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Specter today: "I think that this is a sad episode in the history of Washington, D.C. ... The way Harriet Miers has been treated is really disgraceful."

(CBS) Attorney Andrew Cohen analyzes legal issues for CBS News and CBSNews.com. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Did a lamb just get slaughtered? Don’t believe for a second that concerns about “executive privilege” doomed the Supreme Court nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers. The privilege issue is just political cover — a convenient excuse, really — to allow President Bush to do what he had to do to avoid further embarrassment for himself and his buddy. The Miers’ nomination was getting worse, not better, for the White House — everyone knows it — and this dramatic move allows the whole gang to hit...

President George W. Bush may have no military exit strategy for Iraq, but the “neocons” who convinced him to go to war there have developed one of their own—a political one: Blame the Administration. Their neo-Wilsonian theory is correct, they insist, but the execution was botched by a Bush team that has turned out to be incompetent, crony-filled, corrupt, unimaginative and weak over a wide range of issues. The flight of the neocons—just read a recent Weekly Standard to see what I am talking about —is one of only many indications that the long-predicted “conservative crackup” is at hand.

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary October 25, 2005 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE DINNER Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium Washington, D.C. 6:55 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Thanks for coming. Please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. Mehlman didn't get the dress code. (Laughter.) And neither did I. (Laughter.) Thanks for having me. I'm proud to be here on the 30th birthday of the Eagles. For three decades, Eagles have given great parties, but more importantly, they've supported our party. And I'm grateful. I want to thank you for all your help...

Ten days ago I wrote about the Miers nomination in light of Judge Bork's introduction to a new book of essays on SCOTUS. In this morning's Wall Street Journal, Judge Bork weighs in with a denunciation of the Miers nomination, which includes the fairly astonishing sentence: The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aside, George W. Bush has not governed as a conservative (amnesty for illegal immigrants, reckless spending that will ultimately undo his tax cuts, signing a campaign finance bill even while maintaining its unconstitutionality). This is the same as arguing that "Except for opposing Hitler and later warning of...

OCT. 14, 2005: IF I WERE HARRIET MIERS ... I really would ask my friends to keep their mouths closed. Every time they speak up, they only remind the country of what is wrong with this unwise nomination. My friend Matthew Scully's oped in the New York Times today perfectly exemplifies the problem. Throughout this debate, critics of the nomination have raised important and valid points about the record of this nominee, her qualifications, and the political dangers post-Katrina of offering up high-profile nominees to important jobs solely on the basis of their personal closeness to the president. Defenders by...

October 12, 2005 Liveblogging the Ken Mehlman Conference Call I've been invited to participate in a conference call with RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman and bloggers re the Harriet Miers nomination. I'll be live blogging as we go along. I'm not a stenographer, so this will be paraphrases, but I'll do my best. Editorial comments in parentheticals. 11:33 Right now I'm on hold. 11:38 Patrick Ruffini starts by introducing the RNC's effort to reach out to the blogosphere. (Interesting given that just the other day I was blogging on how the RNC seemed to be behind the DNC on blogosphere outreach.)...

TO BORK VS. TO MIER [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Yesterday on air Hugh Hewitt suggested to me that we here were trying to Bork Miers. No. This is new SCOTUS verb time. Andrew Breitbart just came up with over IM: to MIER: to put your own allies in the most untenable position possible based upon exceptionally bad decsion making. Secondary defintion: While steadlily going in reverse in the driveway of your own home, intentionally abruptly pressing gas pedal as to crash into garage door for no apparent reason. They'll be teaching this in AP Government classes before long. Posted at 02:26...

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' law firm contributed $1,000 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign in 2000, Federal Election Commission reports show. Locke Liddell & Sapp LLP PAC, the political action committee of the Houston law firm Miers co-managed, made the contributions on May 19, 2000, two days after Miers contributed $415.91 to the PAC. The contributions were revealed over the weekend in an FEC response to a request by the conservative Republican Study Committee for Miers' campaign contributions, and detailed on the left-leaning worldnetdaily Web site. The report is sure to roil an already sharply divided Republican Party. Many conservatives...

Illegal Patronage Probe Snares Ky. Gov. By MARK R. CHELLGREN, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago For the past few months, Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher has been doing just about everything he can to fend off a criminal investigation into alleged political hiring-and-firing by his administration. But the investigation has steamed on, and appears to be getting closer to Fletcher himself. Eleven current or former members of his administration have been indicted so far in the probe by Kentucky's attorney general. And while there has been little or no evidence to publicly connect the governor to any wrongdoing, his efforts...

President Bush has divided conservatives with his choice of a “stealth” nominee for the Supreme Court who has no experience grappling with constitutional issues. But the conservative claim that we have insufficient guarantees that Harriet Miers is sufficiently conservative also reflects a conservative version of the kind of misunderstanding of the judiciary that liberals so frequently make. A plausible argument could be made that the greatest challenge in contemporary American politics is the restoration of judicial integrity. The only means for doing so is to appoint judges to the federal courts who are committed to applying the law as intended...

CWA Responds to Harriet Miers' Qualifications for the Supreme Court     10/10/2005Chief Counsel Jan LaRue writes memo for constituents. CONCERNED WOMEN FOR AMERICAMEMORANDUMTHE NOMINATION OF HARRIET MIERS TO THE U.S. SUPREME COURTOCTOBER 10, 2005TO: CWA CONSTITUENTSFROM: JAN LARUE, CHIEF COUNSEL BACKGROUND: Concerned Women for America (CWA) initially responded to President Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers on October 3 by expressing our cautious optimism and hope that we would be able to support the nomination. This memorandum expresses our assessment of what has transpired since the President made his announcement and of any new information about Miss Miers. The media are brimming...

Thursday, October 06, 2005 The Case for Miers (when things look blurry) Fear factor As with pretty much everyone on the center-right, my initial reaction to the Miers appointment was anger, disbelief, and opposition. I feared, and many feared, that Miers was another Souter--and without the credentials to match. But I decided to do some research on Miers before I vented in my blog. After looking at the evidence, I came to two conclusions: 1) she's qualified; 2) she's very conservative. 1. Why W picked Miers The pick of Miers was very unexpected: Why Miers? But in retrospect it's not...

Open Challenge to the "Conservative" Punditry. Stand and Deliver time boys and girls. OK. Let's forget about your inexcusable conduct towards Miers and deal. The LIBERALS are LAUGHING at you. They cannot believe you are all THIS stupid. They are watching, in stunned disbelief, as YOU do THEIR job in destroying the 1st Republican Majority in 50 years. All you "Conservatives" are all telling us "You can't trust Bush" and "We can win this fight". Well guess what. We have NO proof we can trust you. WHERE is YOUR paper trail? NONE of you were able to convince the Senate...

A footnote: President Bush had advised senators that his probable choice for the Supreme Court was federal Circuit Judge Consuelo Callahan of California. Bush touted Callahan's diversity as a Hispanic woman, but she is liberal enough to be recommended for the high court by Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer.

The debate within the Republican Party over Harriet Miers has quickly devolved into a simple question: Is the nominee qualified because of her religious faith, or unqualified by her lack of intellectual heft? In this battle, the White House has clearly sided with the churchgoing masses against the Republican Party's own whiny Beltway intellectuals. The Bushies have always mistrusted their own bow-tied secularists, but the rift has never before been so public. "This is classic elitism," says a senior administration official of the GOP opposition to the Miers nomination. "We often blame the left for it, but we have it...

I've thought about it for the past couple of days, and here is why I think Ms. Meirs should NOT be confirmed. I'll take this from the stand of both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats cannot vote for Meirs because above all things, she is a Bush crony. She could be a legacy of the Bush Administration that would haunt you for years. She thinks that W is one of the most intelligent men on Earth. Bush/Cheney will likely have her ear even after they have left the White House. A vote for her is a vote for the continued influence...

Many people reading "The Drudge Report" would think that Harriet Miers holds very liberal positions, based on Drudge's headline, "HARRIET MIERS SUPPORTED FULL CIVIL RIGHTS FOR GAYS AND LESBIANS." They would be wrong. Harriet Miers' position apparently was basically what most conservatives believe: That there are no such civil rights as the right to marry someone of the same gender, the right to receive special legal protection in employment or houseing, or the right to commit sodomy. Thus, when asked whether she supports full civil rights for gays, she said she did -- not because she believes in the "special...