WP: Conservatives' Tactics Against Miers May Backfire Next Time

[kskiska]

Liberals Say the Rules Keep Changing

Conservative activists crippled Harriet Miers's Supreme Court nomination largely by challenging her judicial philosophy, debating the importance of her religious beliefs, demanding to see White House documents and derailing her before she reached a Senate vote. Those tactics may make it harder for them to defend President Bush's next pick, expected by many to be a solid conservative, according to a number of Democrats, independent analysts and even some conservative commentators.

They are struck by differences between the Miers nomination process and that of John G. Roberts Jr., who was confirmed as chief justice a month ago. When liberals mentioned a possible filibuster of Roberts, Republicans insisted on an "up-or-down vote," which Miers never received. Virtually all GOP senators defended the White House's refusal to surrender documents concerning Roberts, but some of them demanded comparable documents regarding Miers.

And whereas Republicans said Roberts's religious beliefs should not be a subject of Senate inquiry, Bush cited Miers's church affiliation and religious convictions as one of her chief qualifications. Now the Democrats may be in a stronger position to wage a filibuster or demand more detailed documentation and explanation of the next nominee's positions if they conclude he or she is out of the judicial mainstream.

"The Republican senators are changing every rule they attempted to set" in the Roberts confirmation, said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the Judiciary Committee's most senior member. "They flip-flopped on whether judicial philosophy and religious beliefs are appropriate" topics of Senate probing, he said. "And they flip-flopped on whether Harriet Miers deserved an up-or-down vote."

Marcia D. Greenberger, founder of the National Women's Law Center, said: "I don't know how people can, with a straight face, make some of the same arguments they made in the Roberts nomination after what they said so vociferously with Miers."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/29/AR2005102900916.html

[msongs]

1. go get em dems - act like a real opposition party! nt

[Eric J in MN]

2. Good article.

I wish the press pointed out conservative hypocrisy more often.

[deadparrot]

3. I love Kennedy using the "flip-flop" meme. nt

[AX10]

4. Ted, as usual, gets it!

use their own tactics against them.

Go Ted Go!!!!

[Tatiana]

5. Teddy nails the hyprocrisy!

I'd like to see more of this attitude in the press from some of our other Dems.

[Rowdyboy]

6. Honest, guys, you can't have it both ways...

"And whereas Republicans said Roberts's religious beliefs should not be a subject of Senate inquiry, Bush cited Miers's church affiliation and religious convictions as one of her chief qualifications. Now the Democrats may be in a stronger position to wage a filibuster or demand more detailed documentation and explanation of the next nominee's positions if they conclude he or she is out of the judicial mainstream.

"The Republican senators are changing every rule they attempted to set" in the Roberts confirmation, said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the Judiciary Committee's most senior member. "They flip-flopped on whether judicial philosophy and religious beliefs are appropriate" topics of Senate probing, he said. "And they flip-flopped on whether Harriet Miers deserved an up-or-down vote."

Can religion be considered? Is an "up or down" vote mandatory? Obviously, the answer to the first is yes and the second is no.

The next nominee will be a whole new ballgame and Democrats start with the upper hand.

[rodeodance]

7. well we know that what is good for the gander will NOT be good for

goosees!!

[truthisfreedom]

12. the matter of gander, and the matter of gender! this Miers business opened

up a HUGE can of worms for the 'thugs.

[ninkasi]

8. Same old conservative tactics...

They make up rules as they go along. They don't even bother to pretend fairness anymore, they just screech and yell and act like the spoiled, arrogant, greedy shits they are.

[depakid]

9. Welp, as long as the Dems keep taking the abuse

and practicing "learned helplessness" like battered women, why shouldn't the Republicans keep steamrolling them?

Hell, if were one of those sociopaths, I wouldn't give the Dems shit!

What are they going to do about it? Whimper to the media?

Until they decide as a party that they've had enough abuse, they're just going to get more and more of it- and keep losing more elections in the process.

[ninkasi]

10. Oh, I agree...

We need to become aggressive in countering these nutty attacks. We can't be taken seriously until we stand up, united, and DEMAND that the abuse stop. that the law be followed uniformly, and without regard to political party.

We have become too entrenched in our roles as victims. I refuse to keep being a victim, i am a fighter, and proud of it. They have taken the country down a path of destruction and shame. It's time to shout, "Enough!" and prevent them from being the dominant political party.

If our leaders do not have the stomach for this fight, then we need to get new leaders. We need to demand what we want, and put our support behind someone who listens to our concerns. I am sick of "compassionate conservatives", the neocons, the chicken hawks,and the rest of them.

May they rot in the hell they caused, while the rest of us try to pick up the broken pieces of our lives, and try to assemble them into something worthwhile.

[depakid]

11. Then the question becomes

how to enforce party discipline- and/or hold the sell outs accountable.

That's where the Dems have their biggest problem right now- with the DINO's (or to extend the analogy- the "date rapists") who continually cross party lines.

IMHO, that's where we can take a few pages out of the Republicans' playbook. They don't put up with that shit lightly. There are consequences when people don't fall in line- and there are also provisions made for "consciences votes" provided that it doesn't affect the eventual outcome on policy matters.

Time (at the very least) for a little tough love- and probably a lot more.

[ninkasi]

13. Yes, it surely is...

We have to become united against conservative politics which are always pushing us backwards. Instead of becoming more progressive, more enlightened, the conservatives are trying to push us ever further back. Once we've been pushed so far back, our leaders deem it a victory to get us back to within several places behind where we were before. Sorry, that's a convoluted statement, but I hope you know what I mean.

Enough of that shit! We lost in 2004 because of these attitudes, so what do we have to lose by coming out, guns blazing, to stand behind our own beliefs? It should be obvious by now that conservative politics are getting us nowhere. Wages have gone down, more Americans are out of work, uninsured, and falling into poverty than ever before.

Republicans have controlled all 3 branches of government for the past 5 years. They have no one to blame but themselves for the sorry state America finds itself in this year. They control government, they own the failures.