Oops, He Did It Again
Oops, it looks like he did it again; President Bush has left his Conservative base hanging by their collective fingernails by nominating a huge question mark. His nomination of Harriet Miers for Sandra Day O`Connor`s seat on the Supreme Court may have been strategically astute, but the President has once again taken the cow path rather than the high road, and his unwillingness to fight may have undone everything that his conservative base has struggled for.
I realize that the President knows this woman, and she may prove to be a sound conservative jurist, but we just don`t KNOW, any more than we know if John Roberts is the next Antonin Scalia or Earl Warren. Loyalty and friendship are very important to the President. He stands by those who stand by him, and he is not an ideologue; he often overlooks ideological differences where loyalty is concerned. This is what concerns me about this whole thing; I can see the President choosing Harriet Miers (and John Roberts) based on good intentions. I can see his picks proving to be spectacularly wrong, and having his nominees move the court backwards.
What we do know about Harriet Miers is somewhat disturbing; a former Democrat who contributed money to Al Gore in 1988, the first female President of the left-wing Texas State Bar Association, head of the Texas lottery commission (notorious for corruption since she left.), few outraged liberal remarks in the wake of her nomination.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (yes, Scary Harry himself!) personally recommended her to the President. According to the Washington Times article:
``Reid had personally recommended that Bush consider Miers for nomination, according to several sources familiar with the president's consultations with individual senators. Of equal importance as the White House maps its confirmation campaign is that the Nevada Democrat had warned Bush that the selection of any of several other contenders could trigger a bruising partisan struggle.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid was complimentary, issuing a statement that said he likes Miers and adding "the Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer."
So, if I understand this, the principle enemy of a Conservative agenda recommends Miss Miers, and threatens partisan war if he nominates anyone else, so our hero folds like an accordian at the Octoberfest. Had the President fought the filibuster war earlier, he would have been in a position to choose whoever he well pleased. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush, much like Neville Chamberlain, has a tendency to compromise for his ``new tone``, and he eventually backs himself into a corner. He has done this numerous times during his presidency. It should hardly surprise us now.
(For my views on the Roberts nomination read this from my archives.
Victory does not belong to the timid. Our President has become timid, and the nation may well pay a dear price as a result.
UPDATE:
David Hogberg has a terrific piece in TAS which dovetails nicely with this piece-check it out!
I realize that the President knows this woman, and she may prove to be a sound conservative jurist, but we just don`t KNOW, any more than we know if John Roberts is the next Antonin Scalia or Earl Warren. Loyalty and friendship are very important to the President. He stands by those who stand by him, and he is not an ideologue; he often overlooks ideological differences where loyalty is concerned. This is what concerns me about this whole thing; I can see the President choosing Harriet Miers (and John Roberts) based on good intentions. I can see his picks proving to be spectacularly wrong, and having his nominees move the court backwards.
What we do know about Harriet Miers is somewhat disturbing; a former Democrat who contributed money to Al Gore in 1988, the first female President of the left-wing Texas State Bar Association, head of the Texas lottery commission (notorious for corruption since she left.), few outraged liberal remarks in the wake of her nomination.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (yes, Scary Harry himself!) personally recommended her to the President. According to the Washington Times article:
``Reid had personally recommended that Bush consider Miers for nomination, according to several sources familiar with the president's consultations with individual senators. Of equal importance as the White House maps its confirmation campaign is that the Nevada Democrat had warned Bush that the selection of any of several other contenders could trigger a bruising partisan struggle.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid was complimentary, issuing a statement that said he likes Miers and adding "the Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer."
So, if I understand this, the principle enemy of a Conservative agenda recommends Miss Miers, and threatens partisan war if he nominates anyone else, so our hero folds like an accordian at the Octoberfest. Had the President fought the filibuster war earlier, he would have been in a position to choose whoever he well pleased. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush, much like Neville Chamberlain, has a tendency to compromise for his ``new tone``, and he eventually backs himself into a corner. He has done this numerous times during his presidency. It should hardly surprise us now.
(For my views on the Roberts nomination read this from my archives.
Victory does not belong to the timid. Our President has become timid, and the nation may well pay a dear price as a result.
UPDATE:
David Hogberg has a terrific piece in TAS which dovetails nicely with this piece-check it out!
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 4:06 PM
2 Comments:
"so our hero folds like an accordian at the Octoberfest"
I couldn't have said it any better Tim.
I suppose this now means that the O`Connor seat will carry with it a "vaginal ownership" requirement into perpetuity. O’ Connor all but demanded it, Schumer among others loudly suggested it, and even Laura Bush hinted that it should be so and by god a woman has been nominated to fill what will now be viewed as “the woman’s” seat on the court.
When Thomas leaves will his seat forever be "the black guys seat?" Will Scalia's vacancy have to be filled by a chubby, balding Italian guy? I find this an incredibly disturbing trend that should be thrown onto the historical ash heap along with the idiotic demands from liberal senators that the president not upset the “balance” of this supreme court.
It appears that this president has either succumb to the "inside the beltway mentality" or this is a feeble attempt at confounding everyone, his base included. When I see Democrat Senators go positively giddy over a judicial nominee from a Republican president, every red flag I own begins waving manically.
Wonderful column, Tim and an excellent comment by TJ Willms. Looks like this is the "Sandra Day O'Connor seat that has to be filled by a woman. A wonderful opportunity missed, regardless of how she turns out as a jurist, to have a public debate about the important issues posed by the court and judicial activism. As it is, I can say that it's probably going to be one of those "May I compliment the gentlelady" kind of affairs. She can't say aything about her judicial philosophy - because she HAS no judicial philosophy.
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