If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
Posted on 10/29/2005 10:43:41 AM PDT by new yorker 77
Conservatives were heartened by yesterday's withdrawal of the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and say it has given President Bush a fresh start to unite his conservative base for the judicial, legislative and election battles to come.
The move ends a bitter family fight with his conservative supporters that Mr. Bush could ill-afford while he and his party were under fierce attack on a growing number of political fronts.
"This was tearing apart the conservative movement and the Republican Party and was potentially inflicting longer-term devastation to Bush's winning coalition. So it's good that the White House is bringing this chapter to a close when he needs a united party," Republican campaign strategist Scott Reed said yesterday.
Political adviser Frank Donatelli, a Reagan White House political director, called the move "an opportunity for conservative groups and the administration to patch up their differences and get back to talking about issues."
One of those issues will be judicial nominees, and conservatives who said the family quarrel was over also were saying Mr. Bush must now pick a proven conservative in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas to fill the Supreme Court slot.
"The conservative movement is more united than ever and looks forward to standing behind a strong nominee in the mold of Scalia and Thomas," said Jessica Echard, executive director of the Eagle Forum, whose leader Phyllis Schlafly was among the leaders of a withdrawal campaign announced Monday. "President Bush has done the right thing."
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(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
Then you're blind.
Yes, UNITE and FIGHT. We can be unstoppable with a united front.
People forget.
The GOP won 51% of the vote in 2002 and 2004 with a large conservative turnout.
Conservatives are 'likely voters'. They get buried in polls that allow for non-voter refuse.
Remember, we need 19% of the Voting Age Population to vote GOP in 2006 and we pick up seats in both houses.
History of mid-terms, 36% VAP turnout in 1998 and 2002. Win 19% to 17%, win seats.
Simple as that.
This is why when libs try to cash in the fool's gold of fake polls, they lose.
"We" didn't derail this bad nomination.
It's becoming evident she wouldn't have had the votes in the Senate.
If the pro-Miers crowd wants to be petty and pout, then they should go ahead.
"After his session with Miers, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.,... said he had even more concerns than before the meeting."
"Sen Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,...complain(ed) that Miers' responses to their questionnaire were "insufficient" and "insulting."
"The talk among our colleagues was, `Is this the best choice?' We just were not comfortable," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss."
"Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., concluded: "I don't know of anyone who felt more (favorably) about her nomination after meeting with her."
I agree. The faction which trashed Harriet hates this president. I'm reading some of them on here saying, in effect: "And let that be a lesson to ya; f^ck with us again and you'll get more of the same." That's not uniting, that's extortion by threat of tantrum. Oh, they find the president occasionally useful; but they still hate him. What else could be the meaning of, "He isn't one of US?"
Blind, eh? Okay.
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
Things are happening fast, quick, and sudden. The base is adjusting immediately to the weather as it changes. Compare the base to the Libs and you will find the base is alert, lively, and the Libs have little more than their old bag of tired stock ideas. Uniting isn't the name of the game, not for a growing, vital organism.
Tell me about it.
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
Are you serious? Some of Bush's strongest supporters were some of the most critical of the Miers' nomination. Are there stronger proponents of the war in Iraq than Ann Coulter and Charles Krauthammer? Has Rush Limbaugh not championed most Bush policies? And that's just to name a few.
Now yes, of course, there are many conservatives who were not fans of Bush before Miers, and who then took the Miers fiasco as more reason to dislike Bush, but so what? And they certainly weren't representative of the entire conservative anti-Miers wing.
The basic reasons for opposing Miers can be boiled down to three things -- Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter. Had Reagan and Bush the Elder not screwed up with those picks, then this perfectly understandable and legitimate suspicion would not greet a nomination from an allegedly conservative president. We've been burned in the past too many times, so the days of just taking on faith the latest stealth nominee are over.
And despite what I just said, it could be argued that the base gave Bush a pass and tremendous show of faith with the Roberts pick, as he too had a lack of a paper trail. But then again, Roberts did have more in his past to suggest a conservative judicial philosophy than did Miers. And don't forget, most GOP senators were unlikely to go against the President if Miers had just thrown them a bone, but instead, the more that was learned about her the greater the suspicion became. I don't see how any conservative can defend her 1993 speech in which she seemed to defend the whole premise of judicial activism; as being necessary when the legislatures don't do the right thing, with 'right' of course being defined as whatever leftist policy the Left can't implement democratically.
Wish people would stop taking conservatives for granted.
"I agree. The faction which trashed Harriet hates this president. "
That is childish rhetoric. Very few people on here "hate" Bush. Most of us voted for him, and many of us worked hard to get him elected. Sometimes we disagree with a move he makes, but it is because of objective philosophical differences, not because of hate. Bush is not infallible. It is very possible to both respect him, and disagree with him on a specific issue.
If he picks Janice Rogers Brown, there will be no fight from the right. And it will be difficult for the left to take her on in debate. She will kick their little butts burying their heads even deeper.
I really wouldn't call it a "uniting." That implies that we all completely agree, which will never happen with a large group of people. I do feel a sense of most folks simply wanting to move on from the infighting. There are bigger fish to fry than each other, and if conservatives don't get their act together soon, we're going to be in for a nasty surprise come 2006 and 2008.
I can't help but note the irony of you flaming another poster for saying that he doesn't see us uniting.
"Unite...or die!"
"Conservatives Eager to Put Battles in Past, Unite Behind Bush Agenda and Next Court Pick"
That headline says it all for me. I supported Miers, but that was yesterday. Now we'll all be on the same team and we can go and kick some Whig Party ass.
"If he picks Janice Rogers Brown, there will be no fight from the right."
Oh, the right will be fighting all right, but they'll be fighting for him instead of against him. That's what the Miers nomination should have shown him- his base is ready for a battle. Give them a battle to fight that works for you, not against you.
Well, gee, thanks; that's real conciliatory -- and downright mature of you to say that of a 60-year-old man who's been a FReeper nearly 8 years.
Here's a scenario for you: the Allies are massing in southern England, doing their drills, preparatory to invading France in 1944. Then, they get word that the invasion will be at Normandy. Dissention begins to spread like wildfire, as corporal/generals second-guess the method and timing of the invasion, seeing (rightly) that it is going to cost thousands of valiant boys their lives. The troops get so pissed, the morale sinks so low, that Eisenhower has to relent and change the plan. The troops grouse, "Yeah, OK, but no more of your half-assed plans". They'd STILL be in England to this day, trying to decide what the hell to do, and how.
Now, I know that I used a wartime, martial analogy to parody a more democratic situation; the fact is, IMHO, that we ARE at war. I wonder if our president was doing a rope-a-dope where, he thought, inevitably, the Dems would be sucked into trashing kindly lovable old Harriet, made to feel guilty about making her withdraw or be defeated, so that Mr. Bush could then send up his real intended nominee. We'll never know; because those within the camp did the Dems' work for them.
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