God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change those things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. (Reinhold Niebuhr 1892-1971)

In the case of Miers, some people don't seem to know the difference--between what they have power to change and what they don't. In the US Senate, one side of the political aisle is going to put her over that 51 vote threshold. I guess the only question is which side.

Who are these yahoos who lay claim to the Republican Party? They claim to be the base?!

The 2000 election was the least political in memory. There was peace and prosperity. Neither candidate could get a bit part in a movie and the biggest issue was the lockbox. The dead even result revealed the base party affiliation in this country.

In 2004 almost 20 million more voters turned out and they went for the President 3 to 2. George Bush led the party to a significant victory in 2002 and then consolidated the Republican hold on government for the next generation. I'll lay odds that not one in a thousand of those 120 million voters would recognize the names of the doomsday chorus so loudly clamoring for their annointed places.

This President was elected by more than 62 million people. Their votes are the ones that count and they voted for George Bush. If these idiots want to pick up their marbles and go home I say "have a nice day - go back off in your own jack yard".

I note much about Harriet Miers is deeply unfair, I do not understand why so much negativity from many of the blogs who seemed so supportive of the good side of government. Coalition of the Chilling should help to cool the overheated.
Harriet Miers seems alright, now bring on the hearings and we will all find out.

Just a simple thought that keeps reverberating in my cerebellum. It takes the form of a question.

Would you hire an orthopedic surgeon to perform brain surgery?

If a person takes an action which any reasonable person should know will produce a certain set of consequences who should be held responsible when those consequences materialise?

In other words, when I see a large hornet's nest twenty feet up on the side of my barn and I place a ladder against the side of my barn and climb up so that my face is two inches from that hornet's nest and then strike the side of the nest as hard as I can with my fist, who do I blame (assuming that I survive being stung three hundred times and falling twenty feet off the ladder) for my pain and suffering?

If George Bush is even half as smart as his supporters tell us he is HE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! To pass up some of the finest legal minds in the nation to appoint a barley qualified (if that) nonentity for no other reason than that he can count on her personal loyalty is nothing more than a calculated insult to the people who worked and gave to put his behind in the Oval Office.

If the Republicans lose control of congress and the nation is forced to endure another Clinton presidency the fault will be George W Bush's

That should be "barely qualified". Although if she spends enough time at the brew pub she could be barley qualified as well.

RiverRat:

You've missed the point, RR. If we were advising Bush before he announced the nomination, this would be a perfectly relevant point. In fact, I agree she's not top-notch, and Bush could have done better. I understand why he picked her, I just disagree with his decision.

But RiverRat, we're no longer at that stage. The question before is house is not whether Bush should have picked her; the question is, now that he has nominated Miss Miers, what should we do about it?

Our alternatives are few: we can take the best compromise we're going to get -- accept Miers and push Bush hard for a Garza if he gets another nomination (which he very well might... John Paul Stevens is 85 years old, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 72).

Or alternatively, we can turn the nomination into a civil war within the GOP, weaken the president, weaken the party, and ripen the field for the Democrats to reap three or four seats in the Senate, nine or ten in the House, and maybe even pluck the presidency in 2008.

Say, RiverRat -- what do you think Luttig's chances are if the next nomination is by President Dean, shepherded through the J-Com by Chairman Leahy?

Like it or not, our best interest, both as a party and as Americans, is to suck it up, support the president, and push hard behind the scenes for a better choice next time. The Democrats have way too much party discipline; but the Republican Party has way too little. (There's a reason we've been called the Stupid Party for the last couple of decades.)

Dafydd

Danupton:

There's a concept in the law, I'm told, related to accidents: even if one party did something stupid, if the other party had the last chance to avoid the accident, but he didn't, then he's at fault too. Just because somebody drifted over the line doesn't give you the legal right to ram him.

Same thing applies here. I just have one question: regardless of whose "fault" it may be -- would you prefer living under a Democrat president and a Democrat Congress?

If your answer is "yes, I would," then by all means, make as much mischief as you can. But if your answer is "no, I wouldn't" (as I expect it is), then since you have the last chance to avoid the civil war, just suck it up and do it.

Swallow your bile. I know it's a pisser... but the alternative (President Hillary? Speaker Pelosi?) is so much worse, for you personally (as well as the rest of us), that you're nuts if you allow your personal pique, however justified, to drive you to make a mistake you're regret for decades.

This is the real world. People make mistakes, even bad ones. Ronald Reagan pulled us out of Beirut right after we were hit with a terrorist attack in 1983 -- probably the worst thing he did in his presidency.

So let's say we really let him have it. Heck, he deserved it! It was a dreadful decision. Maybe we should have stunk up the convention the next year, made a lot of trouble, run a third-party "Real Conservative" candidate.

Good idea? Say hello to President Walter Mondale! And you know what, danupton? We would probably still have the Soviet Union, East Germany, the Berlin Wall, and the terrorists would be working for the commies. Gee, what a wonderful world that would have been.

Sometimes, you just have to take one for the Corps, dude. This is one of those times.

Dafydd

Where in my post did I say that the best thing for the Republican party was that it tear itself apart? I know that the smartest thing we can do is get her confirmed and on the court as quickly as possible (and that means throwing soft balls at her during her hearings).

My point was simply this. Any person with the IQ of your average garden vegetable could have and should have foreseen the damage that would be done to the Party by the Miers nomination. The fact that Bush either didn't know or didn't care means that he either is the dim bulb that the left has been telling us he is or that he as assumed the kind of autocratic Olympian arrogance seen in the more insane Roman emperors.

I don't know which it is, but neither will be very good for the Republican Party or the nation.

There is a third choice now that I think about it. It may be that Bush sat down with Miers and secured promises from her that she would vote the "right way" on some number of issues. If this is the case then GW is neither arrogant nor stupid, he simply has the ethics of Bill Clinton. All things considered this may be the best we can hope for.

Danupton:

I can think of many other possibilities.

Dafydd

I have to disagree with you on this one, BigLiz. You assure us this is not a catastrophe; I would argue it either turns out to be one or not, but why should we be asked to play Russian Roulette?
I agree with the commenter above who speaks of the last opportunity to avoid the accident; at this point we on the center/right should be showing a united front to Ms. Miers asking her to voluntarily withdraw her name from consideration.
I base this on four reasons: 1) Bush's promise to appoint someone like Thomas or Scalia was as important to ma, and many others, as his father's "read my lips' pledge. 2) Miers is almost a perfect clone of David Souter -- a solitary workaholic that combines excellent performance in some narrowly defined areas with a wide eyed naif's view of the broader picture. (Bush is the most brilliant man she's ever met!) 3) At this point in the process Sandra Day O'Conner had a much more reassuring resume, snd we don't deserve another such disappointment. 4) We deserve to have a philosophical battle with the Dem's for the educational purposes it would serve for, say, Rick Santorum in a very tough fight. If the Republican's can't say why they are better than the Dem's why bother to be involved at all?

Beebop:

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I suspect you know absolutely nothing about David Souter.

In fact, he was not a cipher at all. He was a liberal Republican from his earliest days. There is a fable floating around that he was an enigma, and when Bush-41 nominated him to the Court, he "moved to the left," or "grew in office," or whatever.

Wrong. He was a well-known liberal from long before he was presented to Bush. Souter was the protege of Warren Rudman, possibly the most liberal Republican ever to serve in the Senate (more liberal than Lincoln Chafee today, if you can believe it).

Miers, by contrast, is quite conservative. There is a concerted effort by froth-at-the-mouth conservatives to falsely paint her as some sort of moderate (they figure all's fair in civil war), but she is a conservative. She used to be a conservative Democrat (in the Jerry Falwell mold), but she switched to the Republican Party a number of years ago.

There is no question about her political orientation; the only question is whether she is intellectually up to the job... about which, I cannot say.

But to compare Miers to Souter is silly. Both are known quantities: Souter was a well-known liberal, and Miers is a well-known conservative.

What's more, Bush-41 did not know Souter from Adam. Rudman worked with Bush's chief of staff, John Sununu, and basically snowed Bush into naming Souter. But everybody who knew Souter, even slightly, knew he was a liberal.

By contrast, Bush-43 knows Miers extremely well. There are no surprises coming: she is politically as she is advertised to be.

If you think she's a bad pick because she's not intellectually up to the job, that's reasonable; I think she's a weak candidate myself, and I wish Bush had picked Emilio Garza (I like his philosophy and I'm not blind to the political benefits from nominating a Hispanic).

But in trying to gild the lily, you drift into la-la land. Miers is certainly not "a perfect clone of David Souter;" she is nothing remotely like David Souter. He was not a "wide-eyed naif;" he was a sophisticated and determined liberal Republican whose mentor Rudman had pushed him forward at every phase of his career.

I should have blogged about this; there's a lot of disinformation about Souter floating around out there.

Dafydd

When did debate over a nomination become tantamount to party treason? If the center right coalition is so weak that questions will topple it, it has already fallen. A question for Harriet "The Best Candidate Available" Miers at Hypothetically Speaking and an observation at The Nub.

PBSWatcher:

When did debate over a nomination become tantamount to party treason?

I'm not talking about "debate over a nomination;" I'm talking about the Republicans who actually want to go to war against President Bush, allying with the Democrats to try to defeat Miers.

That is party treason; and if you don't understand why, go over and sit in the corner with Lindsay Graham, John Warner, Mike DeWine, and the rest of the Seven Dwarfs.

You don't attempt to damage your own party ever. If party loyalty means anything, it means that. Keep your eye on the goal: you want more conservative judges, right? Well for God's sake, nobody in your lifetime has nominated more hardline conservative judges than George W. Bush -- and that includes Ronald Reagan.

So you don't like this one pick. Fine; you don't have to like it. But if you go to war against the GOP over this, you'll end up with Chairman Leahy, Majority Leader Reid, and possibly President Dean.

How many conservative judges do you think you'll get then, PBSWatcher?

Dafydd

I may be wrong about Souter, all I know is the conventional wisdom that he was a Milquetoast that got dominated by his clerks and the Court culture when he moved to the big city. If he was a liberal all those years the conservative movement sure dropped the ball in not highlighting it before he was confirmed -- just what I'm asking us to do with Miers today.
If you don't like the Souter analogy I think I'm on stronger ground about O'Conner; at this stage of the process she had a much more reassuring resume - all we knew was that she was a Goldwater Girl, had real world experience pushing conservative principles as state legislative leader, had campaigned for Reagan against Jerry Ford in the Repub primary -- and look how the Courtiers turned her around. We can't risk something this big on a plea to party loyalty. And I don't think a principled objection to the President's pick would be that mush of a long-lasting injury anyway. The MSM would go wild for 2 weeks then move on to denouncing our next pick.

The real danger of the Miers nomination is not that she is a lightweight or a Souter but that we have acceded to the Democrat and RINO position that Scalia and Thomas are out of the mainstream, conservative principles are unenlightened and not fit to be discussed openly. We thus disqualify any of the openly conservative judges in lower courts from serving on the Supreme Court.

Bush needs to withdraw this nomination or get Miers to withdraw. Then he can nominate a Janice Rogers Brown or comparable candidate. Even if she turns out to be sacrificed to a filibuster, the basic hypocrisy of the Democrat position will be exposed and they will pay at the polls. As it is, the Republicans will pay at the polls whether Miers is confirmed or not. De-energizing the base while sending a message to the rest of the electorate that you have something to hide with your most important nominations is hardly a formula for a winning campaign.

Dafydd wrote:

I know this has become a holy war for many: but holy wars produce an awful lot more martyrs than victors. Please stop and think: do we really want to live in the world brought about by annihilating the center-right coalition of the past decade? Over this?

Absolutely right! Absotively, posilutely right!

It sems to me that the biggest problem for the conservatives is that they were spoiling for a fight, a knock-down, drag-out, grind Chuck Schumer's ugly face into the dirt brawl.

But President Bush had to look at the Republicans he had to back him in the Senate; would PBSWATCHER really want to have to depend on Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Lincoln Chafee and Mike DeWine and George Voinovich and John McCain for victory? Because if we fail once, just once, on the "nuclear option," the good, conservative jurists that President Bush has gotten through in the past will be a thing of the past.

Danupton wrote (after he made a correction):

To pass up some of the finest legal minds in the nation to appoint a barely qualified (if that) nonentity for no other reason than that he can count on her personal loyalty is nothing more than a calculated insult to the people who worked and gave to put his behind in the Oval Office.

If Miss Miers is "barely qualified," then so was William Rehnquist; he had not been a judge prior to being on the Supreme Court.

Clarence Thomas and John Roberts had just a bare, few years, of little distinguished service, on the federal bench. Their qualifications were made known by their service prior to becoming federal judges, appointments that were made as a reward for their good, political service.

Forty-one Justices have served on the Supreme Court without having previously been a judge. They include William Rehnquist, Earl Warren, William O. Douglas, Harlan Stone, and John Marshall. We've gotten used to nominees having already been judges, but every president from Theodore Roosevelt through Richard Nixon put members on the Court who had never been judges previously.

The fact is that, if you include Justices Thomas and Roberts, who had only the barest of judicial careers prior to being put on the Court with those who had no such service, justices who were not really brought in from the judicial ranks seem to have stayed closer to the political and judicial philosophies of the presidents who nominated them than those who were primarily jurists; this holds true for both liberals and conservatives. (FDR placed five such men on the Court.)

It will be interesting to look back, ten years from now, and see how the conservatives who are so urinated off (I trust that will meet with Mr. ab Hugh's commentary policy, conveying the meaning without using words of which he might disapprove) about Miss Miers' nomination will view her service on the Court. I'm guessing that their opposition today will be something they won't bring up as an "I told you so."

Dana Pico:

Actually, I have no problem with "pissed off," though "urinated off" is an amusing euphemism.

Dafydd

Well, I do try to be amusing at times; it makes me less of a crushing bore.

Dr. Jack Wheeler (of To The Point) has an interesting take on the Miers nomination, and it’s a free one:

THAT TEARS IT

SNIP...

Yet there is good to come of it: in the form of a conservative Congressional rebellion. The good that is coming out of Bush’s inept Katrina performance is an end to profligate spending, and deep (hopefully real deep) cuts in both discretionary and mandated programs.

In his press conference today (the 4th), Bush predicted Miers will do well in her Senate hearings. She may never get to them. The outcry from Republicans on Capitol Hill may get so loud so quick that Bush may be forced to withdraw her nomination. That will provide the chance to rebuild the Bush Presidency.

There should be four pillars of such a reconstruction. Obviously the first would be a competently qualified SCOTUS nomination. Then comes Bush succumbing to demands to halt illegal immigration. Follow this by slicing and dicing the federal budget, and by winning the War in Iraq by taking the war into terrorist sanctuaries in Syria and Iran.

SNIP...

Likewise, now is the golden opportunity for a conservative rebellion against Bush – not to destroy the Bush Presidency but to revive and save it. Carpe diem.

The illegal immigration issue has been boiling for some time now...threatening the Conservative Coalition’s full support of W...i went along with W's view. Apparently Hurricane Katrina did more damage to W than i realized, because i read about it even in Conservative Circles, and noticed that spending cuts are being called for, even as El Rushbo had predicted. i am a *STRONG* supporter of W, but maintain some flexibility in case a need for flexibility comes up...so to speak.

Dr. Jack has made some interesting points in all of this, and since i have only been in ‘Da Political Arena since the mid-Term Elections of 2002 i am paying attention to all Conservative Voices, especially Dr. Jack’s. Having Ms. Miers step aside would give some ammo to the Libs and MSM, but it would probably actually strengthen the entire Conservative Movement.

Karmi

Dana Pico wrote:
"Clarence Thomas and John Roberts had just a bare, few years, of little distinguished service, on the federal bench. Their qualifications were made known by their service prior to becoming federal judges, appointments that were made as a reward for their good, political service."

I was not referring to the fact that she has never been a judge. That troubles me not a bit. In the case of Clarence Thomas he had been a black conservative in the public eye for enough years to have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had the inner strength to resist the titanic forces which are arrayed to push someone in his position to the left.

As for Roberts, I was not happy with him either. I do not question his legal skills or knowledge in the least. What creeps me out about him is that he has apparently lived his entire life without actually taking a stand (one that he couldn't explain away by claiming that he was 'just representing my client') on any kind of controversial issue.

I hope that things work out with Miers. In fact I hope that we can look back and see that she was the greatest judge to ever sit on the court. I hope that she is the swing vote that overturns ROE. The sight of Harry Reid's head exploding would be priceless. But I doubt that any of those things will happen.

What will probably happen is that the rank and file Republican voter will be so disgusted/demoralised/angry that he/she will either sit out elections, vote third party, or vote Republican but without the kind of enthusiasm that creates momentum and wins elections.

Folks, chill out. The constitutional qualifications are simple. The President makes a nomination. The Senate then agrees with the nomination, or it doesn't.

A Supreme Court Justice simply has to be able to read, think, be of good character, and apply the law to cases brought before the court. One of the reasons, IMHO, that we are in this fix is that credentialism has overruled merit, properly understood. A neurosurgeon qualifies even if said neurosurgeon has never been a lawyer, professor, 'constitutional law scholar', or judge.

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