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October 22, 2005
Harriet E. Miers and Blood in the Water
You can distinctly smell blood in the water around the nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court. Prediction: This nomination gets withdrawn before they ever get to any senate hearings.
President Bush gets to pick the nominees, and he's a stubborn kind of fellow- which isn't always a bad trait. But pretty nearly absolutely NO ONE really likes this nomination, so how's it going to work?
Of course, this nomination immediately got a very bad response from conservative types. You wouldn't necessarily be surprised that Ann Coulter went bloody nuts about this pick. But even such a Bush booster as his former speechwriter David Frum who personally knows Miers was singularly unimpressed.
My first clue that there was serious trouble was the immediate and total opposition of George Will. CLICK HERE This guy's the great American Tory, a spirit of moderation and contemplation who is- for my tastes- too willing to settle for "realistic" options. When even this guy immediately responded that the US Senate should flatly reject this nomination, that's serious trouble for a Republican pick.
I smelled blood, though, when I saw THIS COLUMN on October 13 by Peggy Noonan. This former Reagan speechwriter is generally the most eloquent and reasonable mainstream spinner for Republicans. Instead, this genteel operative was writing a detailed exit plan for just how to back out of this nomination. Bad sign for Dubya, there. Real bad.
Charles Krauthammer has an alternate scenario for backing out of the Miers mess. CLICK HERE
It's only gotten worse. Jonah Goldberg at National Review was one of the last significant conservatives wanting to at least reserve judgment until her hearings, but now even he has gotten disgusted and thrown in the towel. Heck, George Will has gotten even more radical, declaring that any Republican senator who votes for Miers "can never be considered presidential material. "
Ann Coulter offers perhaps the best straightforward and simple explanation of why movement conservatives are so opposed to Miers:
The sickness of what liberals have done to America is that so many citizens - even conservative citizens - seem to believe the job of a Supreme Court justice entails nothing more than "voting" on public-policy issues. The White House considers it relevant to tell us Miers' religious beliefs, her hobbies, her hopes and dreams. She's a good bowler! A stickler for detail! Great dancer! Makes her own clothes!
That's nice for her, but what we're really in the market for is a constitutional scholar who can forcefully say, "No - that's not my job."
We've been waiting 30 years to end the lunacy of nine demigods on the Supreme Court deciding every burning social issue of the day for us, loyal subjects in a judicial theocracy. We don't want someone who will decide those issues for us - but decide them "our" way.
Exactly. We don't just need a vote against Roe, but a major level geek scholar who can break it down in words and cite precedents and all that to explain exactly where they went off track constitutionally with that and many other decisions.
We're precisely NOT looking for "common sense," which just means some gut reaction in line with the gut reactions of other people. Barney Fife could have used some common sense, but it will do us no good on the court. It's as if we're trying to appoint Judge Judy to the Supreme Court. The difference, of course, is that Judge Judy actually has judicial experience.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are almost all going to vote against her. That's a political given. The main thing, of course, is that they would dearly LOVE to stick it to President Bush. This would be a major rebuke.
Also though, Miers would obviously vote to overturn Roe in a heartbeat. She's on record supporting a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. You can try to argue that this theoretically doesn't necessarily say anything about how she'd vote on Roe. But nobody believes that of someone such as Miers with no hint of exhibiting any deeper constitutional philosophy- nor should they.
This clear opposition to Roe would compel most Democrat senators to vote against her, but they've got a lot more cover. She just legitimately has a very weak resume for this ultra-important job. Even all the right wingers say that she's simply flatly professionally unqualified for the job, regardless of any specifically political considerations. The right wing nutjobs thus provide legitimate cover for Democrat senators, and they're right in doing so.
Meantime, President Bush seems to be depending on nothing but absolute party loyalty to get ANY Republican support. With nearly every Democrat likely to vote against her, it would take not much more than half a dozen Republicans to absolutely sink the nomination.
In fact, Bush seems likely to lose half the Republican senators for various reasons, starting with that the politics are all running against supporting this weak nominee. For starters, it seems highly unlikely that any Republican senator intending to run for president in 2008 would support Miers. With big chunks of the base madder than a wet hen about this, Republican presidential hopefuls absolutely don't want conservative activists thinking that they're just Bush toadies.
That goes just as much for Republican senators having to face their general homestate electorate. A Republican in any kind of tough re-election battle next year is going to be highly motivated to find some good reason to part with this not very popular president. Voting against Miers would distinctly please most movement activists, and would be seen among independent swing type voters as a desirable sign of independence.
Indeed, why would any Republican senator vote FOR Miers? Even trying to do the best thing for the Republican Party at this point starts to point toward bailing. The personal politics will be against it. Plus, they can legitimately justify to themselves that she's just completely unqualified.
Oh, and don't neglect to mention cronyism. The Miers nomination has almost been worth it just for the pure founts of exasperation it has generated from Ann Coulter. She had the funniest explanation for the Miers pick, also one that looks especially bad on Bush. She suggested on Hannity and Colmes that Bush picked Miers because he "hates" conservatives. He was mad because conservatives had made it abundantly clearl that they found Alberto Gonzalez unacceptable. Oh yeah? You don't like this crony pick? I'll get you a crony pick that you'll like even less.
I hate to think that the leader of the free world would be acting in such a childish manner over such a critical appointment. However, that seems like at least as good an explanation for this hamhanded move as anything I've seen.
In any case, it would be difficult to argue that this nomination was not a move of major hubris, knowingly picking an underqualified crony for this crucial appointment, and expecting his people to just fall in line because he said to. For personal entertainment value, I'd likely to see Democrats and lefties going all moonbat on us, but they just won't have to. Republican senators will likely kill this deal for them.
posted by Al at 10/22/2005 11:34:00 PM
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