Posted on 10/16/2005 6:40:03 PM PDT by quidnunc
The White House branded its increasingly vocal conservative critics as "cynical" yesterday as the dispute over President George W Bush's nomination of his official lawyer to the Supreme Court deepened.
Many Republicans have described Harriet Miers as unqualified for such an important job. They are lobbying for an ultra-conservative with an established judicial record.
Critics have seized on correspondence between Miss Miers and the Bush family to portray her as a lightweight.
Mr Bush's top aide, the White House chief of staff Andy Card, criticised the campaign by influential party figures to prevent Miss Miers's elevation to America's most powerful court.
"I'm a little surprised they came out of the box so cynically," he told a television interviewer.
The use of such language by a top Bush aide about prominent Republican party supporters was unprecedented, indicating a growing sense of desperation.
The White House has suffered a dire six weeks during which it has been criticised for the handling of Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq war and its legislative programme.
As Mr Bush's approval ratings have sunk to an all-time low, his chief strategist, Karl Rove, has faced questioning for his role in the leaking of a CIA agent's name.
To add to the Republican's woes, the party's "iron fist" in Congress, Tom DeLay, has been indicted for criminal conspiracy and money laundering.
He says the charges are politically motivated.
Newsweek magazine noted yesterday that the Bush administration was now being seen as "a political machine that has lost its bearings, and even its skill, in a whorl of war, hurricanes, scandal, internal strife and second-term ennui".
Such talk has increased the Bush team's determination not to suffer defeat on the Miers nomination. But many believe the case against her is already overwhelming.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
That (political) battlefield is wherever the GOP is battling the DNC...unless of course you can show me any Libertarian, libertarian, Constitution Party, or any other fringe political party candidate at ALL who has ever been elected to any political office of any significance.
You have this notion that you can best win the battle by leaving the battlefield.
Your leaving the GOP because you don't like the current choice of candidate moves the Party to the center in an attempt to make up your absent vote, your only achievement is a temporary victory by the DNC, a decided move to the center by the GOP, and your own expulsion to the unreliable, irrelevant fringe.
Fight the battle internally; your opinion would be more credible, and your vote more valued if it didn't spend half its life threatening to hurt rather than support.
Quite like the "vigilante" tag pinned on the Minute Men.
Fair enough.
The 'ideological wing' did not start the fight. Bush did when he passed over numerous judges, many of them women, who have a record that at least suggests they would be conservative on the High Court, in favor of his question-mark friend with the apparent expectation that we'd just applaud anything he does.
I personally have sent letters to the Republican party and a group of Rep. Senators I have donated to in the past, that they can forget any financial support from me until they go back to conservative, small government values.
Over the last year I have heard many Rep.'s say that they were through with Bush over some issue or because of some liberal policy he has supported. I have always been against this thinking as I felt it only supported the Dem's, and that Bush's presidency was still so important for the judiciary and the war on terror. This S.C. pick is finally my "last straw" moment. I am exhausted by the Rep. and Bush "disappointments" and I am going to back away at least financially until they return to conservative principles.
You mean like Trent Lott, McCain & Specter?
Huh? On day one he was not 'visibly angry', he said he was 'neutral', and pointed out the obvious problems with the nomination. He never said the kind of over-the-top things said by others about Miers. I think Rush genuinely is reflecting the conflicted feeling about this: We want to cut the President some slack here, but we know the stakes are far to high to leave to ANY chance, and the WH blundered by letting it come to that.
"It's a crap shoot" and "we shouldn't be rolling the dice here" are comments Rush made early. They still are valid.
I found this interesting...
A post from the The Volokh Conspiracy blog (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volokh_Conspiracy)
http://volokh.com/posts/1129306241.shtml
Putting the Size Six Shoe on the Other Foot:
I’ve seen a lot of silly theories put forth by liberal bloggers and commentators about why the “conservative elite” opposes the Miers nomination. So let’s put the shoe on the other foot.
How would the “liberal elite” have reacted if, instead of nominating Ginsburg or Breyer, Clinton, after promising to nominate Justices in the mode of Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan, had nominated a managing partner in the (Little Rock-based) Rose Law firm who had donated to George Bush’s 1980 presidential campaign (as Miers donated to Al Gore’s 1988 campaign); was Clinton’s personal lawyer; was a big muckety-much in the pro-free market Chamber of Commerce (analogous to Miers and the ABA); had publicly opposed affirmative action (as Miers has publicly supported it); had denounced the ACLU(as Miers has more or less denounced the Federalist Society); whose supporters could come up with no better rationale for her appointment than that she was a female Unitarian who had privately expressed the view that abortion should be legal; and who otherwise had analogous credentials and background to Ms. Miers, except with the opposite ideological tinge?
My hypothesis is that such a nominee would have run into at least as much opposition from liberals as Miers has faced from conservatives, and that even fewer liberals would have bought Clinton’s “trust me” line than conservatives have bought this line from Bush.
[David Bernstein, October 14, 2005 at 12:10pm]
Ahem. The President and party "Establishment" endorsed those same Senate RINO incumbents in the last election, and previous ones as well. Will they support them the next time around? The odds are they will.
I always get curious if someone is a RINO if they are far more concerned about economic issues than social ones. Abortion and gay marriage don't terribly concern me, but the fact that we are running up a huge deficit does. Does that make me a RINO? Why is it that it is social issues that have people screaming RINO, and never economic ones?
This Senate will not go nuclear on the Rats too many RINO's. Specter, McCain, Graham, Chaffe, Collins, Snowe, they are more intereseted in 'bi-partisanship' with their rat 'collegues' than doing what is right.
This has a lot to do with this nomination, a judge like JR Brown can't get through this Senate, the spineless pubbies won't stand up to the rats.
Exactly -- it seems Bush had no stomach for a fight; a fight that would be worth waging no matter the short-term outcome.
And we may very well have won. At least two GOP members of the Gang of 14 have pledged to go nuclear if the Dem members of the Gang joined a baseless filibuster. And since several of our dream candidates passed the 'not-extraordinary' test for appellate courts, then the Dems would have a hard time making the case for them suddenly being extraordinary.
"...that is why he has been "soft" back paddling on his original and vocal opposition to Miers. Expect Hannity and other to follows suite."
I don't believe he has done any such thing. He said on Wednesday "I oppose this nomination."
I guarantee for you that Rush was contacted by the White House so many times in the last two weeks and that is why he has been "soft" back paddling on his original and vocal opposition to Miers. Expect Hannity and other to follows suite.
There is NO back peddling occuring here. Vocal opposition remains coherant, strong, and principled. Transcript from the 13th.
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Bloomington, Illinois, this is Trudy. Welcome, Trudy, and congratulations on the White Sox (Laughing.) last night.
CALLER: Oh, thank you. Actually, I'm a Cubs fan and we just can't cross over.
RUSH: Yeah, well Illinois you take the White Sox. I mean, last time they were in the World Series, they threw it. So I know it's a tough cross to bear, but Illinois hasn't had a -- it's a good thing.
CALLER: That goes to my point of being faithful, loyal, true, even to conservative issues, Rush.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: And for a long time I said feminists don't speak for me, and now I'm beginning to think a lot of the conservatives don't speak for me. And I've been listening to Kristol; I've been listening to others from National Review, Weekly Standard. And, you know, there's some of us that are conservatives mainly because of our religious views, who pounded yard signs, working precincts, walked them for candidates, et cetera, and we voted for George Bush, and we didn't vote for these other people, and I am more confident today after listening to Dobson's show today, after hearing Ken Starr on that show, that Bush indeed has probably nominated somebody I am going to be confident in and glad that she's on the bench.
RUSH: Okay. And you feel alienated from -- do you include me in that list of people?
CALLER: I'm beginning to think so.
RUSH: Why? Why? Is it because I'm not full-fledged on board for this?
CALLER: Well, in the last week, I've been listening to these tirades about this nomination.
RUSH: Wait a minute. You haven't heard any tirades from me. You've heard reasoned explanations.
CALLER: (Laughing.) Well, we never recognize our own tirades.
RUSH: Oh, ho-ho-ho! Oh, ho-ho! So have I sounded like I'm on tirades about this?
CALLER: Well, and, you know, it's probably coming from the perspective I'm at. You know, I'm confident in my president.
RUSH: Okay, I need to ask you a point-blank question because this is fundamental and key if you are to be able to understand where I come from on this.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: I could lead you with this question or I could ask you without-- I'll ask you without leading you first.
CALLER: Oh, that would be good.
RUSH: Pardon?
CALLER: I said that would be good.
RUSH: Okay, what is it about Harriet Miers and her nomination, what is it really, what is the real reason that are supportive of this nomination?
CALLER: When the president first announced her with her at his side, I felt he sent out signals at the time. And included in those signals were some things that she was involved in. She was involved in some conservative issues that are where my heart is, and maybe a lot of conservatives that are fiscal conservatives didn't recognize those. I felt he said them for a reason. I think he told us she was involved in Exodus Ministries for a reason.
RUSH: All right, can I try to nail this down a little?
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: You are supportive because you think that she is pro-life and is going to vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
CALLER: Yes, and other moral fundamental issues.
RUSH: Other moral fundamental issues. Okay.
CALLER: And Ken Starr, he said a lot of great things about her today on Dobson.
RUSH: Well, I've not said anything bad about her. I think this is where the -- I'm opposed to the nomination, but I've made it plain that I have no animus against her, I have no brief against -- she may be a fine, fine person.
CALLER: I guess I'm beginning to feel with conservatives, though, the schism that's developing this week, that there are those of us that often are used by others -- maybe they feel the same way -- but I do feel that often we're used to do the legwork, the free manning of phone banks, for instance, pounding those yard signs and getting out the vote for these candidates, and we want to see these issues addressed. That's why we've been doing this legwork all these years.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: But I'm also hearing this weekend talking points that conservatives -- where have they gotten these talking points? Here's one: "The deep conservative bench." Now, that's not a talking point your average person like me, I'm a housewife, that's not something that's in my vocabulary, but suddenly I'm hearing on all these conservative shows. Where do they get this?
RUSH: Well, I'll be glad to explain this to you. I don't have enough time before the next commercial break is coming up, but I think they're getting that from me. I think they get a lot of what they get from me, and the deep conservative bench is all of the conservatives that we know, we already know how they rule as appellate judges. The conservative bench is those conservatives who have passed muster prior to today, who have ruled on cases, who have a judicial philosophy that we can know because they're on the appellate court in some circuit. That's the bench. Also some people that have not maybe made it to the appellate court, they're district court judges and others. But hang on here a minute, Trudy, because I'm going to take advantage of your call here to perhaps address a whole lot of people who have your mind-set about it.
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We're back to Trudy in Bloomington, Illinois. Trudy, are you there?
CALLER: I am.
RUSH: Okay, good. I'm going to spend as much time on this as I have to because I want you to go away from here at least understanding where I'm coming from. I don't speak for any of these other people. I'm not echoing them. I don't choose sides. What's in my heart and what's in my mind is what you hear on this program.
CALLER: Well, can we go to what you just said about the deep bench?
RUSH: What?
CALLER: Remember what I asked before the break about --
RUSH: About the deep bench.
CALLER: Deep bench. But didn't Scalia address that this week in that interview with NBC, that he said that it was good for the court to reach outside that pool of judges?
RUSH: Yeah. Okay, look. I'm not going to try to persuade you or change your mind. That's not what I'm trying to do here. And you're not going to change mind on this. But I want you to understand -- because I know exactly where you're coming from on this. I understand it totally. But I want to try to tell you why I am not on the same page with you on this.
CALLER: Great.
RUSH: One of the things that you said was that you feel used or left out by conservatism, and I don't know how that can be. Conservatism is not a party. Conservatism is an ideology, set of principles, and you either agree with them or you don't, but conservatism is not something that can use you. Now, the Republican Party can use you. But a conservative movement really so much can't. The conservative movement here is not betraying anybody. The conservative movement did not make this choice. So that's one thing. But I just want to make it very simple. The reason why I think you support this and the reason why I think we could do better -- and, by the way -- well, let me just keep things in order. I know that the powerful motivating factor for many, for millions of Americans, is Roe vs. Wade and abortion. And the president has made it clear and has Dr. Dobson made it clear and many of the other supporters -- and, by the way, Ken Starr vetted Sandra Day O'Connor, too. Ken Starr said that Sandra Day O'Connor was cool. Ronald Reagan thought she was the best. And she turned out not to be what everybody told us that she was. I mean I can give you countless examples of this. And in fact I'd like to read to you a quote from a speech that someone gave about 20 years ago. And I want to ask you if you know who made this statement. "Back in 1976, Mr. Carter said, 'Trust me,' and a lot of people did. Trust-me government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man, that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person, or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties. The trust is where it belongs, in the people, the responsibility to live up to that trust is where it belongs, in their leaders." Do you know who said that?
CALLER: Well, I'm just going to guess. It may perhaps have even been James Dobson. p> RUSH: Uh, no. That was Ronald Reagan accepting the Republican Party nomination for president, July 17th of 1980. So now that you know who said it, let me read it to you again. "Back in 1976 Mr. Carter said, 'Trust me,' and a lot of people did. Trust-me government asked that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man, that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties. The trust is where it belongs, in the people. The responsibility to live up to that trust is where it belongs, in their elected leaders." Now, Reagan happens to be my hero. So I wanted to mention that to you. Let's go to Roe vs. Wade because I know that's where a majority of people who are for this nomination are for it, and I understand it a hundred percent. I understand it totally, particularly with the way Harriet Miers has been presented. She's been presented as an evangelical, she's been presented as someone deeply religious, who's born again, who found Christ at a later stage of her life, has that bond of familiarity and commonality with President Bush. And this is viewed as the president keeping a promise. And it's very heartwarming and it's very encouraging and enthusiastic to people who hold this view. Like you, I am anti-abortion and pro-life. And, like you, I am anti-Roe vs. Wade. But here is where I think there might be some parting of the ways of what we look for in a Supreme Court justice. See, you're looking for a vote, and you are also saying -- correct me if I'm wrong about any of this because I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, I'm just based on what you told me before the break. You told me that you believe the morality and ideals of a conservative will lead to the proper adjudication of cases by a justice on the Supreme Court. Correct?
CALLER: Hopefully, yes.
RUSH: Yeah, okay, hopefully yes. And I understand that, too. And I understand it largely because many in the conservative movement, conservative voters have been told that that's the case, that you can trust a conservative. And in an equal playing field and all things being equal, you can. But we've sent many people that we thought were conservatives to the Supreme Court, who all of a sudden, over the years, change. They "grow," quote, unquote, because they succumb to the Washington culture, the DC liberal culture. They succumb to the free invitations to go make speeches to all kinds of groups, and they get really ego driven at the idea that they're one of nine people that can determine the laws of this country, and so a lot of people that were thought to be conservative when they were nominated turned out not to be. There are ways to avoid that. However, before going into those, my attitude on Roe vs. Wade is this. Yeah, it's wrong, it's a horrible thing that happened to the country, in so many ways, a moral way. It has roiled this country politically. It is a case that should have never been decided at the Supreme Court. It's a case they never should have taken. It is a case that has prevented the issue from being decided by the people of this country democratically and that's why it roils our society so. The people have yet to have a say on this. Now, if Roe vs. Wade is overturned, let's say Harriet Miers is nominated, confirmed, and then the president gets some more judges, and we finally get 5-4 position on the Supreme Court and Roe vs. Wade is overturned, what's going to then happen is that abortion will still be legal. It will be sent back to the states, and as you are sitting here talking to me today I can guarantee you that some states in this country will vote to legalize it. Some states won't. It will be illegal in some states and legal in some others. This will invite further legal scrutiny, but it'll take some years for this to happen.
The primary reason that I, Rush Limbaugh, not any of these other people that you are listening to and are being bothered by, the primary reason that I'm bothered by Roe vs. Wade -- and there are two -- but the first reason is, it is an abomination of the role of the Constitution and the courts in this country, because of the way it was decided. Do you know that there are people out there, Trudy, who think Roe vs. Wade is horrible law who are pro-abortion? There are some Democrats, some liberals who don't like abortion because of their religious beliefs -- or, there are some liberals who do like, they're all for it, but they think Roe vs. Wade is bad law. I think both are wrong. I think it's bad law, and I think it's a horrible thing, abortion is. But the reason it's bad law is not because it sanctions the murder of children alone. The reason it's bad law is because nine men in robes decided that the Constitution says something about abortion. They said that abortion, the killing of unborn children, is constitutional. Well, the Constitution doesn't say that. Way back in 1973, the Constitution does not say that. Yet nine men in black robes said that it did. Well, now, if nine people in black robes, or a majority of them, can look at the Constitution and not see something in it and go ahead and put it there, then the Constitution becomes meaningless.
So the reason for wanting a nominee who goes beyond the morality of Roe vs. Wade and the legality of it, the whole constitutionality of it, is of paramount importance to me because there are going to be all kinds of cases above and beyond and after Roe vs. Wade. Kelo vs New London, Connecticut is one of the most recent outrages. The Supreme Court currently looking to foreign law to find justification for their own personal policy preferences. When Roe vs. Wade was affirmed by the Supreme Court, what essentially happened was that the Supreme Court said, "We nine people can determine what's in that document and what isn't. We can put things in it that aren't there, and we can take things out of it that are there. We have that power." Well, that, Trudy, has got to be stopped. We have to have people on the court who have a respect for the original intent of the Constitution and who will not rise to the level of ego to the point that they think they are more powerful than the document and to bastardize it by finding things in it which aren't there and removing things from it which are. So the second reason I abhor Roe vs. Wade is because it sanctions the murder of innocent children, and they're pretty close, but I cannot, as an individual, looking at one of my first reasons, the unconstitutionality of this, say "okay" to a person, to the court whose constitutional philosophy I don't know anything about. This has nothing to do with disagreeing with the president. It has nothing to do with disagreeing with Harriet Miers. It has nothing to do with sabotaging anything.
It is nothing more than what I have always professed on this program, and that is a deep love and respect and loyalty to the Constitution and an overarching fear that we're about to lose it and we need incredible people on this court who have proven they will not buckle to the Washington pressure, that they will not buckle to conventional wisdom, that they will not buckle to their own egos, and will do what they're supposed to do and that is simply determine what is and is not constitutional. Even that's a bit of a stretch for the court but they assumed that role for themself way back in the Marbury vs. Madison case. So my only point in all of this is that I've always thought that somebody could do better. Now, this criticism of mine is being interpreted by you and others as trying to sabotage the nomination, disagreeing with the president, screwing up an opportunity to overturn Roe vs. Wade. And I understand totally why people think that when they are hear me say this, but I have an 18-year track record here, 17-year track record, and none of what I've said to you today or in the past few weeks about this is inconsistent with any of my views. Just because I may not think Harriet Miers is the best nominee does not mean I've changed my mind on Roe vs. Wade. It's just the opposite. I want some more guarantees than what we're being offered here, and there are none, but I want at least better odds than we're being offered here.
CALLER: Can I ask a question?
RUSH: Yeah, by all means.
CALLER: Will you be happy if her name is not withdrawn?
RUSH: Well, let me take a break here because if I don't take a break now the next segment is going to be real short and people are going to think I've added commercials on them. So hang on. I'll answer the question when we come back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We go back now to Trudy in Bloomington. What was your question again, Trudy?
CALLER: How are you going to feel if her name is not withdrawn?
RUSH: No different than I feel now. I'm not trying to affect anything here. Look it, if I were trying to affect things I'd be on the phone to the White House. This is not what I use this program for. You are the audience. The White House is not the audience. The Senate is not the audience. You are the audience. Everybody listening is the audience. All I'm doing is telling you what I think about it. I've listened to some of the White House criticism of the opponents of the nomination. We're sexist or elitists, and, you know, I'm listening to terms that we generally use to criticize the left, and I've tried to -- okay, suppose I was on the White House staff, and I was being sent out to defend this nomination using these terms, I couldn't do it, because I know the people that they're talking about. The conservatives are not sexist. The women that are on their lists are numerous. Janice Rogers Brown, there's no sexism in this opposition to Harriet Miers. So all I'm doing, all I ever do on this program is attempt to inform you and be honest about what I think, with a little entertainment sprinkled in now and then. But I'm not trying to effect any kind of an outcome here. So if she's nominated -- she doesn't withdraw, the president doesn't withdraw her, we deal with that as it happens, and we go through the hearings and see what we see. All I'm doing here is -- and I'm not trying to sabotage this, either. I don't know that I've got the power to do that, Trudy. I mean, a lot of people might think that I do, but I, frankly, think that that's a little bit overwrought, to think that I'm going to have any say-so what's happening with Harriet Miers.
There are going to be other nominations down the line. This president's going to have perhaps one, and maybe two more. And what I just told you about one of the reasons I oppose Roe vs. Wade, they're going to be lots of cases, and they're going to deal with culture, they're going to deal with our society. Look at this court overturning 16 or 19, I forget what it was, state laws on same-sex sodomy. This court just overturned them on the basis of foreign law. This is because judges are not looking at the Constitution. To overturn the law, these laws, you would have to say the Constitution says something about these laws in the states, and it doesn't. Then you'd have to agree that the Constitution is allowed to trump or the Supreme Court's allowed to trump the Constitution when it comes to state law. There's some real bastardization of the Constitution going on, and it isn't just Roe vs. Wade. And if we don't get people on this court who are willing to honestly read the Constitution when deciding constitutional cases you're going to have Roe after Roe after Roe in terms of decisions. They may not be as personally repugnant and repelling as abortion is, but they're still going to roil the society. As long as this court is considered the final political and social arbiter on what's legal and illegal in this country, we're going to have arguments about our culture, whether it's about abortion or not. And that's not what this court should be doing. It's not the final place where we go to decide political issues. That's the US Congress. That's the House of Representatives and the president either signing or vetoing. The court has usurped so much power. The court has taken upon itself the role of deciding what's legal and illegal, culturally, socially. It's not its role, particularly when they're going to find things in the Constitution which are not there. Ending that goes beyond just voting the right way on Roe vs. Wade. So, look, I can disagree with the president without being disloyal. I'm not disloyal to the president at all. But I disagree on this. It's plain and simple. I can't lie to you about it.
Is that Flavius Aëtius? Admirable man.
Now, there is little enthusiasm about this nominee. She generates no passion or excitement. The conservative legal movement that has been built up over forty years has been given the shaft and told to shut up and marginalized. The GOP will not be able to rouse its base up in the future with the promise of future picks because they were given the opportunity here and ducked.
Meanwhile, the Administration has punted away the prospect of tax reform, immigration reform, etc. for fear of being rejected by a coterie of RINOS and red-state dems.
As a result of this aversion to conflict on any matter of substance, the libs and the RINOs have learned not to fear us. They know that on most matters we can be rolled, that we will cave and compromise.
What good is a political party if, when it wins elections, fails to fight for the things that it supposedly believes in?
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