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 ...
Leaving the Party, or casting your vote for a candidate who has no chance of wining amounts to guaranteeing victory for the leftier of the (supposedly) leftist candidates.
You still sin, but you feel better about it because you can lie to yourself and claim that you had anything to do with it.
Yeah...that makes sense.
In other words, there are two types of Republicans: conservatives and moderates.
Plese, don't flush your credibility in the first sentence.
Rush is a fine talk-show hoast, and he's done good things for the conservative movement, but saying he's the best political analist in the country holds up to zero logical standards.
This is simply nonsense. Find me one respected biblical scholar that thinks this.
Republican compromise is necessary to win the votes of the majority. As much as many of us would like to see a more idealistic republican party, it is simply not possible to achieve given the demographics of this country's voters.
I don't think Bush was even aware of Miers' past donations to Gore and Dukakis in 1988 because they put out a press release that Miers voted for Reagan and Bush41 before they were aware of the 1988 contributions. She will be forced to answer for these contributions and assertions of support for Reagan and Bush41, during her confirmation hearings.
It seems incredible that Bush wouldn't know but he relies on people like Andrew Card and Harriet Miers on these matters. If CBS hadn't posted the phony NG documents, the White House would have continued under the impression that those documents were real and they probably would have lost the election to Kerry.
I have read it twice. I agree with Trudy. I guess that's because I am also a housewife who has manned the phones, walked the precincts, and licked the envelopes.
Sorry, but Trudy makes more sense to me, despite Rush's long-winded arguments.
I am waiting for the hearings.
I took this quote from a conservative on a yahoo group
"What my fellow-conservatives seem to overlook is that we DID NOT elect GWB to engage in a fight with the left. We DID elect him to appoint a new Federal Judiciary that WOULD clearly and fairly interpret the Constitution. We looked for "originalist" judges -- NOT "activist!"
How do we know Roberts will remain a conservative? We don't even know if he is yet. How do we know Suter might have an awakening and suddenly become a constitutional judge. There are no guarantees in life.
Lindsey's voice echoing in my mind.
What good is a political party if, when it wins elections, fails to fight for the things that it supposedly believes in?
None.
Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. You always lose when you wave the white flag first. Hell, if I listened to the same voices of moderation on this board now G.W.B. wouldn't have been re-elected President. Now I'm supposed to fall for the line we couldn't get the best qualified known quantity on the Court because of RINO's?
I suppose people have forgotton we have some red state Dems terrified of being daschle'd. Well, not anymore, they aren't sweating this nomination at all. They can vote no and their voters won't hold it against them. I suppose I'm supposed to ignore Chaffee is in danger of losing his seat and desperately reliant on this President to raise money for his election. I'm supposed to forget how Specter covets his Chairmanship and can have it pulled out from under him. Maybe if the administration spent more time strongarming these red state Dems, Specter and Chafee instead of Borwnback, Allen and Coburn there would be no filibuster. Perhaps if they threw their support, or threatened to, behind Lindsey's oppoent in SC making noises of challenging him in the primary Lindsey would fall in line. Ditto DeWine. front a challenger.
The administration has chosen to do the opposite.
Well, there's always T.R.
Agree with whomever you please.
I side with Rush's "long-winded arguments". But, note, I wasn't the one to dismiss one of these individual's arguments with a derogatory comment.
Frankly, I sometimes wish Washington DC was surrounded by levees and the levees just all broke, the place has been flooded, and it won't get fixed for a few years.
Would it really matter if all three branches of the federal gov't just disappeared for a couple of years? I wonder if the whole thing is really akin to Joe Biden. Joe has fake hair, he's not really all that bright, but for some reason he seems important because the SOB is on TV all the time. In reality what Joe Biden thinks or does is pretty much meaningless and if Joe vanished tomorrow what would it matter?
The conservatives use the RINOs and moderates in the Republican Party to gain the majority, and then wonder why the Republicans don't always vote the way they want. It is not that big of a leap.
"....The administration has chosen to do the opposite."
And pick a fight with it's base. ITA!!
Admittedly, the POTUS has won many points in the WOT for his resolve. However, his lack of resolve on the domsetic front is causing many on the left to have little regard for him. At the same time, conservatives see little passion for fighting for a domestic agenda that he embraced.
As a result of this, he appears to be losing power and relevance as the weeks go on. Meanwhile, as the party prepares to choose a sucesssor, many conservatives are being told, on this board and elsewhere, that they are not wanted.
This is not a good sign for the future.
Don't apologize. you are right on target.
The caller was right on target in how the pro-life community is exploited by conservative elite.
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