Free Republic

President Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers -- ironically made to avoid a confirmation battle -- has touched off a battle the White House seems not to have seriously considered: a battle with the most reliable part of his own base, political conservatives. The scale of the conservative rebellion against Miers is truly shocking. Within hours of her announcement the shots began from diverse redoubts. William Kristol, Rush Limbaugh, David Frum, Ann Coulter, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Pat Buchanan, and a legion of bloggers, commentators, organizers and grassroots leaders openly questioned or opposed the nomination as a mistake -- and a...

Imagine if Bill Clinton had nominated his personal attorney and White House counsel to a post on the U.S. Supreme Court. Somehow, I can't imagine my conservative friends supporting the nominee – particularly if there were questions about controversial documents being destroyed that might actually shed light on scandals of the past. The stunning series of articles by WND columnist Jerome Corsi, raising serious and nagging questions about Harriet Miers' role as chairman of the Texas Lottery Commission and the cover-up of the way that story intersects with George W. Bush's National Guard service, points up why this kind of...

The Washington Times reports that Karl Rove was "very involved" in President Bush's selection of Harriet Miers to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. This should put to rest the notion that Mr. Rove is a political genius. Bush compounded matters at his press conference Tuesday, when he said Ms. Miers was the best qualified person, a statement breathtakingly at odds with reality. He'd have been on firmer ground if he'd simply said Harriet Miers was the best qualified conservative who could win relatively easy Senate confirmation. William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, said he was "disappointed,...

Miers pick may be splitting solid GOP base Conservatives' unified front may be coming apart with nomination and other issues By JULIE MASON Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - For more than a decade, the Republican Party steadily amassed power by knitting together a resilient coalition of moderates and hard-line social conservatives and factions in between. For many, a unifying goal of the past quarter-century has been to shift the Supreme Court from what they perceive as the social policymaking of liberal justices and return the court to conservative jurists who would adhere more strictly to the Constitution....