Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Memo to All Republicans:”

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October 4, 2005

Memo to All Republicans:

Hatched by Dafydd

TO: Republican stalwarts having the vapors over the nomination of Harriet Miers

FROM: Realm of Sanity

SUBJ: All is forgiven, please come home

Ladies and gentlemen; please lie down on the floor, put a cold compress on your foreheads, and try to calm yourselves. Deep breathing helps. If you begin to feel dizzy, recall that you cannot fall off the floor -- although recent actions of the Democratic Party cast some doubt on this observation.

So you were hoping for J. Michael Luttig or Emilio Garza, or maybe one of the Two Ediths, and you got Harriet Miers. You're disappointed or perhaps confused. I'm with you; so am I.

But.... Before you go flying off in all five directions, saying you've "had it" with President Bush and threatening to "sit out" the next eighteen elections (just to show those stinky Republicans who didn't listen to you), let's talk this out. If you prefer, take a stress pill, assuming that is legal in your neck of the woods.

What is your goal? What are you most concerned about anent judicial appointments? You want a conservative judge, or a strict constructionist, or an originalist, or a textualist, or somesuch other being who will not "legislate from the bench." Right?

First of all, you don't know that Miers is not just such a creature; you don't know she is, but you also don't know she isn't. In fact, President Bush also wants such persons on the bench. While you and I have been opining, he has been busily appointing conservative judges to district and circuit courts and to the Supreme Court.

He has known Miers for two decades and worked closely with her for his entire tenure as president, and as governor of Texas before that. Unless you think he's been taken over by the pod-aliens from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, he must think that Harriet Miers will be just such a conservative judge. He says she is; is he lying?

But even if he turns out to be wrong, and Miers is another Sandra Day O'Connor... how does hurting the GOP help your cause, which is still to get strict constructionists onto the bench? If a bunch of us fold our arms and refuse to vote, or vote for a wacky third-party candidate like Ross Perot, what happens? Well, what happened in 1992? Say, you've got a good memory; we ended up with William Jefferson Clinton in the White House. That sure worked out well!

And who did Mr. Clinton appoint to the federal courts? 373 judges like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Nearly every time I read about a despicable, activist decision by a federal court, I look up the judges and they turn out to have been appointed by either Bill Clinton or by Jimmy Carter -- not coincidentally the last Democratic president before WJC.

In fact, the worst justices on the Court appointed by Republicans -- Souter and Stevens -- are better than either justice appointed by Clinton; you know, the ones you gave us last time by sitting out the 1992 election.

If your goal is more Scalias and Thomas and fewer Ginsburgs and Breyers, and your strategy is to punish Republicans by refusing to vote for them... well, I don't know about you, but I see a bit of a disconnect from reality there. So bitch and moan privately, if you want, but then suck it up and support the Republicans in 2006 and beyond. After all, even if you think the lesser of two evils is still "evil," it's still also "lesser!"

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 4, 2005, at the time of 5:14 PM

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» Dafydd Sells Out To Spin Hacks from Daily Pundit
Big Lizards:Blog:Entry - Memo to All Republicans:Ladies and gentlemen; please lie down on the floor, put a cold compress on... [Read More]

Tracked on October 4, 2005 9:14 PM

» Three-Part Disharmony from Captain's Quarters
Earlier this week, the Washington Post asked me to write an analysis of the conservative reaction to the Harriet Miers nomination, after a recommendation from Michelle Malkin. It took up a bit of my evenings this week, one of the... [Read More]

Tracked on October 9, 2005 6:04 AM

» Memo To Conservatives: We Are Helping The Other Side. Pass It On. from California Conservative
“[A] politically weak Bush was unable to pick a nominee that would appeal to his extreme right-wing base. Already this morning conservatives are up in arms over the nomination.” — DNC.org Since news of the Miers nomination broke thi... [Read More]

Tracked on October 9, 2005 1:40 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist

i was hoping for Janice Rogers Brown...'sniff' (as a tear runs down my humble mug)! i am once again offended, because W didn't nominate *mY* Choice! Babs...sing to humble offended me, after all me is a Libertarian which in Dualistic words of communication sounds a lot like Liberal, huh.

The above hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist at October 4, 2005 5:34 PM

The following hissed in response by: steve sturm

Daffyd: I'm not so sure if conservatives were hoping for a strict constructionist because we are truly so enamored with that principle or simply because we think such a person would reject much, if not all, of the things liberals hope to accomplish in the courts. Or, put another way, I'm not sure there would be so much screaming about legislating from the bench if the outcome was the elimination of a hypothetically congressional-approved abortion rights. After all, we didn't rise up in protest over the Supreme Court sticking its nose into the 2000 election...

The above hissed in response by: steve sturm at October 4, 2005 7:49 PM

The following hissed in response by: steve sturm

sorry about the typo...I've read you enough to be able to type it correctly...

The above hissed in response by: steve sturm at October 4, 2005 7:50 PM

The following hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist

Supreme Court sticking its nose into the 2000 election...

Please explain...

The above hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist at October 4, 2005 8:11 PM

The following hissed in response by: Bill M

Wish I'd said that!

Excellent post. If not for Perot, Bush 41 would have won and Slick would be an also-ran like Kerry. Daffyd is right folks. We are way better off with the "lesser" evil (if it is!), than we would be with four years of Hillary or Kerry or Edwards or.....

Miers is not who I would have picked, but I trust GWB. (Besides, nobody in their right mind would let me pick!) He has known her for years. She has advised on judicial selections. She has worked in the White House, etc. I would have to bet that GWB knows her slightly better than we do. And if it one thing we do know, GWB is a man of his word. If this is his choice, so be it. He's closer to the situation than we are.

The above hissed in response by: Bill M at October 4, 2005 8:24 PM

The following hissed in response by: Lastango

"In fact, President Bush also wants such persons on the bench"

Dafydd, have your considered that that might not be true, because constitutionalist judges would in fact a barrier to Bush's big-tent Republicanism? Do you think a strict constructionist would let Bush get away with Campaign Finance Reform, or endorsing preferences in Michigan? Would Bush and his ilk be free to court the Hispanic vote any way they want to during the coming decade?

Second, history proves any Republican president needs to take extra care to ensure that their nominee has a durable constitutional compass. Only a track record will suffice. Miers doesn't have one, inside the White House or out.

Third, you are putting the burden of proof on the wrong party. It's up to the president to make certain and to demonstrate certainty, not up to us to assume certainty unless we can prove its absence.

The above hissed in response by: Lastango at October 4, 2005 9:34 PM

The following hissed in response by: RBMN

There are lots and lots of "pure" conservatives out there who are willing to be President, that would never for a minute consider nominating Harriet Miers. One trouble they have: winning the office. The other trouble they have: realizing that they didn't win the office. A guy named George did.

The above hissed in response by: RBMN at October 4, 2005 9:34 PM

The following hissed in response by: Jimmie

Okay, so let's assume that Bush 41 had been elected instead of Clinton. Instead of Ginsburg and Breyer we would have gotten....Souter II and Souter III?

Yeah, that would have been better.

Oh and as a side note? We have Orrin Hatch, apparently, to thank for bring up Ginsburg's name to Clinton, if Hatch's new book is true.

I'd say that trusting Republicans to make SCOTUS selection hasn't gone very well in the last 20 years.

Much better, I say, to demonstrate that when the President makes a promise he'd better darned-well keep it. If that means that Republicans get trounced in the next election, get the message, and get right in time to take over again in four years, then that's fine.

The above hissed in response by: Jimmie at October 4, 2005 9:43 PM

The following hissed in response by: Xrlq

Okay, so let's assume that Bush 41 had been elected instead of Clinton. Instead of Ginsburg and Breyer we would have gotten....Souter II and Souter III?

Possible, but unlikely. Even if we were to assume that Bush I, having been burned by Souter I, would not have learned from his mistake, there's no more reason to assume this would have resulted in two more Souters than in two more Thomases. Even your implausible scenario would have been better than what we got under Clinton, which was basically one Souter and one bat-[word Dafydd won't let me use here]-crazy liberal. And then you have to think about all the appellate judges most of us have never heard of, but who make a huge difference on scores of cases that never make it to the Supreme Court at all.

I'd say that trusting Republicans to make SCOTUS selection hasn't gone very well in the last 20 years.

It's been a mixed bag, but that's more than I can say for what the Democrats have given us when they were in power. The last Democrat President to appoint an accidental conservative was JFK.

The above hissed in response by: Xrlq at October 4, 2005 10:20 PM

The following hissed in response by: matoko kusanagi

Actually, Harriet is the pod person, Dafydd. Think on it, in the their aquaintance of 20 years, GW knows exactly what he and Miers think on abortion, ID, ESCR, death penalty, gay marriage. And he says she will be consistant for another twenty years. Her loyalty to him is far more valuable than any eminent scholarship she might use to interpret law. In a way, Bush is attempting to install an idea-clone of himself on the bench. Is that what the founding fathers intended?

The above hissed in response by: matoko kusanagi at October 5, 2005 6:28 AM