Conason: Miers Must Go

[kskiska]

Bush's blatant cronyism, and his outrageous appeal to religion, cross lines the founders held sacred.

Every Supreme Court nomination poses a test of our common understanding of what the Constitution means -- and specifically our interpretation of the role assigned by that document to the U.S. Senate. This time, by sending up the name of a personal crony with few other qualifications -- and then suggesting that her fitness for the high court should be measured by her faith -- George W. Bush has publicly challenged the Senate to defend the Constitution and to fulfill the purpose assigned to them by the founders.

For senators who claim to uphold the framers' intentions, the president has left no choice but to reject Harriet Miers. Both her nomination and the covert campaign to win her confirmation are constitutional offenses that should be intolerable to the Senate.

(snip)

As information about Miers emerged, however, the case against her took on greater substance, and the charge of unalloyed cronyism grew more convincing. Her fawning notes to Bush, her opaque and meaningless prose, her lack of judicial or scholarly qualifications, and her strange career in the White House, where she reportedly bungled her way up to the Office of Counsel -- all combined to create the impression of a woman chosen solely for her loyalty to the president.

(snip)

In constitutional terms, the Miers nomination deserves to be rejected on grounds of cronyism alone, as conservatives and liberals alike have noted. Experienced as the nation's founders were with the misconduct of monarchs and their useless retinues, they anticipated that the president might be deterred from similar behavior only if required to seek legislative approval for important appointees. As the New York attorney Scott Horton and others have noted, Federalist No. 76 addresses this problem directly. In that paper, Alexander Hamilton predicted that the president "would be both ashamed and afraid" to appoint "obsequious instruments of his pleasure." No word better describes Miers than "obsequious."

more…
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/10/15/miers/

[ochazuke]

1. Hamilton could never have imagined...

...that in the future even the sort of man he might have seen wallowing about in the muck grasping a bottle might ascend to the presidency.

[KoKo]

2. Okay...that does it...Conason is against her then any Dem who votes for

her goes on the "get out as soon as possible list."

I know why the Dems are being quiet. They hope the Far Right Repugs will cause her to resign. But if she makes it to hearings and a vote then she should be Fillibustered. Now's the time.

My fear is that our Dems will allow her to "slip in" as part of the "crash and burn" hopes that the Repugs will eventually do it on their own. Once Myers is on there, there's no way to remove her...just as we can't remove Porno Clarence who never offers an opinion but just does what Scalia does.

We CANNOT HAVE ANOTHER THOMAS! Conason is someone I trust.

[depakid]

3. Any Dem that votes for her

Should basically be shut out of the party. No funds, no endorsements- and a guarantee of a primary challenge.

At this point- that's about the only thing some of these cowards will listen to. And until the party gets tough on its cowards, it's destined to remain irrelevant.