Posted on 10/21/2005 7:45:54 AM PDT by libstripper
The Miers nomination might be the most catastrophic political miscalculation of the Bush presidency.
Republican presidents have long been drawn to the “stealth strategy” on judicial nominations, picking conservatives, or supposed conservatives, without a public record so it will be harder for Democrats to oppose them. In the John Roberts nomination, a modified stealth strategy reached its height, giving the Court what is likely to be a conservative chief justice for the next 30 years. In the Harriet Miers nomination, the stealth strategy has all but collapsed, producing what might be the most catastrophic political miscalculation of the Bush presidency.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Having said that, I was disappointed in the "stealth trategy" that seemed to form the decision to nominate him.
Clinton brazenly said he would nominate pro-abortion, activist judges - and he did. Why is it that Republican presidents are terrified to do the same when it comes to Supreme Court nominations?
Roger that and Harriet Miers is a tough Texan; she'll do just fine. ;)
Hope the naysayers celebrate when they get what they wished for, Miers taken out of contention, replaced by Alberto Gonzales as the nominee.
I'm witchoo.
In other news... pundits are knocking themselves out trying to OUT SHRILL and OUT HYPERVENITLATE the last guy ("Hey look at me").
Bush is way too stubborn to let her withdraw even if she wanted to.
"Chess, when played badly, is less rewarding than well-played checkers."*
*Satan, Complete Diaries, p. 6,666,666, footnote.
Things still a go per GW today. Let all the "church lady" haters hang on their own petards. ;)
That's right. That's why conservatives weren't thrilled with the Roberts pick. The bush bots were, but not conservatives. However, Roberts performance in the hearings made him pretty much invincible. There was no way he wasn't going to be confirmed.
Then came Miers. She'd have been a bad first pick, but she was an even worse second pick from conservatives' standpoint. Most conservatives (and even some bots) were speculating that the NEXT pick (after Roberts) would be a clear cut originalist. Instead we get his secretary. That's another reason the base has gone ballistic on this. It was insult added to injury.
Ann Richards is a tough Texan, too.
What makes anyone think that President Bush would let down a friend? Why do you think that a man who would take on the aRabs, the French, the Germans and the left in war would roll over for NRO and Weekly Standard? Someone needs to sell the naysayers a vowel so they can get the message.GWB will not change his mind.
I didn't know she was a mominee.
Psssssssst ~ Harriet will be on the SC.
"John Lowry here, look at me, look at me, I still oppose this nomination for the same reasons I did 3 weeks ago, but nobody's paid any attention to me for a while"
"I've been opposing this nominee for the same reasons for almost as many days as any other opponent out there, and I deserve equal treatment".
And what really puts a cockle-burr under my saddle is the way First-Lady Laura and other supporters of Miers suggest that those of us who are opposed to her, are opposed because she is a female. Good Grief, Charlie Brown! That dog don't hunt! I think most of us would stand up and cheer If a truly conservative woman such as Janice Rogers Brown were nominated.
You just can't keep those feisty little "church ladies" down can ya. Rodger from Indy. ;)
I await the hearings. If Miers is indeed a dim bulb (not a very good refection on the Texas Bar, on Bush before he nominated her in the first place), then I'll join the hallelujah chorus.
But it she shows herself capable, I wish just a few of these people would SHUT UP.
are opposed because she is a female.
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And what does that tell you? It says the critics are right when they cannot defend their choice BASED ON MERIT and that is the problem!!! Bush is really in the process of destroying what little legacy he has left. As Rush put it in a recent interview (very PC) when asked about what he thought of this Presidency, he said "Well, in his first term, Bush had every potential to go down in history as one of the greatest Presidents of all time..." (end of response). He didn't have to say any more.
I liked Krauthammer's column better, because it didn't include more of the stupid personal attacks and name-calling that we all expect from the left ("brown-noser"?)
Stop talking about the horrible process, the "looks bad", the "what was he thinking" crap.
Oppose the nominee because the nominee has no judicial record, and doesn't seem capable of speaking to one coherently. Or because the nominee doesn't seem able to handle the rigors of the process, or doesn't seem to take the process seriously, or just has too little knowledge of constitutional issues.
Or better still, join the "we need enough information to understand this nominee, and that includes all the advice she gave to the president -- because her work was about judicial nominees, and her reports will show how she evaluated judicial nominees, which will reveal what she thought about their positions."
That is a rational request, and could be essential to prove that this nominee has the correct judicial philosophy and understands what it means.
Sure, the President probably can't give us that information. But let me take this a step further:
In the past Bush argued that when he didn't turn stuff over, that it wasn't stuff HE had looked at either, and therefore it had nothing to do with his choice.
In THIS case, his choice, the reason he thinks she is OK, is precisely due to the information she has given him these past 10 years. The President can't expect us to SIMPLY trust him, we need to verify that what he sees is what we would see. And to do that, we need to see all the stuff HE has seen.
I'm not saying I LIKE the argument, or that it is entirely fair, but it is a rational argument that has merit.
And it could lead to the rejection of a nominee without ANY capitulation to the fringe wing of a party throwing a hissy fit (I am not endorsing that view, just that is what will be said if we "throw her out" the WRONG way).
She's not. I bring her up to demonstrate that simply being a tough Texan with a vagina doesn't mean you'll be a good SC justice. As for your prediction, we'll see.
Speak for yourself. She is the opposite of an intellectual, which I like. She appears to have common sense and is grounded. And, from EVERYONE who knows her, she is an "originalist." That's as good as it gets in my book. I do not want 9 Scalias on the court. One or two, yes. Not nine. There is a tendency in ANY organization to start over-philosophizing and over-intellectualizing and to lose the grounding of law that the rest of us will have to live under.
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