A House Divided
Posted on October 11, 2005
Rightwing News did a poll of right of center blogsabout Miers nomination. The results were overwhelmingly that they hate the pick. We voted in this poll, that we didn’t know yet. There is plenty of negative coverage around the blogosphere, and thats easy to find. For now, unless I hear something absolutely horrible, I will trust Bush on this one. I know that arguement doesn’t convince many of you, but he has consistently packed the lower Courts with conservative judges, and I just don’t see why this would be any different. For those who wanted to see a fight, I ask, why does it bother you so much if she is stealth? What does it matter, as long as she doesn’t legislate from the bench?
Instead, so many conservative critics been quick to turn against our President without considering the full range of possibilities. Why? It’s politics, after all. Many things aren’t what they appear to be. But one thing is clear: division within the ranks, and that creates weakness to be exploited by our enemies.
Slamming President Bush publicly achieves little more than adding to the liberals’ “Worst. President. Ever.” mantra.
We’re better than that.
To quote the great country crooner Dierks Bentely, those folks should be asking What was I thinking? Just what do my friends on the right hope to accomplish by weakening the President at exactly the moment when his Administration is balanced on the knife’s edge of irrelevancy? Lame Duckiness is staring George Bush right in the face and here comes a bunch of conservatives running toward this particular gasoline dump trying desperately to keep the match lit long enough so that they can experience the deep and abiding satisfaction of self-immolation.
It’s nuts.
First, if successful, just what kind of nominee do they think they’d get to replace Miers? Bush would have to come up with someone quickly, someone who has already been vetted for high office. How does Justice Alberto Gonzalez grab ya?
I thought so.
What’s very frustrating to me is how the goalposts keep moving on this nomination, and it’s my own team that’s doing it. (I say “my team,” I actually mean “what I thought, apparently wrongly, was a team, and the one I’ve always thought I was on.”)
First it’s “She wasn’t even on law review.” Okay, so I explode that untruth, which took no more effort than to look in a standard legal directory (plus the preexisting knowledge, as a Texas lawyer, that the “Southwestern Law Journal” is in fact a law review even though it doesn’t have the words “law review” in its name). Is the response, “Hmmm, well that’s encouraging, we’re sorry about jumping to that wrong conclusion, and you know, that’s pretty encouraging, she was indeed a law review editor just like John Roberts”?
Reid is delighted with Miers - he doesn’t have to engage in a long, bruising battle which he can only win once, and then President Bush could re-nominate Robert Bork and get him confirmed. There are two people who wanted this fight - fanatic leftwingers, and rightwingers who don’t understand that politics is the art of the possible. I’m going with President Bush on this - not just because I trust him, but because when I think about what he’s done, it is the best course to take.
You may be frustrated with the Bush Administration, but think: you’re angry about spending, but did he promise not to spend money on the war or disaster relief? You’re angry about immigration, but did he say he was going to implement the plans you wanted? Maybe you’re frustrated about our still being in Iraq, but did he say we would be gone by now? No on all counts, and in fact, the opposite–he has always been very up-front about these things. And of course, there are the things he said he would do, and did, despite the opposition (embryonic stem cell research funding, tax cuts, and most of all, the war).
Before we can judge how the President played his hand, we have to consider what kind of hand he had to play. It was a weak hand — and the weakness was in the Republican Senators.
Does this mean that Harriet Miers will not be a good Supreme Court justice if she is confirmed? It is hard to imagine her being worse than Sandra Day O’Connor — or even as bad.
am ashamed of conservatives who are beginning to sound, look, act and use the rhetoric of leftists.
There was a time when I shared the views of other conservative Christians who believed in the president and fighting the war on terror. I have just perused a couple of websites where there were cartoons making fun of President Bush and Ms. Miers, and I think this kind of behavior is absolutely despicable.
So where do I stand? Hell if I know. However, all these fizzley fireworks and histrionics from “my” side of the blogosphere bears disturbing resemblance to the theatrics of (*shudder*) the Democratic Cesspool Underground.
Then again, I’m pretty much a peace-loving, live-and-let-live kind of person (no, really - you should meet me in real life!), and all this heated rhetoric from the “rational” side of the aisle is… disappointing and irritating.
However, I cannot remain silent any longer. THIS represents a SERIOUS PROBLEM. Folks, we cannot afford to tear ourselves apart any longer. While we argue this nomination, liberals are planning to steal the country out from under us.
The plain fact is that Bush has pushed farther than any conservative judicial reformer has ever demanded. His appointments to lower courts have been spectacular, and Chief Justice Roberts won over most conservative early doubters of his nomination. And all brought off without setting the opposition ablaze. It’s difficult to view Bush’s performance as anything less than masterly.
So why the controversy? Because changing the judiciary has become a covenant. Conservative judicial strategy is no longer simply a policy. It’s a dogma, much the same as abortion or gun control is to the Left, and is being treated by conservative mandarins as quasi-religious doctrine, not open to discussion, to be carried out with the precision of ritual. Everything must be done as was handed down. The selection must come from the anointed and none other.
As for polls, I did one of my own a few weeks back in which I asked how Bush should make his decision. I asked whether he should pick based upon qualifications, on whether they were strict constitutionalist, or whether he should pick someone who is a known Conservative like Scalia. The overwhelming winner in my poll was that they should be strict constitutionalists with 64% of the vote; 182 votes. He has said she is one, but apparently a lot of folks changed their mind, because now all I hear is that we wanted another Scalia…a specific question in my poll that only got 13% with 37 votes. She’s definitely qualified, is she not? 19% of you voted the decision should be made on qualifications only. Is this disappointment the result of an echoe chamber bandwagon?
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8 Responses to “A House Divided”
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Jay, great rundown. I of course agree but hadn’t the words at the time to make thiscase. So, I’ll trackback to you for this.
Great Job.
Um, Jay - the quote you have linked to *me* ought, properly to go to the Conservative Cat… But I still love the link! LOL
– R’cat
CatHouse Chat
Oops, my bad - I was thinking that the links were at the TOP of each quote, not the bottom. Belay my last!
[slinking away in embarassment]
– R’cat
A split in the Republican Party would be the best that ever happened, let the neo-cons have it. America needs a truly conservative party since the Republican Party continually fails the conservative movement. The Republican Party is not our only hope and will never save America from the socialists, just my cynical opinion.
Your type of cynical opinion is exactly the reason why the socialists will win. Are we ever going to be 100% in agreement on any issue? Certainly not. But are these little disagreements important enough to leave the team—and start another one across the street in another playing field? How many do you suppose will go with you and what kind of a system will we end up with in the end with guys like George Soros gunning for people like DeLay when they tell the truth about issues like Euthanasia?
Sorry, now’s the absolute worse time to change sides.
I think Lincoln called it changing horses in mid-stream…you don’t do it–or you shouldn’t do it if you have any sense, and if you’re facing issues that are far more serious such as the War on Terror–which we MUST WIN.
How bad does it have to get before you say enough? Cynical thinking works to, but I’m not changing sides, I’ll always be a conservative. But it seems many in the Republican Party have already “changed sides”. I agree you don’t have to agree with the party 100% of the time, but anymore it seems like I only agree with the party about 10% of the time. I believe the 2 party system is failing miserably, too many politicians and not enough problem solvers. I just don’t understand why third party is such a 4 letter word.
In 1996, George (Trust Me) Bush learned the hard way it was a mistake to try to remove the anti-abortion plank in the GOP platform. He sent a messenger to the Resolutions (Platform) Committee of the Texas State Republican Convention asking that the pro-life plank not be included in the platform. It was voted for unanimously. As a result, Bush was denied the privilege of leading his own delegation to National Convention because too many delegates did not trust him on the pro-life issue.
Many Republicans believed that Mr. Bush would be naming people of a more conservative bent to the U.S. Supreme Court. Before making such a supposition, it would be a good idea to look at Mr. Bush’s track record. He had signed a bill naming a highway after an infamous abortionist from Houston, John B. Coleman, who, among other things, faced medical malpractice lawsuits involving abortions at the time of his death. There were many excuses given for his signature on the bill, but the fact remains that President Bush had promised not to sign it.
Was it just pandering to the pro-choice vote that had him comment, when visiting New Jersey, that he couldn’t wait to campaign with Christine Todd Whitman not only in New Jersey but all over America. As the governor of New Jersey she consistently stood with the pro-abortion, feminist lobby and even vetoed the partial birth abortion ban passed by the New Jersey legislature.
While Governor of Texas, President Bush also appointed Martha Hill Jamison to the 164th District Court in Houston. Mrs. Jamison is the daughter of former Democratic Attorney General, John Hill, and had just recently turned Republican. She was still a supporter of Planned Parenthood and the Gay and Lesbian political caucus.
In Texas when a Supreme Court place is vacated during mid-term, the governor may appoint someone to fill that spot until the next election. Bush appointed four members to that court. Texas law required that parents be notified prior to the performance of an abortion on a minor. In March, the Texas Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision refused to uphold a decision by a lower court ruling that a 17 year old girl is not mature enough to make an abortion decision without notifying her parents. Three of the votes vacating the decision were from Bush’s four appointments to the Texas Supreme Court. They were instrumental in virtually nullifying the parental notification law which Mr. Bush proclaimed that he supported. Are we supposed to believe that his current choice for the Supreme Court will be any better?
Too bad the conservatives in America weren’t a special interest group.