Posted on 10/20/2005 1:27:08 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite
The Miers Support Team: Gloomy and Demoralized Now they’re discussing stopping her visits to the Senate.
Strategists working with the White House in support of the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers are becoming increasingly demoralized and pessimistic about the nomination's prospects on Capitol Hill in the wake of Miers's meetings with several Republican and Democratic senators. On a conference call held this morning, they even discussed whether Miers should simply stop visiting with lawmakers, lest any further damage be done — and so that time spent in such get-acquainted sessions will not cut into Miers's intensive preparation for her confirmation hearing.
The strategists discuss issues on a twice-weekly conference call led by Leonard Leo, the executive vice president of the Federalist Society who has taken leave to help the White House shepherd the nomination through the Senate. A number of people who have taken part in the calls described the conversations to National Review Online. None wanted to be identified, because they do not want to openly oppose the White House or defy loyalists like Leo who are trying hard to defend Miers. Nevertheless, they paint a grim portrait of morale among those close to the nomination.
"The number of participants is declining," says one knowledgeable source. "With Roberts, these calls occurred five or six or seven times a week. Pretty early on, the calls on Miers were scaled back to twice a week. That says something in and of itself."
"It's been a gradual descent into almost silence," says a second source of the calls. "The meetings with the senators are going terribly. On a scale of one to 100, they are in negative territory. The thought now is that they have to end....Obviously the smart thing to do would be to withdraw the nomination and have a do-over as soon as possible. But the White House is so irrational that who knows? As of this morning, there is a sort of pig-headed resolve to press forward, cancel the meetings with senators if necessary, and bone up for the hearings."
"They are going to be keeping the meetings that they've already scheduled," says a third source. "But they have scheduled murder boards today from 12 to 5. She has to focus on her hearing. And the questionnaire that wasn't filled out, to me that's an indication [the White House] hasn't done the vetting. She has to spend a lot of time discussing stuff that should have been done before. So between those two things — finishing the questionnaire and preparing for the hearing, which is going to be make or break — they prefer to put her time into that."
"In the early days, there were people on the call who tried to give facile defenses of Miers, and they were immediately shot down," says a fourth source. "And by the way, those defenses weren't as insulting as the White House line — no way would they have done the 'sexist, elitist' line."
In summary, says the first source, "People have been looking for ways to support this. There are a lot of us who would like to find a reason to be encouraged. Every time I try to accommodate myself to this nomination, folks at the White House say idiotic things that piss me off, like that spin on Rove's part about her supposed deep involvement in judicial selection for three years, which is just not accurate."
"Demoralization and pessimism?" the source continues. "That's been a constant. We're in the various stages of grief."
Her comments had nothing to do with racial outcomes and you should pray to whatever it is you pray to for forgiveness for implying they do.
Yes he is a very good reporter.
The most conservative Senators need to join with Specter and the group needs to have a long and very confidential talk with Bush. They need to clearly lay out the situation. Miers can then announce that she has talked with all concerned and agreed to withdraw in the interest of gaining more judicial experience.
In the same presentation, Bush can then announce her nomination for a lower court position. The Senators can all then make supportive comments.
It's not perfect, but it will work.
Exactly. The SCOTUS is no place for on-the-job training or remedial Con Law education. We (conservatives and the entire nation) deserve better than this.
I'm not sure what a "race huckster" is, but you'd better tone down the rhetoric. It is an obvious and cheap distraction from you losing this debate.
I don't know if her comments had anything to do with racial outcomes, or not, but she is the one who framed it as such in her answer on page 49 of the Judiciary Committee questionnaire.
You be the judge.
Here is the answer in full:
"While I was an at-large member of the Dallas City Council, I dealt with issues that involved constitutional questions. For instance, when addressing a lawsuit under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the council had to be sure to comply with the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause."
Great post. You beat me to it.
Not a bad strategy?
Why would you want to divide your base under any circumstance?
just look at the many different opinions on this site.
"She & Bush are gonna be laughing stocks -even from his own party and he is toast for the next 3 yrs. How sad - How pathetic!"
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If push comes to shove, I would rather have a laughing stock president for the next 3 years, than have a laughing stock supreme court justice for THE NEXT 30 YEARS.
"Would be better if he knew her mind"
And a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Including confirmation hearings
Jones did get passed over for Souter.
She's also got a great roadmap for sending the notion that rights are granted by government to the dustbin.
I frankly think Miers has her heart in the same places as Jones. We shall see.
Even her "guide" through the process, ex-Senator Coats, has admitted she isn't qualified or even very smart. After all in defense of the spectacular Ms. Miers, who by the way has now cancelled meetings with Senators so she can actually read the Constitution, Sen. Coats said: "If great intellectual powerhouse is a qualification to be a member of the court and represent the American people and the wishes of the American people and to interpret the Constitution, then I think we have a court so skewed on the intellectual side that we may not be getting representation of America as a whole."
Sounds an awful lot like the defense offered by Senator Roman Hruska for G. Harold Carswell, a similarly less than qualified nominee of Richard Nixon's, who as you may remember is responsible for giving us that great conservative scholar on the current Court, Mr. Justice Stevens. In the stirring words of Sen. Hruska: "Even if he is mediocre there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises, Cardozos, and Frankfurters, and stuff like that there." Apparently that is the standard with which we all need to be satisfied, in the spirit of trust and blind faith and all that.
BINGO
What is even more of a joke is how the Bushbots attacked us for questioning this nomination in the first few days. They are a pathetic bunch of losers who kept saying wait for the hearing, wait for the hearings. If she can't get through private meetings, what the heck of an open hearing in the Senate???
She should step aside.
INTERVENTION. Please someone. Please, call for an intervention...
If he appoints Gonzales after this, then GWB is really playing with fire.
Did you even read the article???? She can't stand questioning in private meetings. You think publicly she will do better????
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