National (nutjob) Review demands Senate Repukes stop Miers nomination

[jefferson_dem]

Man o' man! Wathing them squirm is such a blast!!! :popcorn:

Here's the latest from the Bible of the nuckle-draggin' right >>

Senatorial Duties

Five days into White House “qualifications week” in making the case for Harriet Miers her nomination is looking weaker rather than stronger. No matter how many times Scott McClellan says that she is “extremely well qualified” it doesn't make it so, especially when she makes basic constitutional flubs on her Senate questionnaire and is leaving senators singularly unimpressed during her Capitol Hill visits.

The Miers nomination has already done harm to the president politically by dividing his base, and promises more damage in the weeks ahead. The acrimony among conservatives is likely only to get worse, since this nomination is so rich in embarrassments. And the Senate GOP will be dragged into a bloody fight with Democrats over the nomination. There's nothing wrong, of course, with fighting with Democrats, but it makes little sense to have a knock-down-drag-out over a nominee who has thin qualifications, an uncertain judicial philosophy, and was picked partly to avoid such a fight.

It now looks as if the confirmation hearings will be the very fight over judicial principles that conservatives have long wanted, but the White House has tried to sidestep. Instead of having a nominee as equipped as, say, a Judge John Roberts as their champion, conservatives will watch the case be made by Miers, who may not even grasp all the principles or believe in them. If she implodes at the hearings, it will not just be her personal embarrassment. She will set the conservative cause back dramatically. Surely, she will be coached to say all the right things initially, but she has no depth in conservative judicial philosophy. If she wilts under questioning, the conventional wisdom might be that the principles themselves were indefensible.

There is no good reason to keep going down this road other than the sheer stupid force of inertia, i.e. this is the nomination, so we're stuck with it. Indeed, if Senate Republicans and conservative lawyers were being candid about their views of this nomination, it probably would already have sunk. This moment calls for leadership from Republican senators, who should go to the White House and insist that this nomination will not work and should be withdrawn. The White House is too insulated and reflexively defensive (note President Bush's pique yesterday when asked about criticism of Miers) to figure this out on its own. Is this a difficult message for anyone to deliver? Yes, but that's why we have senators and not White House automatons occupying the upper chamber of Congress.

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http://www.nationalreview.com/editorial/editors200510211315.asp

[Dhalgren]

1. This guy is right on a couple of points, but he is way off the mark

on most of his main theme. What is it about Reocons (former Neocons who are now too embarrassed to admit it) that they simply can't frame a logical argument to save their lives? Or if they try, their lies get in the way?

"It now looks as if the confirmation hearings will be the very fight over judicial principles that conservatives have long wanted" - yeah, but the fight ain't with the Democrats, it's with other Publicans.

"And the Senate GOP will be dragged into a bloody fight with Democrats over the nomination." All I have really heard any Democrats say is that they will withhold judgment until the hearings.

All these trembling-lipped, lily-livered Recons keep jabbing at how the Democrats are opposing Miers; what they are actually saying is that they hoped the Democrats would, and pray that they will...

[jefferson_dem]

2. I think they are saying that this will be a high philosophical debate over

ideology and they do not want the Hariett the neophyte arguing for their side.

In the end, this sucker's going down. The Dems (all of them, ultimately if it gets that far) will oppose her primarily on the grounds that she is an unadulterated, unqualified crony...plus her past comments banning abortion, etc.

For now the right strategy is to lie low and let the conservative knuckle-draggers gnaw at the heals of the Pretzel-Dent and his stooge.