to a poll by Rasmussen Reports. 34 per cent of respondents believe Harriet Miers should not be confirmed, up six points since mid-October.
In the U.S., Supreme Court justices are appointed for life by the president and confirmed by a majority vote in the Senate. On Sept. 29, John Roberts was sworn in as the new chief justice. Roberts—who served as a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit—was ratified in a 78-22 upper house vote. The 50-year-old Roberts became the youngest chief justice in two centuries.
On Oct. 3, Bush nominated close aide Miers to supplant retiring Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, saying, "I believe that senators of both parties will find that Harriet Miers’ talent, experience and judicial philosophy make her a superb choice to safeguard the constitutional liberties and quality of all Americans. (...) I ask the Senate to review her qualifications thoroughly and fairly and to vote on her nomination promptly."
On Oct. 19, Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Miers to resubmit specific parts of her judicial questionnaire, calling some of her responses "inadequate," "insufficient" and "insulting." 64 per cent of respondents believe it is very or somewhat likely that Miers will be confirmed.
On Oct. 24, Bush referred to a specific request to release documents related to advice provided by Miers to the White House, saying, "That would breach very important confidentiality. And it’s a red line I’m not willing to cross. People can learn about Harriet Miers through hearings, but we are not going to destroy this business about people being able to walk into the Oval Office and say, ‘Mr. President, here’s my advice to you, here’s what I think is important.’"
Polling Data
Should Harriet Miers be confirmed?
Oct. 20
Yes: 30%, No: 34%, Unsure: 36%
Oct. 12
Yes: 32%, No: 28, Unsure: 40%
"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." Harriet Miers, speech to the Executive Women of Dallas, 1993.
"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the meaning of human life." Anthony Kennedy, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa.v.Casey, 1992.
Maybe Kennedy purloined that line from Neil Kinnock.
:7)
She ain't been lynched. It's just her lack of a record and suitable qualifications catching up to her.
"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." Harriet Miers, speech to the Executive Women of Dallas, 1993.
"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the meaning of human life." Anthony Kennedy, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa.v.Casey, 1992.
Oh. My. G-d.
I was mistaken. I retracted it in post 196 but forgot to send it to both of you. I misread the article I was reading where they compared her belief in self-determination and the article quoted Kennedy's Casey opinion. I thought they had attributed it to Harriet Miers, which they didn't. She still believes it, but she didn't plagiarize it.
The following, however, I just took directly from the speech: "The ongoing debate continues surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual women's (sic) right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion."
How many pro-life evangelicals would prefer the phrasing "to once again criminalize abortions" over "guaranteeing the sanctity of life from conception"? Judging from the meager defenses of Ms. Miers on FR, a siginificant proportion of that number are doing it solely on the abortion issue. They are basing this assumption on her evangelicalism and assurances of the White House. Her own words in this speech as well as her reverence for stare decisis don't seem to indicate strong pro-life leanings. And the White House can't use the defense that it was from a 1993 speech since the President himself has said that Harriet will be the same in 20 years as she is today. For that argument to work, it has to work in both directions.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.