The Miers Nomination: Move of a Political Mastermind?
By Cicero Posted in User Blogs — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
You know we have been talking almost exclusively about what this does to alienate the conservative base, but what about what it does to the Democrats:
There are two possible results that I can see:
1: Justice Miers is not the legal conservative Bush thinks she is- this would be devastating. However, Bush has always appointed conservatives in the past, and fought hard for them... it would be unlike him to screw up so badly on a judical nomination.
2:Justice Miers is a legal conservative. Lets assume this is true.
There are three routes to this:
1:Confirmed with solid support from the Democrats (as per Reid's comments)
Let's think about what happens in this case. If the Democrats support the confirmation of the Justice who moves the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, their base will go bonkers. Reid in particular will come under attack by the liberal base, and the Democrats will be utterly demoralized going into the Mid-term elections. Sarcasm: (After all, why bother voting for a Democrat when they won't stand up to defend Roe, and are fooled by a simpleton like Bush).
2: Confirmed with solid opposition by the Democrats. This has two sub-routes:
A: The Democrats try to filibuster, but the Gang of 14 deny the Dems the votes.
Under these cicumstances the Dems will get crushed politicaly. The country is pretty evenly divided into 40% true believers on either side with 20% who desperately want to remain on the fence. This 20% looks for signals about who are the "moderates" of the day. All the signals will be pointing to Republicans as moderates, and the Dems as partisans indebted to extreme liberal interest groups. Meanwhile, the Dems who break the filibuster will be shunned by the strongest interest groups among liberals, greatly weakening them. Moderate Dem canadiates (think Casey in Pennsylvania) will be the worst off. They will lose votes from the moderates who feel Dems have shown they can't be trusted to be moderate. Meanwhile, the base won't turn out for them. (Why should they vote to increase the number of DINO's in congress, and strengthen the Gang of 14). (Also, McCain will reap big political rewards for helping form the Gang of 14).
B: The Dems stick together and succesfully filibuster. After such a strong negative reaction from the Conservative base, and after Reid suggested Miers, the American public will be unable to understand the Dem position. We pull the nuclear trigger, and suffer no negative consequences. Instead, the Dems are cast as extremists, and we get rid of the filibuster, so if Bush gets a chance to nominate a third justice he doesn't need a stealth canadiate. He could nominate Brown, or even Pryor. Plus, all the lower court positions can be filled as Bush wishes.
Under both of the above possibilities- We win, and we win BIG! However, lets consider the third possibility.
3: Conservatives derail Miers, and refuse to pass her out of committee.
The result? Bush looks weak and stupid. Republicans look extreme, and the Dems run off laughing all the way to the voting booth.
So... As incredibly nervous as I am about this nomination, I think we should stand by our man and hope to heck he knows what he's doing.
Many people have vioced displeasure with the Miers nomination, accusing Miers of being Bush's "crony". On the face of it this is true. Crony is slang for "close and loyal associate or friend". Miers obviously fits this definition.
However, words often gain negative (or positive) connotations in common usage. They become loaded with extra meaning, hence the term "Loaded Language". The use of Loaded Language is a devious debate tactic, commonly used by liberals against the President, (An example is constantly calling the soldiers "someone's child", a true statement, but loaded with emotional feeling that such people need someone else to protect them).
I am saddened to see conservative use such tactics against the President. In this instance, the term "crony" is being used to imply that Miers is unqualified. This is an issue for legitimate debate. If you feel this way, say so, please do not resort to name calling.
While I can see the politicaal advantage of Bush's nomination of Miers, I think that Bush had another option, which I would have prefered.
Instead of nominating Roberts to fill Renquist's seat, leave him as the nominee to replace O'Connor. Instead, nominate Justice Thomas to be Chief Justice. Then nominate either Estrada, Jones, Garza, or Brown to take Thomas' seat.
This would have had the advantage of throwing all the attention on Thomas' elevation to the Chief Justice position. That would have become the major battle ground, distracting attention from the other two nominees.
Thomas would have been confirmed. (What, do you really think the Gang of 14 would have agreed that filibustering an already sitting Supreme Court Justice qualified as "extraordinary" circumstances? I don't think so.) Meanwhile, both Roberts and the second nominee would also slip by. (If this senario sounds familiar, it's because this is how Scalia got on the Court).
It never fails to amaze me Doug, you are always so fatalistic about life, how is it that you are also always pointing out the bright side of things.
But you were suppose to post a Dairy on the American Health Care system, discussing how it's all the Government's fault. What happened? You aren't expecting my post to go up now are you? Cause this wasn't the deal.
Excellent post. You clearly read your own essay on the virtues of political friendship--dare I say cronyism?