I enjoyed your post, however you state that "the facts in evidence so far indicate that she will be a conservative Justice, more conservative than O'Connor". HERE is the crux of the dispute between those of us who are anti-Miers, since in our view the facts overwhelmingly indicate that she will NOT be a conservative justice, and NOT be more conservative than O'Connor.
First of all, just seeing how angry and emotional everyone on FR is getting about this nomination both pro and con speaks VOLUMES about just how disastrous a choice this was for the conservative movement.
What I can't understand is why there are still so many conservatives of good faith who choose to ignore the mounting (and mountain of) objective evidence we have about Harriet Miers which indicates that she is no conservative nor likely to vote "conservatively" on the Court.
It should also be noted that the VAST majority of us who oppose the Miers nomination are not from the inside the beltway elite, but faithful conservatives who have not swallowed the Bush Administration Kool-Aid on this nomination.
What's so frustrating is that there appears to be no substance to the conservative defenses of the Miers nomination other than we should "trust" the President on this. Conservatives who support (or do not actively oppose) this nomination appear to be either blinded by personal loyalty to the President, care solely about abortion and nothing else, or are fellow evangelicals defending someone who they think is one of their own. I have nothing personal against Harriet Miers. She's not dumb, and she's not evil...she is simply a very nice, well-meaning woman of average to above-average legal talents who is nonetheless extremely underqualified for a seat on the Supreme Court. She is also clearly a crony of the President. (How many conservatives who support this nomination would nonetheless be screaming bloody murder if Bill Clinton had appointed someone like Lanny Davis to the Supreme Court?)
Perhaps even more importantly to those of us that oppose this nomination is the fact is Harriet Miers is NOT AT ALL LIKELY to vote with Scalia and Thomas. Miers record, what little there is, indicates that she is NOT and has never been any conservative! Even a cursory review of her past demonstrates this. EVERY piece of information about Miers that has been disclosed over the course of the past two weeks has indicated that she is either a "vacillating, unreliable vessel for whatever party or individual happens to exercise power at any given moment", or even worse, a doctrinaire liberal. On the Dallas City Council, she supported the South African divestment campaign, voted to raise taxes, and supported affirmative action in the fire department. She has given money to Democrats and Al Gore (Long AFTER her so-called evangelical conversion). She was PRO-affirmative action in the WH in the Grutter case. She established a Womens Studies department at SMU to showcase far left feminists. She has been active with the very liberal ABA for many years and has shown disdain for the Federalist Society - which is a huge red flag that in and of itself should be enough for conservatives to presumptively oppose her nomination.
Past history has shown that whether or not she is personally religious or pro-life is IRRELEVANT to how she would rule on the bench. Both O'Connor and Kennedy are both, yet have drifted further and further Left the longer they have been on the Court. The fact is, Harriet Miers is NOT a conservative and we would be LUCKY if she ended up voting like O'Connor, though everything in background indicates that it is FAR more likely she will vote with the Stevens/Souter/Ginsberg/Bryer wing of the Court on everything except perhaps abortion - and even that is no sure thing.
How many of us have given a pass to the President and his disastrous open-borders immigration policy and his approval of skyrocketing spending just because we trusted him on this ONE issue? How much time, money, and effort have many of us spent to elect George W. Bush President, only to be rewarded by this blatant betrayal of promises???
Additinally, I do not believe that a Luddig or Owens would have gotten through the RINO pink Republicans in the Senate. I have no reason to believe that Specter, Collins, Chaffee, Snowe, McCain, and other moderate/liberal Republican Senators would vote for her in committee, much less on the floor, and to run the risk that a hard known conservative would get through a floor vote, is a dangerous game to play, for if they were defeated, that would immediately turn Bush into a lame duck on this, and he would be forced to pick a moderate like kennedy or o'conner, guaranteeing the court remain liberal slanted. I don't see any good reason to take on that gamble with all the rest of the political heat he's having to fight. Katrina, Iraq, DeLay, Frist, Rove/Libby. The ultimate bottom line that is the most important is how will Miers decide in cases. If she finds the same as Thomas and Scalia, that is all that matters, not where she came from, who she knows, where she went to school, if she was a judge before the nomination. Reagan didn't know Renquist, and he was a strong conservative, and I still haven't heard anyone who knows her who has put forward anything that indicates she would not be a conservative constructionist Justice. I just flat haven't seen that. And the level of anger and venom from people against Miers, towards both people supporting her, and people like me who want to wait until I hear her speak for herself before passing judgment, is NOT helpful. People need to realize that and shut up before they do what the democrats haven't been able to do the past decade. Crumble the conservative movement. Whatever happens with Miers, I believe the Republicans will gain seats in the House and Senate. If anything, this nomination has made a large number of conservatives want to be more active and vote for even more conservative candidates for office. And I haven't heard any reason that someone would vote for less conservative candidates because of Miers. I hope the democrats keep on laughing about this. They won't be laughing next November when they've lost their fifth straight general election.
I agree with you. I am not happy at all with how Bush has handled the budged, or the borders, or immigration. But what to do? He's not running again, so to what end is this flaming opposition of him that is creating a rift among real conservatives? It would be better to hold that kind of anger until the next elections to make sure that stronger conservatives are elected. What is the upside to all this open angry opposition against Bush and Miers? The nomination won't be withdrawn. If she is going to vote liberal as a justice, then the damage is already done. I still don't think it can be credibly said that she will vote moderately or liberally. That just can't be known ahead of time. I wish it had been Luddig or Owens, what I wish for doesn't make it so. I am hopeful that there will be two more openings the next three years, Preferably stevens and ginsburg, and God willing Bush will do what the base wants before he retires from politics and nominates Precilla Owens and Michael Luddig, and let the chips fall where they may. I can't say it enough that were it me, I would have nominated a Owens of Luddig, but it wasn't, and even though he didn't do what I wanted, and it makes me nervous, vocal visible infighting among conservatives does not help the situation. It just doesn't. It seems a better course to take our lumps, decide to be even more determined in future elections, and move on, however this turns out. All the fighting just doesn't seem to have an upside to me, so what's the point? In any case, we're certainly getting a more conservative Justice than we'd get from f'ing kerry. I don't know what else to say. Not liking something and being able to change it are two different things, and not liking something loudly and starting a fight only hurts what all conservatives want. More conservatives and less liberals.