Posted on 10/30/2005 8:05:58 AM PST by quidnunc
One thing's for certain about this Harriet Miers mess: The conservative movement can never, ever play the Bork card again. No more whining about liberals tarring-and-feathering Robert Bork in his 1987 Supreme Court confirmation hearing.
For two decades, conservative activists have droned on about their spiritual leader's defeat in the Senate. They carry him around on their shoulders as proof of how the establishment's out to get them.
Well, forget that nonsense.
No more of that cry-babying, not after what conservatives like writer David Frum and organizations like Concerned Women of America — using National Review magazine and The Wall Street Journal opinion-page megaphones — have done to Harriet Miers in two short weeks.
They've turned a woman whose credentials for the Supreme Court matched or outpaced those of William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor into the image of a naive, untested first-year law student.
A Texas Republican I spoke with, who knows Miers well, put it best: "I don't know this woman they're talking about."
-snip-
Maybe the power boys and girls on the right like the present state of things, true believers practicing the art of political marksmanship. But I'll bet the rest of the country doesn't. As my Texas Republican friend said, "Washington's a sick place."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
"likened Miers to Caligula's horse and Barney the dog"
please get the quotes, maybe I slept through my reading of their usual reasoned discouse.
As for Peggy Noonan, I never read her. I know she is a conservative, I just find her more of a conservative by ideology and not by intellect; and being a newspaper columnists maybe she was playing off the "cronyism" line, in as much Harriet has been a Bush legal counsel for years, prior to his administration.
I still believe that any personal attacks were few and far between. Most of the disourse dealth with the issues of qualifications.
There is no difference...what was done will harm the conservative cause. When Dems filibuster the next nominee, they will say this person is not the best person for the job and point to conservatives treatment of Miers. President Bush had the right to choose...those who opposed the nomination are no better than activist Democrats.
Conservatives objected to Miers because we are not looking for a hope and promise. We demand that Bush USE the advantages we gave him in the last election to FIGHT the liberal bias on our nations highest court.
The battle is almost as important as getting a demonstrated conservative and strict constructionist on the court. W tried to be clever about it, and asked us to 'trust him'. After his boondoggles on illegal immigration, welfare reform, tax reform, and so on, we cannot take it on faith that George is a conservative.
We have to fight liberals, not the wussy approach used by Republicans now.
Bull, that's a facile argument if I ever heard one. Conservatives give up nothing by arguing against a weak nomination to the court.
Should Dems filibuster, they should be 'nuked'. It's about time Republicans fight instead of constantly rolling over for the Dems. and liberal media.
People who opposed Miers are not the only "conservatives" out there, and I think that those of us who wanted her to have a hearing also have claim to the name "conservative."
My point was that Miers might have been terrible or she might have been fine, but nobody even let her have her say. Maybe she would have been terrible, but at least everybody could have been working off of genuine, current information at that point. And in any case, there was no need for the viciousness and personal nature of the comments. It was like the Dems obssessing on Bolton's moustache and made us look silly, petty and vicious.
I respectfully disagree about their being no difference. Republicans withdrawing their on nominee is not at all the same as forcing the other side to withdraw theirs.
Harm the conservative cause - let's see how this works out. If conservatives get a supreme court justice they are proud of then any cost will be worthwhile. The big thing is that it would be better for conservatives to get it done with the nuclear option - That would be costly politically.
I was just going to post something along those lines.
You are kidding yourself...when you weaken a President of your own party, you give up plenty. Also, Sandara will now hear the parental choice case, partial birth abortion case among other important cases. Do you really think Miers would have been worse? My guess is the Dems will filibuster the next nominee and most likely not approve anyone until the 2006 elections. If they take the Senate then they are back in charge. If they don't, the Dems can still rely on the gang of 14 to help them out. I think Miers would have been a conservative and probably a fine judge. She would have been confirmed. People want President Bush to go to war with Dems-leading the sissy Repubs in the Senate into battle- ridiculous.
The President was forced to withdraw the nomination. He is weakened. It is worse than if the Democrats were able to force such a concession-stabbed in the back by his own party.
I agree with what you have said. I ultimately am relieved she withdrew herself, because I don't think it was a good appointment. But I do believe that conservatives have ultimately hurt themselves in the way they handled it. I do not think everyone treated her fairly. Even if they were right that she wasn't the best qualified, and her views were not really very clear after learning more about her - they started in on her right out of the box because she wasn't on their preferred list. I believe it would have been better if they had waited and then expressed their concerns after learning more.
I am sure there are differences in how Bork was treated vs. how Miers was treated. But really, they are probably fine distinctions that most are not going to make the effort to understand. In the end it does make it more difficult for Republicans to complain about how Dems treat judicial nominees.
Now that Rebublicans have entered that fray, IMO, the best they can do is fight the same way when we have the next Democrat president and try to make his nominee be "moderate".
Yes, she was Borked by her own side but not even in the proper hearing, just the innuendo and BS in the media. Pretty pitiful.
"The President was forced to withdraw the nomination. He is weakened. It is worse than if the Democrats were able to force such a concession-stabbed in the back by his own party."
No argument that it's bad short term for the President. But the important effect for conservatives is not just the short term effects but the effects for the next 20 years.
Which is more important - how Justice Kennedy's nomination made President Reagan look short term or the effect for conservatives since then?
please get the quotes, maybe I slept through my reading of their usual reasoned discouse.
Both come from the same quote. Rod Dreher said on Oct 4:
But Kathryn, I fully expect that if Justice Stevens retires, President Bush will nominate his dog Barney to fill that vacant seat. After all, who can a man trust to be loyal more than his dog? I reckon the president knows Barney's heart as well as anybody's, and certainly Barney has no paper trail, unless you count stuff he chewed up when he was a puppy. Besides, if Caligula can put his horse in the Senate...
There was also some making fun of the note Miers put on a letter to Bush on his Birthday (I think.) It came from Kathryn, the editor of NRO, who says very silly things, so I thought that was a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black.
Her looks were also compared to Helen Thomas, but I can't remember who did that.
Overall, I think the members of the Corner handled themselves very poorly. I used to enjoy reading the Corner, but I am not sure why. It doesn't really offer much news to me or insight. I will still read a few of the articles off the home page, but I am staying away from the Corner.
I lost a lot of respect for many conservitive pundits during this period. I think an exception is Rush Limbaugh, who expressed his concern in a dignified way without being snotty or rude. He didn't fight for Miers withdrawl. He moved on to other things (firing back at dems) with the first week. Everyone lumps him in the group, but I don't think that is accurate.
President Bush campaigned with a pledge of nominating people in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. He got people to vote for him, and to donate large amounts of their time and money to get him elected based on that pledge. Who he would nominate was a major issue in the election and he knew it.
I guess its subject to different people's interpretation, but a lot of us that helped to get him elected considered "in the mold of Scalia and Thomas" to be somewhere along the lines of "exceptionally qualified unapologetic conservative".
If he would have asked for my support based on a pledge to only nominate people who would receive bipartisan support, I would have known what he had in mind and I could have saved a lot of time and money.
Ah, I read the print NR magazine but I don't read the NRO pages very often. (have to get off the computer sometime, so just go to the barnes and noble library and have a starbucks coffe and read).
Garbage article - and wishful thinking on the part of the lefties.
When did this happen:
"They've turned a woman whose credentials for the Supreme Court matched or outpaced those of William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor"
The schmucks got Miers taken out and that's all they care about. Well that and snuffing out all criticism. It reminds me of the last scene in Animal Farm, where you can't tell the men from the pigs.
Harriet is a closet liberal. Even her muddled writings revealed that fact. Beyond that, she just could not get past the vetting process. Those who were trying to bring her up to speed reported she was a failure. She did have her chance. Fortunately it did not reach the hearings. Her career has been greased by affirmative action and political patronage. That is the basis of incompetence. The nation has been spared 25 years of another Souter. Be grateful.
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.