Free Republic

Joshua B. Bolten, the new White House chief of staff, has raised the possibility of moving Harriet E. Miers from her job as President Bush's counsel as part of a continuing shake-up of the West Wing, an influential Republican with close ties to Mr. Bolten said Thursday. The Republican, who was granted anonymity to talk openly about sensitive internal White House deliberations, said that Mr. Bolten had floated the idea among confidants, but that it was unclear whether he would follow through or if the move would be acceptable to Mr. Bush, who has a longtime personal bond with Ms....

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WITH SAMUEL ALITO ABOUT to be confirmed, it's time to take stock of this particular episode in the making of a justice, the nation's 110th. Bear in mind that Alito was not President Bush's first choice to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor. The estimable John Roberts was, but when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died, Bush decided to redesignate Roberts for the center seat. That meant finding another nominee for O'Connor's seat.As it happened, Bush surprised the world by naming White House Counsel Harriet Miers. The Miers nomination proved a major blunder. Bush had opted for a person he knew well who...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A small, twin-engine plane carrying White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card made an emergency landing in Nashville Saturday after smoke began pouring into the cockpit, officials said. Card and 12 others on board were not injured when the Gulfstream 4 plane bound for Washington landed at the Nashville International Airport around 4 p.m., said Lynne Lowrance, an airport spokeswoman. "They thought they could be having some trouble with the Avionics instruments but they weren't sure what was causing the smoke," Lowrance said. The plane left Texas, where Card has been meeting with President Bush...

WASHINGTON -- At a time when he is under criminal investigation in the CIA leak case, Karl Rove stepped into the limelight Thursday night, praising failed Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers to an influential group of conservative lawyers. "If you like every one of the 200 judges that we have sent forth to the U.S. Congress to be approved in the last three years, there hasn't been one of them who hasn't been researched, vetted, studied, analyzed or recommended by my friend Harriet Miers," the deputy White House chief of staff said in remarks to the Federalist Society. Rove did...

WITHIN minutes of her nomination to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, White House Counsel Harriet Miers was the subject of a blogs warm of disappointed conservatives who immediately launched an effort to force her to withdrawal her own nomination. NationalReview.com's group blogs "The Corner" and "Bench Memos," the blog ConfirmThem.com and the posters at FreeRepublic.com kept up a steady stream of criticism, much of it serious and thoughtful, some of it thuggish and false.

For conservatives, it was a teaching moment, and a kind of vindication. Two months ago, millions of Americans watched as Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, billed as a conservative Republican, sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee, smoothly and confidently responding to the grilling of Democratic senators who had hoped to trip him up and expose him as an "outside the mainstream" danger to American jurisprudence. Roberts was smart, good-humored and sensible. The Democrats, very often, were not -- think of Joe Biden's outburst accusing Roberts of providing "misleading" answers. Roberts kept his cool, showing the public a conservative who not...

"The conservative screamers who shot down [Harriet] Miers can argue that they were fighting only for a 'qualified' nominee. . . . But whatever the rationale, the fact is that they short-circuited the confirmation process by raising hell with Bush. . . . A cabal of outsiders--a lynching squad of right-wing journalists, self-sanctified religious and moral organizations, and other frustrated power-brokers--[rolled] over the president they all ostensibly support." --David Broder, Washington Post, Nov. 2 Nothing like the calming tones of The Dean to bring context and a needed sense of perspective to the proceedings. In his comments on Sunday's "Meet...

"The conservative screamers who shot down [Harriet] Miers can argue that they were fighting only for a 'qualified' nominee. . . . But whatever the rationale, the fact is that they short-circuited the confirmation process by raising hell with Bush. . . . A cabal of outsiders--a lynching squad of right-wing journalists, self-sanctified religious and moral organizations, and other frustrated power-brokers--[rolled] over the president they all ostensibly support." --David Broder, Washington Post, Nov. 2       Nothing like the calming tones of The Dean to bring context and a needed sense of perspective to the proceedings. In his comments on Sunday's "Meet the Press" and in his...

Facing draft, Alito joined Army Reserve Wednesday, November 2, 2005; Posted: 10:42 p.m. EST (03:42 GMT) WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito joined the Army Reserve while he was a college student because his lottery number had made it likely he would be drafted for the Vietnam War, college roommates said Wednesday. Alito was part of the Army's ROTC program during his years at Princeton -- 1968 to 1972 -- a period when the war in Southeast Asia escalated and more American men were drafted. In 1971, President Nixon ended student deferments, increasing the pool of potential military...

Gazing from across an ocean at the undoing of US President George W. Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the US Supreme Court was like gazing at Elysium. In the public debate that erupted in the wake of Bush's announcement four weeks ago that he was nominating his personal attorney to the highest court in America, we saw what a real policy debate in a well-functioning democracy looks like. And if democracy is the best system of government known to man, then a well-functioning democratic system is the best of the best. That is, it is paradise. A well-functioning democracy...

WASHINGTON -- A centrist Democratic senator complimented Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito Wednesday as a jurist who won't "hammer away and chisel away" existing law. While Sen. Ben Nelson did not endorse President Bush's latest nominee for the high court, he did say he was impressed by what he heard from Alito during his introductory visit. The Nebraska Democrat, who was Alito's first senatorial host Wednesday, told reporters that he got assurances that Alito would not be "judicial activist" or "take an agenda to the bench" if confirmed to succeed Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring.

In a new Gallup poll, Americans are split on the selection of Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O’Connor, with 43% believing that the selection is either excellent or good, while 39% believe that the selection was fair or poor. About half of Americans feel positively about Alito as a person, with a small minority, only 19% of those polled, disliking him personally. About half of those polled also feel that his views are mainstream, and only 25% feel that his views are too extreme. The most pressing issue for Alito seems to be that of the possible reversal of...

Just the week before, Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, had cheerfully predicted that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers had “turned the corner” and would never withdraw her name from consideration. Now, a few hours after Miers proved him dead wrong, Sekulow sounded as upbeat as ever. “She did the noble thing,” Sekulow told the million-plus people listening to his daily radio show on Christian stations last Thursday, adding, confidentially, “I saw this coming.” The next nominee, he predicted, would be a sitting judge just as worthy of support as Miers. It was vintage...

Principled conservatism By Tony Blankley November 2, 2005 Last week, the conservative movement had its Rosa Parks moment: We refused to give up our seat on the bus even for a Republican president. Regarding that event, liberals, mainstream mediacrities as well as conservative movementistas all shared a common impression: Something important happened last week for conservatism — and thus for the broader political scene. The successful opposition to Harriet Miers was not a triumph for just some faction of the conservative movement. If it used to be said that the Church of England was the Tory Party at prayer, then...

Commentary: The Mac is back By William John Hagan Houston Home Journal 11/02/2005 Mac Collins is returning to Georgia politics and he is pulling out all the stops. On Thursday night Washington Republicans raised $100,000 for Collins and, the next night at Henderson Village, the citizen's of Houston County did them one better by bringing the Vice President to town and raising $140,000 more. Collins is a man on mission and the job is to defeat Congressman Jim Marshall. This race is still one year away but it has already been identified as one of the nation's most important Congressional...

SALT LAKE CITY - After President Bush has left office and historians start to chronicle his legacy, Friday, Oct. 28, 2005, may turn out to have far less significance than Thursday, Dec. 15, 2005. Friday, Oct. 28 was a sort of "black Friday" for Mr. Bush, in which he endured the indictment of a senior aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., following a string of presidential problems that have eroded public support for the president. But Thursday, Dec. 15 is the day when Iraqis choose a new parliament to serve for the next four years. If Iraqis, who have exhibited great...

Now that we have a real Scotus nominee where are all the Miers supporters. Be consistant if you can.

"Bush, a hateful (edited) himself, nominates a hateful (edited) to the Supreme Court, even as his circle of hateful (edited) narrows under indictments" Samuel Alito. This is the guy Bush chose to replace the Bob-Dylan/birdwoman Harriet Meiers. Alito's record shows he supports HUGE restrictions on civil rights. Here is how a well-known law journal summed up his views on minorities and women: "Alito has a disturbing record in cases involving discrimination based on race, disability and gender. Under his judicial philosophy, victims would face near-impossible burdens to..." The AP reported today that Alito was going to the Capitol Rotunda with...

DeWine's position is a stark departure from the conciliatory tone he struck as one of seven Republicans and seven Democrats who brokered the compromise earlier this year.