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Why the Right was Wrong
New York Times ^ | October 28, 2005 | Hugh Hewitt

Posted on 10/28/2005 3:23:24 AM PDT by WaterDragon

OVER the last two elections, the Republican Party regained control of the United States Senate by electing new senators in Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas. These victories were attributable in large measure to the central demand made by Republican candidates, and heard and embraced by voters, that President Bush's nominees deserved an up-or-down decision on the floor of the Senate. Now, with the withdrawal of Harriet Miers under an instant, fierce and sometimes false assault from conservative pundits and activists, it will be difficult for Republican candidates to continue to make this winning argument: that Democrats have deeply damaged the integrity of the advice and consent process.

The right's embrace in the Miers nomination of tactics previously exclusive to the left - exaggeration, invective, anonymous sources, an unbroken stream of new charges, television advertisements paid for by secret sources - will make it immeasurably harder to denounce and deflect such assaults when the Democrats make them the next time around. Given the overemphasis on admittedly ambiguous speeches Miers made more than a decade ago, conservative activists will find it difficult to take on liberals in their parallel efforts to destroy some future Robert Bork...(snip)

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


TOPICS: Extended News; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: harrietmiers; nro; presidentbush; secretattackers; supremecourt
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1 posted on 10/28/2005 3:23:25 AM PDT by WaterDragon
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To: WaterDragon
Yeah really. Miers had such a thin sheet that it was obvious she wasn't just up to the job. In contrast Bork was superbly qualified. The Democrats took his voluminous writings entirely out of context to portray him as a misogynist, a racist and anti-worker. The smear campaign worked. The reason Bork couldn't survive in 1987 was there was no conservative movement around then that could carry water for him. We have one today and there's no reason whatsoever for us conservatives to have to hide who we are. Let the liberals hide their beliefs.

("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")

2 posted on 10/28/2005 3:28:42 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: WaterDragon

Shake it, Hugh! WORK dat thang! WHOOOOOOOOOO -- !!!

3 posted on 10/28/2005 3:29:47 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle ("It'sTime for Republicans to Start Toeing the Conservative Line, NOT the Other Way Around!")
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To: WaterDragon

Yeah, we all voted for Bush because of the up or down vote issue...right...and by withdrawing the worse candidate and making the best decision in weeks, NOW we will turn on him

I like how Schumer makes public statements saying Miers doesn't have the votes to be confirmed, and is upset when she is pulled because 'she didn't get a chance'


4 posted on 10/28/2005 3:31:48 AM PDT by CarlEOlsoniii (If one young republican reads my posts and knows he is not alone, I have done my job)
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To: WaterDragon
Hugh, Hugh, Hugh. You need to have the cajones to admit you were wrong. I did. ("She Has Spoken . . . And I Was Wrong," http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1509837/posts). There is a WORLD of difference between getting filibustered or stopped by a MINORITY of the opposing party without a floor vote and withdrawing yourself under pressure from the MAJORITY when it is clear you didn't have the goods.

Now, come on Hugh. Be a man. It's easy: "I---Was---Wrong."

5 posted on 10/28/2005 3:31:58 AM PDT by LS
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To: WaterDragon

"Absent a miracle of Senate efficiency, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor will cast one of her last votes on the most important abortion-rights case in a few years. And then the accounting will begin in earnest."


6 posted on 10/28/2005 3:33:08 AM PDT by alnick
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To: goldstategop
The reason Bork couldn't survive in 1987 was there was no conservative movement around then that could carry water for him. We have one today and there's no reason whatsoever for us conservatives to have to hide who we are

We didn't even make the liberals show their beliefs on this one.

She should have been allowed to testify, then those "conservatives" you site, that are so strong, should have stepped up and voted against her, if she was truly what the National Review and others were saying about her.

Truth is the conservative in Congress aren't strong, as you'll soon see.

7 posted on 10/28/2005 3:33:27 AM PDT by dawn53
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To: LS

I cant wait to see how polite and accomodating the democrats are going to be when President Bush appoints Janice Rogers Brown! Im sure they will be full of nothing but praise


8 posted on 10/28/2005 3:35:44 AM PDT by ballplayer
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To: CarlEOlsoniii
Typical NYT. they've managed to misunderstand both cause and effect, and attribute both to nonexistent motivations.

It's like they live in a parallel universe.

9 posted on 10/28/2005 3:36:45 AM PDT by tcostell
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To: CarlEOlsoniii
Yeah, we all voted for Bush because of the up or down vote issue...right...and by withdrawing the worse candidate and making the best decision in weeks, NOW we will turn on him

Will you stand with him if you don't like the next candidate he nominates?

Haven't we proven that we, too, have a litmus test, just like the Dems?

Shouldn't we have the "cajones," as another poster said of Hewitt, to admit we have a litmus test?

10 posted on 10/28/2005 3:36:46 AM PDT by dawn53
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To: goldstategop
How much water did you carry for Estrada?
11 posted on 10/28/2005 3:39:54 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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To: dawn53
Haven't we proven that we, too, have a litmus test, just like the Dems?

I'd like to see you specify exactly what this "litmus test" consists of.

12 posted on 10/28/2005 3:43:29 AM PDT by angkor
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To: Ben Ficklin
We all backed him. Those who let him down where the gutless wonders in the U.S Senate who didn't have the cojones to use the "nuclear option" because they were afraid of what the Democrats would think.

("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")

13 posted on 10/28/2005 3:46:25 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: angkor
We do. We want a jurist committed to original interpretation of the Constitution, who is against judicial activism and who is pro-life. So yes, we do have an idea of the kind of judicial philosophy we are looking for in a prospective judge. No reason to be ashamed of a "litmus test."

("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")

14 posted on 10/28/2005 3:48:22 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: alnick

"Absent a miracle of Senate efficiency, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor will cast one of her last votes on the most important abortion-rights case in a few years. And then the accounting will begin in earnest."

I hope to see the Children of the Corn over at NRO/Confirm Them/Red State held to account when this happens.


15 posted on 10/28/2005 3:48:35 AM PDT by Neville72 (uist)
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To: WaterDragon

Hi, WD! Long time no see!

So...what do you think of all this?


16 posted on 10/28/2005 3:50:46 AM PDT by Killborn (Pres. Bush isn't Pres. Reagan. Then again, Pres. Regan isn't Pres. Washington. God bless them all.)
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To: goldstategop
Nothing has changed.

If another feddie is nominated, the dems will react the same.

If the pubs try to force it, the dems will shut down the Senate.

Lame duck republicans.

17 posted on 10/28/2005 3:53:27 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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To: ballplayer
That is just the point: they will be incredibly vicious, and if Miers had actually been pro-life, the vitriol on the Left would have been incredible in the hearings.

The point is that the Left will not like ANYONE Bush sends up---here he gave them a stealth candidate who was pro-Affirmtive Action, pro-feminism, probably pro-Roe, and who might have been recused on ALL "war on terror" cases, and they STILL couldn't restrain themselves. So they won't ever allow any Republican to come in without savage attacks. We need to realize this and prepare, then WIN.

18 posted on 10/28/2005 3:54:02 AM PDT by LS
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To: goldstategop; dawn53
No reason to be ashamed of a "litmus test."

No, not at all. I just wanted dawn53 to specify what the conservative "litmus test" actually is.

I have my own ideas, and so do you, and I find nothing shameful in either.

But dawn53 seems to think there's a problem with it. So I'd like to know what that problem is.

19 posted on 10/28/2005 3:54:04 AM PDT by angkor
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To: goldstategop
That's right. They wouldn't go to the mat for Estrada, would they. What in the heck maks you think anything in the Senate has changed>

We STILL have a democrat filibuster threat, we STILL have the same group of Republican senators who won't vote for the nuclear option, and I assume George Will STILL thinks that the nuclear option is unconstitutional.

So, what makes you think that Brown or Luttig or Owens will get past this group? And how many of your acceptable candidates are going to want to go before the firing squad?

It will be a rare nominee that won't be filibustered by the left or picked to death by the right.

20 posted on 10/28/2005 3:54:43 AM PDT by Miss Marple (Lord, please look after Mozart Lover's son and keep him strong.)
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