Has Dianne Feinstein lost her mind? (Harriet Miers)

[derby378]

She just declared on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer tbat, to paraphrase, "The more I hear the conservative right denounce Harriet Miers, the more I like her. I'm open to her as a Supreme Court judge."

Has it ever occurred to her that maybe she's being played as a sucker?

[realFedUp]

1. maybe that's her dry wit showing....

I hope Dems aren't laying back on this nominee,
especially the ones on the Judish committee.

[liberalnurse]

9. Yes, it was scarcasm....

We all are smacking our lips with delight in the repugs eating their young.

[Maddy McCall]

2. Or maybe she's putting the ball back in the Pubs' court.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Di Fi lost her mind a while ago

that is why many of us will NOT vote fer her

[leesa]

4. This is totally within Dianne's realm of reasoning. She's a Bush whore

to the end. This woman HAS to go.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

5. I think she's fucking with them but the problem is you never know with her

[Crunchy Frog]

6. My mom's been falling for the same thing.

Of course, she's not an elected lawmaker, so she's entitled to a degree of naivete that Feinstein is not. I do think that some people are legitimately being lulled into complacency by the RW denunciations. No excuse for a Senator though.

[jaded_at_best]

7. no win situation guys

The Unelected Chimp wants Roe vs Wade overturned, Harriet is the woman for the job. That's the only thing that drove Bush to pick her, along with Roberts.

If Harriet is withdrawn, an even more corrupt right-winger will be chosen, maybe that has been the plan all along.

[Quixote1818]

13. I don't think Republicans want Roe vs Wade overturned

I agree with Randi Rhodes, that it's the one wedge issue that brings their base out every time. Not to mention, if you think the Right is loud about this issue, wait and see how loud a bunch of angry women losing their rights would be. They would come out and vote in huge masses!

Republicans are not that stupid. They may tweak Roe but they wont overturn it. Thats why I think Bush actually chose Miers. Because he knows she WONT overturn it.

[jaded_at_best]

23. Republicans might not want Roe vs Wade overturned

but remember: the White House was taken over by Rapture Apocalyptics, not Republicans.

They don't do what the majority wants, look at Iraq. In fact, they were not even the choice of the majority and don't give a flying f*ck.

[wryter2000]

14. Welcome to DU

:hi:

Actually, I believe Bush doesn't give a shit about Roe v. Wade. It's just something he uses to keep the Christofascist Zombie Brigade in line.

I think he wants another corporatists on the Court. If he gets her on, I hope she turns around and betrays the faux Christians. I'd love to hear that howling.

[acmavm]

8. She has the same problem so damn many dem REPRESENTATIVES

have, and that is it is not of primary importance what SHE thinks and wants, but she was sent there to represent her constituency and what is of primary importance is what THEY think and want.

[question everything]

10. Her CA constituents need to send her this

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/47/news-dubose.php

George can count on Harriet to overturn Roe v. Wade

Miers was the first female president of a state bar to campaign against the American Bar Association’s support of a woman’s right to choose. She ran her national anti-choice campaign without the backing of the bar association that elected her president. And she ignored the women’s lobby within her own state organization. “We were very much opposed to it,” said a lawyer who was working with the Texas bar’s Women in the Law group. “We considered it a raw deal.” The Texas Bar Association had passed no resolution on the issue of choice. And the Texas Bar’s Women in the Law section supported the ABA position on abortion rights. “She did it without our consent,” said the former WIL member. “In the Women in the Law section we had a big row about what we considered a stealth attack on a woman’s right to choose. She traveled around the country representing her position as the bar’s position. And it wasn’t.”

There’s more context to Miers’ anti-choice philosophy. Miers is a member of an extended family of anti-choice candidates moved into public office by Karl Rove. The Texas Supreme Court is loaded with them. On that court, Justice Hecht was also romantically linked to Priscilla Owen. (It was Owen’s appointment to the federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that almost destroyed the United States Senate last year.) Hecht and Owen were two of seven Rove candidates on the Texas court when Rove moved to Washington in 2000. Miers almost became number eight. When U.S. Senator John Cornyn left the court to run for attorney general in 1998, Bush considered appointing Miers to fill the vacant seat. “Everyone was excited about the prospect of a love triangle involving three justices,” said a lawyer working at the court. Bush made another appointment, judiciously avoiding the nation’s first Supreme Court pro-life ménage à trois. Miers followed Bush and Rove to Washington in 2000.

[DaveColorado]

12. Usually I can't stand her

I liked her comment though:

"We don't live under Shariah law."

That's what Dobson et al want for our country.

[wryter2000]

15. She comes and goes

Sometimes I want to smack her. Other times she does the right thing (such as the bankruptcy bill). She is better than a repug but not much.

[Quixote1818]

11. We better go ahead and put Miers in or we will get someone worse

Bush is sure to go hard right if she is shot down.

[Anywho6]

19. Does, "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile" mean anything to you?

I am so sick of hearing the attitude of "It can't get any worse" or "If we fight, it will just make it worse" or "Oh, just let them do it and screw themselves and we'll sit back and watch." The longer we don't fight against this administration, we lose 1,000 times more ground to them. In my opinion, this nomination is well worth a filibuster and maybe even worth shutting down the legislature over. We have got to stop being so complacent and resting on our "moral high ground" all the while these evil, criminal fanatics and their warped ideals invade like a malignant cancer through our country. I can't understand why people are not screaming bloody murder in front of the White House on a daily basis because our country and the Constitution are being systematically destroyed as we speak.

[TahitiNut]

16. "Please don't throw me in the briar patch!"

Feinstein is part of the Brer Bear faction -- she's a fool if she buys that shit and corrupt if she's playing along.

[PDX Bara]

17. Feinstein's Democrat's Cloak

All the time I lived in California (Jan. 1990 - Jan. 2005), I suspected her to be a Republican in Democrat's clothing. I still do.

[TahitiNut]

25. I think that's true.

Her career in politics would last about 5 seconds with an '(R)' after her name in San Francisco. Likewise, if it werren't for Dan White, Milk and Twinkies, she'd be an obscure fat-cat's wife. I always wondered whether she helped Dan White load the gun ... or served him the twinkies.

[bpilgrim]

18. sounds like some DU'ers

:evilgrin:

peace

[hopein08]

20. Maybe, just maybe, she's suckering the right wing...

perhaps the line of thinking is, the more that the Democrats carefully (but not completely) say why Miers would be good and (perhaps more importantly) stand up for her in the barage from the right, that will split the Republicans even more. They certainly don't like to like what the left wing likes. Maybe it's just a carefully crafted political game.

This may be simply a pipe dream, but it's what I can hope for in cases like Feinstein and Reid.

Any reaction?

[Pithy Cherub]

22. DiFi is beyond redemption and she ain't that smart.

My final vote for her was in 2000. There are cartoons that show more thoughtfulness than Dianne. When the people need her to represent their interests in a big was she is MIA or enabling the Bush agenda. Medicare revision, IWR, and oh *cough* she was out sick (MIA) when My true Senator Boxer stood up for ALL the people regarding the Electoral votes from Ohio. DiFi's husbamd makes his wealth from defense contracts. DiFi has not shown a propensity to be savvy or there for the people who actually voted for her. No mas!

This Californian is sincerely hoping she finds a need to retire now!

[hopein08]

26. That's what I've gathered...

my uncle lives in San Francisco and he said that he only voted for her because he didn't want to vote Republican. He hasn't liked her since he wrote letters to her and Boxer during the Clinton-Lewinsky thing to tell them what he thought (and I unfortunately can't remember that right now) but he was very angry that Feinstein didn't bother to reply until a few months later with an unrelated form letter while Boxer sent a letter that answered his questions and laid out where she stood. Now he is a big Boxer fan and I can't be sure he'd vote for Feinstein again.

Anyway, I was just expressing what you could call by "hope" for her reasoning.

But of course, I'm from Pennsylvania so don't look to me for shining examples of good Senators!

[Zen Democrat]

21. Miers is a lightweight and is malleable. The alternatives are rock-hard.

If it's not Miers, it's gonna be Luttig, Brown, Owens or someone of that ilk -- the neo-fascists wing of the Republican Party.

I don't think Miers is a ringer. I think Bush put her up because she's a crony. But she's not one of the "true-believer" types that make up the Federalist Society. Miers even refused to join the Federalist Society in the early 90's.

I agree that while she's an unqualified evangelical shill for Bush -- she's not what the neo-cons are looking for. She may be a Bush shill for a few years ... but she could have another "epiphany" as well. This is why the extreme right-wing is repulsed by her.

I agree that she's the best we can hope for. If she takes herself out, the fringies will carry the day.

[Rowdyboy]

24. Sorry, I don't think the far right is that smart. To imagine they are

pretending to despise Miers to throw us off track is a bit far-fetched to me. They're humiliating their own president and splitting their ranks by this opposition. They have the votes to confirm ANYONE they want without a single Democratic vote and simply thrilling their base by going nuclear. Do you actually think they're trying to trick Democrats in backing her by pretending to oppose her?

That logic is just too twisted for me to go along with.