Redstate

"Perhaps once Fitzgerald hands down his indictments, should there be any, the staff can regroup and reassess."

That'll probably depend an awful lot on who exactly got indicted.

Several senators who intend to make their mark as the conservative choice in 2008, while being pushed hard by the White House, are contemplating using the Miers confirmation process as a launch pad for their White House bid.

That....is awesome.

I'd like to believe it, and it makes sense from a tactical standpoint. But I'm not seeing any evidence for it.

Besides, it's not like any of the probable GOP Senate prospects for 2008 have acquitted themselves with much distinction lately. In fact, several of them (e.g. Allen, Santorum) have seemed to put their foot in their mouths instead...

Privately, some Republican senators are thinking this may just be the time to go on the offensive against the White House. One Senate aide tells me the White House acts like it is in a bunker, oblivious to the reality going on outside. Several senators who intend to make their mark as the conservative choice in 2008, while being pushed hard by the White House, are contemplating using the Miers confirmation process as a launch pad for their White House bid.

"Look at the RSC," a Judiciary Staffer says. "We had Katrina, Louisiana's spending package, and DeLay saying we had won the battle on cutting spending. The RSC seized the opportunity to get out front and they at least look like they're controlling the debate. They're amateurs compared to some of our guys. You ain't seen nothing yet.

shakes head I am sure that staffer meant that to come across as a rallying cry that would make conservatives collectively applaud and slide to the edges of our seats in anticipation. Instead, I'm hearing the theme to F-Troop, but I am not sure we're going to reverse into victory here.

If the Senate decides for all-out war against the President, the Dems will gain the Presidency and the Senate just in time to replace Stevens and Ginsburg, and perhaps even Scalia.

The White House may be all bunkered up, but it seems that the Senate is not exactly seeing things all that clearly either.

If the Senate decides for all-out war against the President, the Dems will gain the Presidency....

This doesn't follow.  The 2008 GOP nominee's success is not necessarily predicated upon the standing of the current President.  In fact, I can certainly see an upside to having our '08 man -- and the party at large -- disassociated from a Presidency that, if current trends continue, will be something of a disaster in three years.

That "if current trends continue" is the big if, of course.

If the current presidency is considered a disaster in three years, Josh, then we could run George Washington himself and we would lose. If we want a conservative to win in '08, we have two choices. We can help ensure that the Bush Presidency is not seens as a disaster in three years to whatever degree we can, or we can help ensure that a conservative wins the Democratic nomination.

Seeing as I doubt anyone to the right of Clinton would be able to do the latter, we are left with the former.

There are no examples of a party holding on to the White House at the end of a Presidency that is considered to be a disaster. People who are betting that this will be the first time are not betting wisely.

If the conservative rebels tie everything to Miers, their tactics become just as bad as the Democrats--ends justify the means. I hope they don't go that far.

And it's still a little early to throw Libby and Rove under the bus. I can't imagine that Libby or Rove are stupid enough to lie under oath, and I just can't think of anything else they could be charged with. Certainly not with knowing that Wilson's wife was covert. If you're driving your own car from your home to CIA headquarters every weekday, you can see how some people might mistake you for non-covert. It's sure an unusual cover story in any case, for a spook.

If the current presidency is considered a disaster in three years, Josh, then we could run George Washington himself and we would lose.

...Like in 1976, when we (just barely!) lost with Ford despite the Nixon mess?!

Methinks you overstate your case too much.

If The Base battles Bush on issues that are generally popular (e.g. fighting illegal immigration, actually fighting Judicial Activism (see another example, in GA, today!)), I really don't see how it "guarantees" loses in either 2006 or 2008.

Quite the opposite, I think...

There are no examples of a party holding on to the White House at the end of a Presidency that is considered to be a disaster. People who are betting that this will be the first time are not betting wisely.

In past occurrences of this, has there ever been an opposition party as inept as the current Democrats?

If things keep going as they are, a conservative candidate could do well for himself by declaring himself the true (compassionate?) conservative and tying Bush's failures to the Democrats or flat-out incompetency.  Run against high spending, run against torture, run against bungling the war, run against equivocating on judges, run against all the failures of the Bush administration.  That will be the same thing the Dems are doing, of course, but behind it all will be actual GOP ideas -- immigration, limiting spending, etc.  The Democrats have no real message or plan to speak of at this point; combine that with their message being stolen by the GOP candidate and they are left with jack squat.

Are there any real sources or is this more of the unknown source.

1. Rove has been on record with setting up conference calls, meeting with Dobson and others before the nomination was made official to the public. To beleive Andy Card is pulling all the strings and Rove is outside asleep on the White House lawn is absurd.
   
2. Some Republican Senators will take on the White House. Are you kidding? The Senate Republicans could not even handle the nuclear option.  And most of the potential 08 candidates either are part of the "gang of 14" or realize that a majority of Republicans support the nominee.
   
3. I beleive this story is good to get the anti-Meirs crowd something to rally around or shout about, but I beleive this story lacks any real facts and is not reality.  

been stained.

All the old talking points will be associated with a bad taste of corruption.

The White House is now trying to inflame the dems, by saying she supports an amendment to the constitution to ban Roe v Wade...then the dems oppose.......and the repugs are off the hook.

Me thinks they are playing too many games.

The real truth is Harriet is a corporate lawyer and all this about Roe is just a side show to rouse support for Bush conservatives.

If things go well for George Harriet will be the perfect corporate lawyer to sit on the Supreme Court.

1. Rush has said Meirs would not be his first choice.
   
   
2. Rush has said asking for Meirs to withdraw her nomination is a mistake and is not needed.
   
   
3. Rush has said Bush should not withdraw the nomination

Rush understands he does not know more than what the President knows on this nomination or on the nomination process.

He feels as many of us do that this was a missed opportunity to show America what conservatives stand for and to call out the DEMS.

Those of you who oppose the Miers nomination,but have not signed Frum's petition at National Review Online, please consider doing so. We need to show the White House that this is not just the complaint of a few "elitists" on the fring. While Erik's post shows that the White House is in denal, we need to do everything we can to try to break through to them, before this rips the party in two. (A withdrawal is infinitely preferable to a rejection by the Senate!)

http://frum.nationalreview.com/petition/

There are no examples of a party holding on to the White House at the end of a Presidency that is considered to be a disaster.

Depends on what party you consider Andrew Johnson to have been in as President, I guess.  Coolidge won after Harding.  Humphrey and Ford just barely lost after their respective disastrous predecessors.  Gore won the popular vote after a presidency that was then considered to be, if not disastrous, certainly shameful.

And may I note that Reagan triumphed not terribly long after the national GOP seemed forever poisoned by Nixon?

I'm not denying that a strong George W. Bush is good for the GOP's 2008 prospects.  But if we can't have that -- and we'll know for sure come November 2006 -- then we might consider that he may be more of a hindrance than a help when the time comes.

The White House is now trying to inflame the dems, by saying she supports an amendment to the constitution to ban Roe v Wade...then the dems oppose.......and the repugs are off the hook.

Just couldn't resist the "repugs" thing, huh? Dang, I knew you'd out yourself eventually.

Toodles.

That's what I get for posting at midnight.  Guess it's time to go to sleep, got to get up for work in 6 hours!

Nonetheless, I'm told from people on Capitol Hill that the more the White House pushes Miers, the less likely it is that she will be confirmed.

...I've heard in quite some time.

it's sad to see that Erick has picked it up and run with it.

The meme ("thought virus") works like this:

1. Bush is incapable of making a decision, therefore every major decision he has ever made: Supreme Court nominations, how to run the war on terror, etc. have been made for him by aides such as Andy Card, Karl Rove, etc.
   
2. Karl Rove has been busy defending himself from these "serious" charges of which he will "probably" be indicted.  (For the record, my prediction is that Karl Rove will never be indicted.  I'll just say that I have many reasons for this belief and leave it at that.)
   
3. Therefore, the decision to nominate Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court MUST HAVE BEEN MADE BY ANDY CARD since Rove can't possibly advise the president on Supreme Court nominations with the terror he must be feeling right now about this supposedly pending indictment and Bush, well, we all know that Bush is a drooling vegetable propped up by the evil Iago's in his administration.

Allow me to disabuse you of all of the above notions.

Point One: (Shocker!) Bush is not an idiot.  If you measure intelligence by only looking at undergraduate GPA then Bush would have to be of at least average intelligence for a college student (which should theoretically be of higher intelligence than the general population) since Bush was a C student at Yale.

But wait a second: Being a C student at Yale doesn't make you "average" much less "an idiot."  There are plenty of people, Ronald Reagan included, that figured out in school that your ability to work well in social environments would help you out more in life than a 4.0 grade point average.  People like President Bush and former President Reagan made a conscious decision to focus on excelling within the social framework of their schools rather than burying their noses in books.

Was this a justifiable choice?  Well, how many 4.0 students have ever been elected president?

The bottom line is, if you think that getting into Yale College and Harvard Business School, is easy, then try it sometime.  Once you've done that, figure out how to run a multi-million dollar oil business and own a major-league baseball team at the same time.  After that, try running for Governor of Texas against a popular incumbent.  Then try getting re-elected as a Republican in a state that typically elects Democrats as governors.  Then go ahead and run for president against a sitting Vice President.  Then try to protect a nation of nearly 300 million people from a ruthless and unscrupulous conglomerate of terrorist organizations who view every single one of your citizens as a legitimate target in a war to make Islam the ruling world religion.  Then, run for re-election four years later with multi-billion dollar hedge fund owners (Soros) and unethical Hollywood directors (Michael Moore) making illegal contributions worth tens of millions of dollars to your opponent while continuing to manage the war on the unscrupulous terrorist conglomerate, knowing full well that you will be blamed, fairly or otherwise, for every single American who is either killed by terrorists, or is killed while fighting terrorists in their home countries.

2. Karl Rove has plenty of time to help the president consider judicial nominees.  Guys like Rove live for the opportunity to showcase their political skills by advising the president in one of THE MOST DIFFICULT CHOICES a president will ever make: the choosing of a Supreme Court justice.
   
3. Andy Card probably had as much clout as Rove, Gonzalez, Cheney, Rice, or any of the other members of the president's inner circle regarding this nomination.  But the decision to nominate her was made by President Bush.  Until Bush gets on TV and accuses one of his advisors of threatening to blackmail him with nude pictures if he didn't nominate Miers, I'm going to assume that Bush picked Miers for the same reasons that he picked Cheney for V.P. and John Roberts for Chief Justice: because she's the best qualified person for the job.

will lose ability to Filibuster in the Senate no matter what the worst case is.

A bit of consistancy here, it seems to flip flop between a GOP Filibusterproof Senater to one where the GOP cannot Filibuster.

Bottom line if the bottom falls out and a GOP Congress impeaches Bush, there will the ability for the GOP to block undesired Dem judge assuming the Dem win hugely. Which is still a gleam in the DLC eyes.

My objection to HM is that she has no 'seasoning' and folks with seasoning flip in unpredictable ways much less someone with no 'seasoning' what so ever.

started off, IIRC, by a WH source (quoted at NR) saying that Card had been the prime mover behind this. That's all. The Plamegate business is a post hoc addition.

But I agree with all three of your points.

Miers would not be my first choice, unless I had access to all of the data that Bush and his advisors had access to and was able to see what they saw.

From where I sit, Emilio Garza would've been the best choice.

I'd love to watch the dems try to hack away at a member of a group that they desparately need to appeal to.  Without being able to snark that he's really a liberal anyway (as they would have done had Bush nominated Gonzalez, make no mistake about it.)

But Bush and his advisors get to see the overall package of all of the 20-30 short-listed potential nominees.  More than that, Bush has to choose a justice who will remain a conservative after confirmation.  Remember that.

Sandra Day O'Conner looked like a great female conservative pick before she was confirmed.  No one really looked over her record with the amount of scrutiny that John Roberts' and Harriet Miers' records have gotten so far this year.

Reagan should've realized that O'Conner was a moderate.  Likewise, he should've realized that Anthony Kennedy was really a right-leaning moderate at heart.  With Kennedy, Reagan had a democratic senate.  But with O'Conner, he had a republican senate.  Then again, Reagan may have wanted a female nominee so badly that he was willing to compromise on the abortion issue.

At any rate, President Bush will be remembered decades from now as the president who reversed Roe v. Wade.  Not even the great Ronald Reagan can put that on his list of achievements.

Personally I don't believe Roe v Wade should be overturned because (i) I personally do not believe that abortion is murder and also (ii) because it will further tear this country apart, same but worse than gay marriage, physician-assisted suicide, etc.

The Right should be united behind a conservative mission which is far from accomplished, and not be fractured over a ultimately unsolvable religious issue that will only lead to the moral and legal balkanization of this country.

I'm not very keen on Miers (a C-minus appointment) but now we must live with her; she is not worth fracturing the GOP.

Even if Miers votes against it, that's only 3 votes.

Her, Thomas and Scalia.

The last time it came up it was 5-4. But 2 of the 4 nay votes have been retired. One was replaced by Ginsburg and the other by Roberts.

Roberts is a maybe.

For me and many others, conservatism starts with Roe and it's ban on state laws that allow for reasonable limitations on abortion.

It's the ultimate, anti-conservative ruling.

I'm an Eisenhower conservative, devoted subscriber to THE ECONOMIST (love their editorials), and I deeply regret that people of sincere, well-meaning (but not universal) faith are potentially endangering the Nation by putting that single issue over many others, which I, personally, consider far more important.

Like 1976, when we lost the Presidency, saw our deficit in the House expand to 147 seats, and the Democrats enjoyed a filibuster-proof 61 seat caucus in the Senate.

Not like 1976, because Ford was not considered, despite your characterization, as a disaster. He was more considered a non-entity following a disaster; we were once removed from Nixon. And from February through election day, Ford's disapproval rating never climbed above 40, and his approval rating never below 45. Further, Ford enjoyed the advantages of incumbency.

The others, I don't. Johnson was, as your post suggests, a man without a party-- and there were the extreme circumstances that are not applicable of the aftermath of the Civil War and the assassination of Abe Lincoln.

Ford lost, and was not considered so much of a disaster as a non-entity-- and still left us with a 147 seat deficit in the House and with the Dems having a filibuster-proof Senate caucus. His approval rating after February never dropped below 45; his disapproval rating never climbed above 40 in that span.

Your second best example to Coolidge is Humphrey. He lost. His party lost 7 Senate seats in that same election. They lost 47 House seats.

As for your note about Reagan, it is undoubtably true but offers me the following defenses:

1) There is no Reagan on the horizon; Reagan was a movement leader before Nixon was even elected.
2) I never suggested that the GOP would die if we decide on a civil war. I suggested we would suffer big losses in 2008. That the past has shown we could have a Reagan-type emerge in 2012 does not contradict my thesis.
3) Between 2008-2012, a Democratic President would likely be able to renew the leases on the SCOTUS seats held by Stevens and Ginsburg, probably for another 30 years. And even worse, they might get to replace Scalia.

As for Clinton, a portion of the country considered him distasteful, but the public by-and-large approved of the job he did. He does not fit the template (and even if he did fit it, his party lost the Presidency).

Hmm, but now that I am thinking of the one example I conceded, Coolidge, I note that 1) he was an incumbent VP, which I doubt we will run in 2008, and 2) Harding's behavior was considered a disaster, not his policies. Still, I had overlooked him. I revise and extend my comment; there has been only one example (Coolidge, in 1924) of a party holding on to the White House at the end of a Presidency that was considered at the time to be a disaster.

oppose Roe don't you?

This is one of the biggest myths the pro choice side has been able to perpetuate, they have turned the debate on abortion into a religious debate, and it helps them, because they can then make appeals to the first amendment.

The fact is that while many people opposed to abortion are religious, many of them aren't.

The fact is that the majority of people who support abortion don't even realize that restrictions-the ones that the SCOTUS does allow to pass are all but in name only given the horrible decision that followed Roe in Doe, the one most people have never really heard of.

I don't want her to, I am not impressed with her, and I think she is probably one of the least qualified people from a sea of more than qualifieds for the president to choose from.

I am not keen on this "use Miers to attack the WH" stuff from the GOP side.  They shouldn't be looking for ammunition to attack the WH.  I however, don't have any problems with conservative senators making it clear what their opinion of Miers is to the WH, even if that means they feel they must vote "no."

You mean, the Republican that cemented the New Deal?

Truthfully I'm not sure what your point is.

So what if non-religious people are also opposed to abortion?

What I'm saying (if I may repeat myself) is that this single issue -- which is primarily a matter of personal beliefs (religious or otherwise) -- should not fracture the otherwise far greater conservative agenda.

But that's only me; if the majority of you want to flush the conservative movement down the, er, sink, go ahead.

A great Republican and war leader, a brave and principled man. I am proud to have an autographed letter (from him to my father-in-law) framed in my office.

rE: If The Base battles Bush on issues that are generally popular (e.g. fighting illegal immigration, actually fighting Judicial Activism (see another example, in GA, today!)

Immigration, yes. But judges are an issue only for the base (bases actually, since the leftwing base cares about this well) and most voters pay little attention to these issues.

Re: If things keep going as they are, a conservative candidate could do well for himself by declaring himself the true (compassionate?) conservative and tying Bush's failures to the Democrats

Um, how? Since the GOP controls both houses of Congress it's going to be a little hard to blame the Democrats for anything in 2008 (unless they regain the Senate and/or the House next year). If you're going to do a Harry Truman and run against a "do nothing Congress" it had better not be a Congress run by your own party otherwise you're inviting the voters to vote for the other party.

Re: Depends on what party you consider Andrew Johnson to have been in as President, I guess.

Johnson was a Tennessee Democrat whose state party temporarily rechristened itself the Union Party during the Civil War (since it was of course pro-Union). Lincoln took him on as VP in 1864 in order to appeal to pro-Union Democrats (and pro-war) everywhere.

was a solid conservative according to the definition of the word in the early 80s, when it primarily meant pro-business, law-and-order and a strong national defense. Social conservatism barely existed back then and was certainly not mainstream.

It's easy to concede that Eisenhower was a phenomenal war-leader when he was the Supreme Allied Commander.  But I don't know that this makes him necessarily 'conservative' by any typical estimation of the term.

What else makes that (admittedly great) man 'conservative' in your mind that today's conservatives seem to be straying from the course?

I think he was a great leader, a great Republican, but not necessarily a great conservative.

As much as I dislike doing this, a more appropriate comparison is the parallel between the Republican Party now and the Democratic Party in 1968.  As is the case for Republicans now, the Democrats inherited a controversial war, was divided against itself, and had no heir apparent.  As a result, all of these conditions (in addition to the rioting at their Convention and the shrewd politicking of Nixon), resulted in their defeat.  Now, I am not one that believes that similar circumstances necessarily breed similar results, but I do believe unless these dynamics are corrected in the next three years, history could repeat itself.  

Nowhere in Erick's post do I read that he questions the President's intelligence.  All he implies is that the President relies on his staff, which quite correctly happens when one is the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.  

The President simply does not have the time to personally vet (research and analyze) each candidate's background and beliefs.  As a result, it is his staff's duty and obligation to do the legwork for him.  To that extent, they are responsible when they give him incorrect or incomplete information that prevents him from making a good decision.

You're basically saying that Roe legalizes abortion and that's a good thing, so let's get over it and move on to more important things.

The real reason that Roe tore this country apart is because it anti-democratically disallowed every state and community to make up their own rules about abortion. And it did so using an arguably illegtimate jurisprudential strategy, viz. by reading a fundamental abortion right into the Constitution.

Overturn Roe. Then you can argue that abortion is not murder in your local community. In all likelihood, you will win the debate there. And after a few years, Utah and a few counties in Kansas will restrict abortion, and everyone will move on.

I respect Eisenhower for his leadership to the country as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during WWII and his subsequent leadership as President, but I do not associate him in any manner with conservatism.  In fact, most historical analyses of the conservative movement mention Ike's colleague, Senator Robert Taft, as the first true leader of the conservative movement that began to emerge in the post-WWII era.  

A fair question, and one that would require volumes, of course. If I could be brief at the risk of being somewhat disorganized.

I admire his foreign policies above all,well aware of the Communist menace, very proactive, yet balanced (against McCarthy); he even opposed the Franco/British Suez take over and if I recall William Manchester correctly, refused to give an A-bomb to the French to nuke Viet-Nam; he was a visionary, sending troops to Lebanon in 57 and I think his intervention in Iran would have borne better fruits had the Shah been a better ruler, but the right vision was there. Sometimes cautious, sometimes daring, a visionary, a great leader.

Domestic: well, he believed in a balanced budget, I tracked down the quote: "We cannot afford to reduce taxes, reduce income," he said, "until we have in sight a program of expenditure that shows that the factors of income and outgo will be balanced." Golden words! He had good relationship with Congress and surrounded himself with competent businessmen (emphasis on competent). And he had the guts to defy his base and do what was right by sending troops to Little Rock in 57.

And the highways too, we owe him the highways!  Just for that he is my favorite President.

I just listed some of his major conservative accomplishments a post or so above - can you access it? - and I bet I forgot plenty. I wish we had such enlightened leadership today. But that's just me.

I'm inclined to agree with you in theory if it wasn't for the Feds' opposition and successful thwarting of the will of the people in California (Marijuana) and Oregon (assisted suicide). Otherwise ideally I'd subscribe to your position.

So what spending cuts did he propose to enable the government to shrink back down toward pre-New Deal levels?

If I understand correctly, you're saying that we need Roe v. Wade to remain in effect, not for a fundamental reason (because abortion is a Constitutional right), but rather for an instrumental one (because some Federal law might unjustly supersede a contrary state or local law). Are you sure that's what you meant?

Federal laws are still laws. Meaning that they are promulgated through a legislative process that (nominally) is responsive to the will of the people as expressed electorally. They can also be struck down by SCOTUS if they are proven unconstitutional. SCOTUS decisions face no such discipline.

If the Senate decides for all-out war against the President, the Dems will gain the Presidency and the Senate just in time to replace Stevens and Ginsburg, and perhaps even Scalia.

I don't agree. I think railing against the President's mistake rather than acting like doormat would be quite fashionable right now.

We need a lot of dems and a few principled conservative Senators.

OR

We need to get her quashed in the judicial committee.. no need for a vote, filibuster, etc if that happens.

So go the immortal words of David Bowie.

Regardless of the fashionability of such an approach, the history of the nation suggests it is not a winning approach. See the Democrats post-truman, the Democrats post-Johnson, the Republicans post-Nixon, the Democrats post-Carter. About the only counter-example was mentioned by trevino above; Coolidge.

Party like it's 1924?

...when one does not misspell "fashion".

Assuming the Dem's hold to form and all vote no.

Patrick J. Leahy (NO)

Edward M. Kennedy (NO)

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (NO)

Herbert Kohl (NO)

Dianne Feinstein (NO)

Russell D. Feingold (NO)

Charles E. Schumer (NO)

Richard J. Durbin (NO)

Arlen Specter (Maybe)

Orrin G. Hatch

Charles E. Grassley

Jon Kyl

Jeff Sessions

Mike DeWine

Lindsey Graham

John Cornyn

Sam Brownback

Tom Coburn

All we need is 2 from the group to vote no and her nomination dies in committee? Brownback, Kyl, Specter? Maybe Gang of 14 members DeWine and Graham?

There is an unwritten rule that all SC nominees get a floor vote regardless of the committee vote.  Although, a vote out of committee without a recommendation (i.e. 9-9, 8-10, or worse) would give Republican Senators cover to vote against the nomination on the floor.  Not waht I want to see happen, but possible.

Outside of the foreign policy side, nothing you've said is particularly conservative in the standard sense.

Balanced budgets are important, but not at the expense of a gradually expanding federal government.  If Ike had cut taxes, it's possible government wouldn't have grown much.  (Of course I'm waiting for the current Republican Congress to recognize that calculus as well: lower taxes must equal lower spending, not the reverse...)

The highways are nice, convenient, and they used to be efficient (before 250 million bridges to nowhere), but considering that this was a massive expansion of the role of the federal government, how exactly is that 'conservative'?

Again, Ike was a great Republican President.  But he wasn't very conservative.

The trouble with the Miers nomination is that it lowers the standards of what a conservative supreme court nominee ought to look like (I am speaking in terms of capabilities here).  For instance, I dont see the President nominating McConnell to replace Stevens.  For all I know, if Bush gets another pick we'll be looking at Alberto Gonzalez as the next Supreme Court justice.    if we cant replace a 80% conservative justice (like O'Connor) with a firebrand conservative like Luttig or Brown....then what makes you think we'll do so with the liberals (moderates in the eyes of the media) on the Court?

it's all downhill from here....and we dont have the guts to replace republicans with conservatives, then we sure wont replace the liberals with conservatives.

one more thing (The more I think about the Harriet Miers nomination the more angry I get)...Why is it that when clinton had got his openings for the Court...there was no need for "trust me" or conference calls of assurance with with Ginsburg and breyer' rabbis.  Nope, Clinton nominated two known quantities and he did it without shame (the lowest I have ever seen Bush was during the morning he introduced Miers).  The democrats knew what they were getting, and so far it has paid  off....Ginsburg and Breyer are reliable liberals, you know where they stand on the issues....On the other hand, Reps have pray and hope that our nominees turn out as expected...and worse, we our bests cant even get nominated because we dont have the bone to fight for them.

She has to be confirmed! Otherwise,Pres. G W Bush would really, and i mean REAALY, be a LAME DUCK. No SHE HAS TO BE CONFIRMED. SHE LOVES GAYS< BUT WILL SUPPORT ABORTION<SHE IS A CHRISTIAN!

Here is one lifelong conservative who looks at what you anti-Miers lawyers are doing and is reminded of a William F. Buckley saying,: "I say it is spaghetti and I say to h... with it".

I don't care where any of you lawyers went to law school, which judge you clerked for or how long you have been a member of the Federalist Society. I didn't vote for any of you. I voted for George W. Bush and, because I did, I am willing to defer to his judgment on judicial nominations. How long ago was it that Republican/conservative lawyers were demanding that Democrats defer to the President's judgment on judicial nominations, Bill Pryor, for example?

National Review (where John Fund worked at the time) and The Wall Street Journal editorial page (where David Frum was working) spent 1992 savaging Bush 41 for not meeting their standards of conservatism and, in the process, helped Clinton get elected. We have roughly 200,000 Americans overseas fighting against the beneficiaries of Clinton's governance. Is it surprising that some other conservatives who see Frum and Fund at the head of this gaggle of conservative lawyers might think they are intent on removing Republicans if they don't get their way and not like it?

Your strategy didn't work in 1976 and it didn't work in 1992. Let them keep this up and we will have a President named "Hillary" and a Senate Majority Leader named "Harry".

blaming the war in Iraq on Bill Clinton?

I can see blaming it on a number of ex-presidents who made deals with Saddam, supported him during the war with Iran, didn't finish him off in the previous war, etc. But Clinton isn't one of them.

I think that he would support New Hampshire's law requiring that minors give their parents notification before getting an abortion.

Still, I think this is one of the reasons why Bush picked someone that he knew well.

The issues will change from year to year.  But textualism/originalism is the only fair way to interpret the constitution.

And I hope that Miers is the textualist that we've been promised.