This whole Supreme Court controversy has me a might buffaloed. Bush appoints a relative moderate as Justice and the far right is wigging out. What exactly am I supposed to be upset about? Sounds like his base is strating to turn on him. I thought that was a good thing...unless it's a diabolical ruse.

You can piece together the train of thought that led to this, but isn't the first hit on this search interesting?

it's a fakeout, to distract from Rove and DeLay and all the other horrendous shit breaking. they're going to withdraw her after it distracts enough from everything else, and he'll appoint Luttig or Owens.

jonmc: it seems to be a bit of a ruse, as the things the right are complaining about are all in the past. She had a conversion experience between her mildly moderate days and now, so it's hard to say if she actually still is a moderate conservative. But he certainly could have nominated a much worse candidate from the left's perspective.

Of course, she is wholly unqualified. With that, I'll agree with Ann Coulter. Where she went to school is not why, though.

She is 100% crony, too, which is exactly why the Senate was given an advise and consent role: to eliminate cronyism. It's a testament to how arrogant Bush is that he assumes his Republican allies will shit on the constitution and vote his way, while also telling his religious conservative base to "trust me, she really is a fire-breathing Bible thumper," even though her past says otherwise.

But it must be cold today in Hell, as Coulter and I are somewhat in agreement.

she's going to have to withdraw--she endowed a Feminist Studies thing (after her born-again thing btw), and Texas' gay leaders and lawyers like her

this is very telling too--the rightwing is totally Federalist Society (see Roberts and all big GOP lawyers, etc...) and Miers is not.

...An ex-White House lawyer told me that Miers was shocked to discover the lawyers in the White House counsel's office were Federalist Society types, all of them scornful of the ABA - her ABA.
Consequently, the intellectual conservatives of the Federalist Society are pissed that one of their own didn't get the appointment. One of the Republicans strengths has been their old boy networking and promotion through organizations like the Federalist Society and the network of rightist think tanks.
...

Bush saying "Trust me" is a bad punchline without a joke. And by punchline, I'd like to punch him in the face so the line starts here.

I know conservatives have been trained to hate people who went to elite universities, and generally that's a good rule of thumb. But not when it comes to the Supreme Court.

This is actually the best part of that essay, though.

It's the modern Republican party in a nut shell. Ann Coulter (native of Connecticut, BA Cornell U [with honors], JD Michigan Law. Translation == fairly elite East Coaster) asking for a reprieve from elite hating from the heartland "real Americans" for which, somehow, she is supposed to speak.

Here is she telling her readers to put aside their "training" (training Coulter herself has spent a career giving), and instead listen for a bit on why, in this case, elitism is a good thing.

A pretzel isn't more twisted in it's existence.

It's not a ruse, the core conservative leaders are positively flipping out check out redstate.org a sort of dailykos of the right (using the same software, even).

I suppose you could figure that bush is nominating someone he knows core conservatives will hate, making her very palpable to the left, thus leading to a lock-in nomination.

---
But that just doesn't make any sense. The Roberts nomination has shown clearly that a qualified candidate will get appointed. Bush could have nominated another Roberts easily.

The motivation on bush's part is pretty clear, in my opinion. He just doesn’t have a fight in him, and he wants to do a loyal friend a favor. Rumor has it that Miers was "pre-approved" by Ried, and the "gang of fourteen" the bipartisan senate group that preserved the filibuster has already said unless something shocking comes up, they will probably vote for her. So Mires can't be filibustered, and probably has at least 7 or 8 democratic votes lined up. It's very unlikely she'll fail, despite being somewhat underqualifed.

Face it, bush failed the republicans, and he failed his base the same way he's failed America. He sold his base up the river to help a friend of his get a good job.

This is a win, folks.

they're calling for her to withdraw, and the Senate and House need their base happy for 06...i can't see her staying in.

Evangelicals, Republican women, Southerners and other critical groups in President Bush's political coalition are worried about the direction the nation is headed and disappointed with his performance, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

That unease could be a troubling sign for a White House already struggling to keep the Republican Party base from slipping over Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, Gulf Coast spending projects, immigration and other issues.

"Politically, this is very serious for the president," said James Thurber, a political scientist at American University. "If the base of his party has lost faith, that could spell trouble for his policy agenda and for the party generally." ...

They can't afford to keep Miers as the nominee.

this is what may be happening, if it's not a fakeout entirely: Bush has offered
a choice that will split both his base and his opposition, and will truly benefit only himself. For dems, he's offering this choice: take this (possibly) social moderate who will protect me from prosecution or else I'll nominate a real wingnut. For his base he's offering a wink and a "trust me." The "trust me" is for the rank-and-file. The wink is for their leaders, who don't really want to overturn Roe -- it's a perpetual holy grail that will help them keep their flocks lathered up and manageable.

check this out: ... In what appear to be some of her only public statements about a constitutional issue, Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers testified in a 1990 voting rights lawsuit that the Dallas City Council had too few black and Hispanic members, and that increasing minority representation should be a goal of any change in the city's political structure.

In the same testimony, Miers, then a member of the council, said she believed that the city should divest its South African financial holdings and work to boost economic development in poor and minority areas. ...

Sooooo...Ann Coulter doesn't like her. That means I should like her? I'm confused. I don't like this reverse psychology stuff.

How is she going to split the Dems? The more I hear about her, the more Liberal she sounds. I suspect an easy pass. And underqualified SCOTUS judge is not too much of a price to pay for the absolute destruction and dissolution of the republican base

At one time, we took as self-evident that every dollar we give is another hook in some man's flesh ... it comes from taxpayers, and goes to taxpayers. ... And so we have bled for Medicare, and for hurricane relief, and most of all, for the thousands of Congressional projects that tie men’s livelihood and wellbeing to the beneficence of the State.

And at some point, the RSC notwithstanding, we stopped caring.

And I can accept that. That's one of the legs down, but I can accept that ... But I can accept it because I thought I understood what I was getting in trade: The end of Roe.

Muahahahaa. Suck it, republicans.

she doesn't split the dems at all...we could do a lot worse than her, even tho she's not qualified at all. It's the GOP base that's seriously unhappy with her. That's why i say it's a fake nomination.

delmoi, an honest question-- in that redstate.org article you just linked, there appears this paragraph:

I am a Republican because ours is the only Party that remembered the value of human freedom when the Loyal Opposition and so much of the world were ready to consign billions to slavery.

Can somebody tell me what on earth he is talking about here? I have been scratching my head for a full five minutes, and I don't get it.

Further to the redstate site: while making my socialist self queasy, I have to say that it is still interesting in a peering over the wall sort of way, and also that it's well written (credit where credit's due). Thanks for the pointer.

Remember when the GOP complained that the Dems were politicizing the Supreme Court by threatening to reject Roberts on ideological grounds? Hah, now they want Miers out because she isn't conservative enough. Hypocrisy at its finest.

Hmmm. American folks, have you ever heard of a little idea that goes along the lines of "Avoiding the politicization of the judiciary"? I speak to both sides. Geez. When justices are nominated and the only thing anyone cares about is "which way they'll go" on a particular issue, you have serious problems. You really are treating the Supreme Court like another house of congress - a body of political figures, with political ideology attached, who get the numbers together to vote on various issues. The fact that the supreme court can be viewed this way in itself is a problem. If it really does work this way then you're all very, very deep in shit.

Republicans hoping for a "victory" on abortion as some kind of reward should be ashamed of themselves. That's not what the court is for. Democrats analysing every appointment on which way previous judgements went should be ashamed of themselves. It's not that simple. If it's really going that way, give up on it. Give justices four year terms, get the public to vote for them, and it'll make the whole process so much simpler and to the point.

Unfortunately for Bush, he could nominate his Scottish terrier Barney, and some conservatives would rush to defend him, claiming to be in possession of secret information convincing them that the pooch is a true conservative and listing Barney's many virtues – loyalty, courage, never jumps on the furniture ...

First, Bush has no right to say "Trust me." He was elected to represent the American people, not to be dictator for eight years.


Hell must be very cold today. I actually agree with two things Ann Coulter writes.

I need to lie down now...

I am a Republican because ours is the only Party that remembered the value of human freedom when the Loyal Opposition and so much of the world were ready to consign billions to slavery.

It sounds like Ayn Rand's philosophy to me (call 'objectivism')... I had a friend who was a randoid. truly idiotic philosophy. Rand hated communism and spent her whole life trying to explain why lasis-fair capitalism was so wonderful. She was a Joke, IMO. But people take her seriously.

The central point was that greed was good, and altruism was bad. Rand felt that the great leaders would float to the top, and the people at the bottom could suffer and die, for all she cared. She also, oddly, felt that any thing that takes away from one person and gives that thing to another brought a person closer to death, and thus it was death. And death was bad, in her mind.

So the 'taxes are hooks in the arms thing' sounds a bit like that.

And in truth, paying taxes is a pain. But I'd rather the pain of taxation then the pain of agreeing with "republicanism" so I never complain about my taxes! :P

He was talking about Communism? Huh. News to me that the Democratic Party ("the Loyal Oppposition") were Commies. Whaddya know.

And I don't complain about my taxes either-- being in Canada, I know that I actually get services like health care in return, unlike my friends in New York, who pay pretty much the same tax rate that I do but who get little to nothing in return-- they're still paying hundreds of dollars a month for health insurance. Oy.

I am a Republican because ours is the only Party that remembered the value of human freedom when the Loyal Opposition and so much of the world were ready to consign billions to slavery.

This is a reference to Abraham Lincoln, for what it's worth.

What jimbob said. Sometimes I wonder whether Americans are simply too close to the whole thing to see how completely and utterly bizarre their country's political/judicial/general public stuff system looks from the outside. Not that we elect judges in Australia, but at least there is some separation of the political and judicial systems (as much as is humanly possible, anyway).

I think you are all in very deep shit and I fear for the future of your country. George W Bush is not the problem in itself, more of a symptom - the political system seems to be inherently flawed in that, once you have elected a President, you give him (or her theoretically, if not in our lifetimes) absolute and total power over your lives. I generally agree with whoever it was that said "we get the politicians we deserve".