I’ve decided that I’ll make my fortune by creating a reality TV show based on a topic I’m positive will draw an immense audience- the opportunity to go find people who’ve made confounding decisions and ask them, after the fact – “What the **** were you thinking?”
“When you noticed the helicopter overhead and the nine police cars following your 1970 pickup truck loaded with gravel and bricks, and you decided not to pull over…just what the **** were you thinking?”
I know the show will be a hit, because everyone I talk to has the same question.It’s broadly applicable…when Gerard Levin swapped Time Warner stock for immensely overvalued AOL stock…”what the **** were you thinking?”
And you can go on.
Here’s a case where I really, really want to ask Bush – “When you nominated Harriet Miers – in the face of sagging popularity, a somewhat rebellious Congress, you nominated – who? To the Supreme Court? What the **** were you thinking?”
I have no doubt that Miers is a competent – possibly even an extremely competent lawyer. I know lots and lots of competent lawyers and Superior Court judges.
The fact that Bush is President and I’m not doesn’t make her more qualified than they are.
The reality is that there are probably a thousand or so lawyers and judges who figure in the public legal life of the country at this point. Before ideology, loyalty, or proximity, I’d suggest that as a basis for consideration. I’m hard-pressed to imagine why picking one of them wouldn’t have been a better choice, and why it won’t be a better choice after this nomination fails or is withdrawn.
So,Mr. President – what the **** were you thinking?
The most sensible thing he was thinking was that he promised to put a constructionist on the supreme court, couldnt do so with anyone with a track record because there arent enough solid republicans in the senate, and so installed a conservative he personally knew for a fact was the type of judge he promised, but that the democrats couldnt object to.
Little did he know that the right wing assumed that he promised them a constructionist that _they_ had absolute faith in. Not sure where they got that from. Conservatives should know better than anyone that a resume doesnt mean crap. Bush picked Miers for a reason, the fact that the Right hasnt figured that out shows theyve been hitting the Democrat Moveon Koolaid. Bush knows politics and this was a saavy move. Little did Bush know his religious base wasnt looking for a judge, they were looking for democrat blood. Bush could have appointed the clone of Barry Goldwater they are growing in the WH basement and if the Democrats embraced him there would be hew and cry.
“When you nominated Harriet Miers – in the face of sagging popularity, a somewhat rebellious Congress, you nominated – who? To the Supreme Court? What the **** were you thinking?”
“I” was thinking… of A, B, C, & D, all of which are things that Karl Rove and I CAN’T TELL YOU!!! (But here’s a hint– have you noticed how *squishy* those Senate Republicans are? Hmmmm?)
Also, “I” was thinking… You know, MY DAD made one, huge, gargantuan, cyclopean, immense, soviet-industrial-sized mistake: he trusted *other* people to tell him who to nominate to the SCOTUS…
I ain’t gonna do that; I’m putting someone up there who *I KNOW* is the conservative bee’s titties, even if it’s not self-evident to the talking heads. Neither to the mil-bloggers.
Y’hear?
Maybe y’all don’t get the idea of “trust”, but I think I’ve done 100 percent good so far, (viz judiciary), and it’s a bit disappointing to hear such a lack of faith now. (Would have thought *soldiers* would understand the need to trust your CinC, ferpetesake….)
I serve on a non-profit board. Our nominating committee talks about “diversity” and “exellence” but they end up sitting around a table at a local coffee shop and asking each other “who do _you_ know?.” That is exactly what W has done here. It is downright embarassing.
Mark: Scalia was confirmed 98-0 in the middle of Iran Contra and Thomas was confirmed when the Democrats controlled the Senate (after a little dust-up). Bush is not dealing from some unique position of weakness.
The answer to AL’s question is:
_Its good to be the King!!!_
What he wasn’t thinking, but what this will likely amount to: “How can I effectively end my Presidency, right now.”
I understand why he did it. I even agree on the importance of some of things he was looking for: business law experience, close proximity to war on terror decisions from the real-world side, experience outside the judiciary. And really, I have no dog in this fight. But I can see what’s happening.
The bottom line is that whatever we’d like this to be, the net effect has been to rip the heart out of the Republican Coalition – and the effect will persist into 2006, where it will be starkly reflected in turnout. And all this was entirely, entirely forseeable. The Supreme Court was a judicial pick, but it was also a political one. And W. could not have broken more basic political rules than he did.
That he and the White House remain entirely unsobered by this experience, don’t seem to grasp the reaction they’ve received, and still believe they can convince their base to cheer and be enthusiastic at this point, is the most frightening indicator of all.
Pay attention to the GOP leadership in the House and Senate. More and more, they’ll be the ones calling the shots from now until 2008.
The Seven Sisters in the Senate who joined with their kith across the aisle have forced W to pick a stealth candidate. Be mad at them, not him.
His Border Policies and spending make me trust him less than I would like to do.
I just hope she turns out to be a reverse Souter.
No one “forced” Bush into doing anything. A Senate loss on principle would have energized the party and the base to put in even more Republicans for him in 2006. *Then* — though after the easy victory with Roberts, I suspect he’d actually have won — he could have popped in someone “stealth”.
He did it all himself. That’s what’s so insane about this. But what I suspect is that not being a lawyer, he has no idea what a judicial conservative is supposed to look like; the people who were guiding him through it first term — Gonzales & staff, ironically — had gone to AG; and the legal counsel left in charge, principally Miers herself, well…
Accepting this poisoned nomination proves her own unfitness for it.
Actually, the actual statement was made when earlier ‘short list’ potential nominees were being flown on the flagstaff: this appointment is another fundraising opportunity in the view of many of the main protagonists. The disappointment is palpable. No one’s throwing money at or against this nominee.
The right wanted a fight. Bush didn’t.
He wasn’t thinking about certain issues and he waas thinking about others.
He wants someone on the court whom is pro-corporate business and pro-Presidential powers((regardless of circumstances). That is the thinking part.
The non-thinking was the making the sausage part of politics. His arrogance and the fact he has an unwielding coalition, held together strictly because of the attack on Sept 11, 2001 was where he wasn’t thinking. Now many people in the coalition see him not responding to their needs, they are revolting.
Given his recent performance on a variety of issues-Brownie appointments, the failed response to the levy breaches and subsquent human diasaster, scandals of Republican leadership in the House, treason at the White House-I do not care if it is prosecutable you do not expose intelligence assets during a war- it was inevitable.
“Mark: Scalia was confirmed 98-0 in the middle of Iran Contra and Thomas was confirmed when the Democrats controlled the Senate (after a little dust-up). Bush is not dealing from some unique position of weakness.”
Come on Shaw, we all know the Senate Democrats have taken the unique stance of promising to _filibuster_ any candidate that doesnt meet their idealogical litmus tests. That is entirely unique as far as I know. They are being abetted by a number of moderate republicans, and that is the reality Bush faces.
Conservatives demand a candidate they can be sure of? Maybe they should provide 50 votes the president can be sure of.
My question would be to those conservatives who have had conniption fits over the Miers nomination: What the *** are you thinking???
You have a president whose track record on judicial nominations has, by your own account, has been stellar. With no evidence that this nominee is any different, you get almost hysterical about it. What the *** are you thinking???
You have a president who sees that one of his dad’s biggest mistakes was nominating a justice to the Supreme Court whom he didn’t know, based upon the recommendations of others. So you savage him for not trusting your recommendation (how well does he know you?), and instead nominating someone he knows very well and whom he trusts. What the *** are you thinking???
Assuredly _I_ don’t know what you are thinking, but let me posit a cause.
You, like me, are not happy that GW Bush is a centrist rather than a conservative. You aren’t happy at the increased spending in DC, the expansion of government programs, some less-than-stellar domestic security programs (can you spell _T.S.A.?_) You, like me, wish that GW Bush would take a more proactive role in defending his administration and some of their good actions against all enemies, foreign and mainstream media. (E.g., war against Islamofascism.)
Instead, you feel burdened with having to carry the ball in his defense, and _don’t_ feel any sense of gratitude on his part. Now, without even asking, he nominates someone whom you don’t know to the Supreme Court, with an implicit, whispered, “Trust me.” Rather than noting that, in court nominations, he has generally earned that trust, all the other frustrations boil over, teeth are bared, claws are unsheathed, and the attack begins. Some of the attacks from conservatives have reached a level of hysteria one more often sees on _DailyKos_ or _DU_.
And those opponents, which you have in common, sit on the sidelines, quietly amazed and thankful that you are helping their cause.
What the *** are you thinking???
I agree with PD Shaw (#4)
‘What he wasn’t thinking, but what this will likely amount to: “How can I effectively end my Presidency, right now.”‘
Pretty much, yeah. Faced with a base that was going into open revolt over his fiscal policies, Bush failed his supporters in the one area that they were sure he wouldn’t fail them. Not after promising to deliver, and doing so. Not after the masterful Roberts nomination. I’m reminded of the line from Charlie Brown.
“George Bush, of all the George Bushes in the world, you are the George Bushiest.
This is literally a gift to the left in more ways than one. She’s not an idealist. At best she’s a conservative leaning pragmatist like O’Conner, and one only has to look at O’Conner’s writings on separation of church and state to see what a mess so call ‘pragmatism’ makes of the law. How’s a lower court supposed to know how to rule on anything if the higher court can’t outline a coherent principle? Meier’s is a crony at time Bush can ill afford charges of cronyism. She’s not even a competant constitutional scholar. She’s not a persuasive writer or speaker who might be able to sway the bench or the public the way Scalia and Rumsfield have. The conservatives have put up with some blockhead moves by George Bush – letting Ted Kennedy write ‘No Child Left Behind’, the steel tarrifs, not vetoing the McCain-Feingold bill, saying he’d sign the assualt rifle extension, practically encouraging illegal immigration, the TSA, folding in the face of media pressure on the idea of an intelligence czar, sending Colin Powell hat in hand to the UN to beg the kleptocrats to endorse the war, allowing that horrid farm subsidy bill to pass, leaving the lid off the cookie jar and doing nothing at all to try to control Congresses two fisted pork spending, not removing Clinton’s cronies from the CIA and the state department when he had the chance, and on and on and on.
But this one just takes the cake.
I really have never cared about much anything the left in America has to say. It always said volumes to me what the left did get upset about and what went by with just a shrug, and I suppose they feel the same way about me. And the really sad part is that the conservatives needed him to do his job. Heck, the country needed him. We weren’t voting for this guy because we thought he was the bees knees. We were voting for this guy because the other guy was a dangerous clown. Now that Bush is throwing away his presidency with his own comedy act, now what?
I sympathize with both sides in this debate. Conservatives have been waiting for 30 years and now we are told to wait longer. This does not feed our immediate personal gratification. With the stinko Republican record on judges its no wonder we all want to know.
However… if Bush appoints a strict constructionist with a paper trail, he looses all the Democrats (pro-life or not) and a number of Republicans. Would the McCain mutiniers invoke the nuclear option when Janice Rogers Brown was filibustered???? Could we get 50 Republican votes if all abortionist Republicans voted against JRB???
I believe Bush knows Meirs. She will personally deflect all Roe v Wade questions. With no smoking gun in her record the critics will look like slanderers if they go ballistic.
Don’t get me wrong. If Meirs and Roberts don’t vote to overturn a pleathora of unconstitutional precident, I am finished with Republicans until Roe is overturned. We will know this before 2006 elections. God help Republicans if Bush screwed up the way Reagan and his father did. We must wait and see.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/41444
They said it better.
RA has the right of it. Either you trust Bush or you dont, but you made that decision last November. This is a weird time to be jumping ship.
PS for all those insistant that Bush is somehow finished, _he’s not running for anything_. The things he really has staked his presidency on, Iraq, the GWOT, tax cuts, judges, are not at risk to Republican mutiny. The far Right wonders why Bush treats them as foot soldiers? Because they are foot soldiers, and soldiers arent expected to mutiny when their leader takes them around the enemy flank instead of crashing into the strength unnecessarilly. Bush promised you a judge, not a fight. And that is ultimately what this is about. The Bush team is some of the cleverist politicians i’ve ever seen. I have no clue where this pent up betrayal fetish is coming from, Bush has always delivered on judges.
I, GWB, and all my selves intend to leave such a mess that government will be compelled to deal with it. When we emerge from that, fifty years hence, it will be a better day.
My objection to Miers is that she’s another non-judge appointed to the highest court (which Scalia should be the Chief of, not that FNG Roberts). I know some good non-judges have sat on the court, but in the case of someone like Miers she ought to at least be a judge.
Why Miers? I guess she was chosen because of Roe V. Wade, that idiot pagan god of American judicial philosophy.
“I have no clue where this pent up betrayal fetish is coming from, Bush has always delivered on judges.”
Simply, it’s because we believe we deserve better. The Right wants to believe that the people it puts in power are fundamentally different from those on the left, and it gets really annoyed when that doesn’t prove to be true. That’s why the fiscal policy and the Meiers nomination are such sore spots. It’s the Right going, “Heh, I thought we were different!”
It might be just fine for the Left to nominate a cranky, hatchet faced, ACLU lawyer who writes vapid uncompelling opinions to the bench just because she’s a woman and can be counted on to shore up leftist positions on the court, but the Right likes to think that it is different than that. The Right wants to be different than that. Meiers is not only a conservative equivalent of Ginsberg – she’s even less qualified than Ginsberg. She’s a pure political nominee, chosen solely because she’s a woman and George trusts her to shore up the socially conservative position of the court.
Now, he probably is right on both those counts. As best as I can tell, she is a woman and a social conservative, but that’s not the end all be all of what I want from a judge. It’s not enough that the judge agree with my positions. I want the judge to agree with my positions because well-informed and well reasoned people agree with my opinions. I want the court to decide things the way that I want them to decide them, not merely because I want it, because I believe and want to believe that the way I want it is also the right way to decide things. That’s why the right likes Scalia, respects Thomas, and didn’t throw a hissy-fit over Roberts.
I’m a staunch opponent of abortion on demand, and I want to see Roe V. Wade overturned, but its not enough to stuff the court with evangelical Christians and overturn Roe V. Wade. Roe V. Wade has to be overturned by judges who can write convincingly and compellingly enough to sway at least a portion of thier audience. They have to have reasons for overturning Roe V. Wade I consider compelling, and not simply because they personally think abortion is wrong because the personal opinions of a judge on morals aren’t compelling and have nothing to do with the rule of law. It’s not enough to do the right thing. It has to be done for the right reasons, and it has to be done with respect for the framework of law we all live under. This isn’t respectful of the law. This is cronism and politicization of the courts and everything that the Right has stood against.
We are supposed to be different, because we believe in those things. We don’t want to sacrifice our principles to win, because we believe very much in those principles. Getting the agenda accomplished is not the end all be all of being a conservative. It might be good enough for a liberal to say one thing and then whisper to the base “But you know I don’t believe it. I’m just saying that so I can win.”, as liberals have done time and time again, but its not supposed to be good enough for us.
I hate to cite Rush, because I’ve never particularly liked his opinions, but in this he really understands his audience. Among the many ways that he demonstrates this is that he frequently says that what the conservative base really wants is vindication. What the conservatives really want is to have thier opinions not only be taken seriously, but to have those momments in which they at least can say to themselves, “See, I knew I was right all along, and this finally proves it.”
The Meiers nomination runs entirely counter to that. That’s why it is such a betrayal. If Bush wanted to nominate a woman, there were plenty of deserving female conservative judges he could have nominated. They earned it. Meiers hasn’t.
A threatened filibuster would be unique, but its not clear to me that it wouldn’t backfire on the Democrats if Bush had stuck to the traditional playbook of nominating someone with unquestionable credentials and judicial temparament and avoided the more extreme idealogical candidates like Bork. I recall reading several names that would meet that standard (Edith Brown Clement, for instance).
And since Miers has already expressed her view that “abortions should be unconstitutional,”:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/18/supremecourt/main951062.shtml it would stand to reason that she is subject to the same filibuster concerns with the additional baggage of being a minimally qualified crony.
“A threatened filibuster would be unique, but its not clear to me that it wouldn’t backfire on the Democrats if Bush had stuck to the traditional playbook of nominating someone with unquestionable credentials and judicial temparament and avoided the more extreme idealogical candidates like Bork.”
Perhaps but its not clear to me that appointing such a person wouldnt invoke the same reaction in the far right. In fact such a person would look even _more_ like a David Suter or Anthony Kennedy. The Right wants Janice Rodgers Brown… and the left does too because she _is_ an extremist and the Republicans _would_ look foolish trying and failing to pound her through.
In my opinion, the far right is massively trying to overplay its hand, and Bush is desperately trying to prevent that while still delivering the goods at the end of the day, another reliably conservative vote in the Scalia/Thomas model.
In this instance, conservatives are acting exactly like liberals. They _do not_ have the votes nationwide to inact the kind of agenda they are talking about. If they did there wouldnt be less than 50 votes in the senate willing to play ball with the hardline. Janice Rodgers Brown would invoke a fillibuster, a nuclear option would fail embarassingly, and democrats would take a new, reinvigorated message to the mainstream about how its either them or the Religious Right and a new generation of sodomy laws, censorship, and Roe v Wade being overturned. There is not 50% support for any of these, by any poll. Politically, its martyrdom. Thats ok with the religious right apparently, but not with the mainstream Republicans like Bush who have other priorities. Leaving the nation in a time of war in the hands of Howard Deans party just so you can feel good about going down in flames over Roe at the polls is not an option for libertarians, moderates, bluebloods, and neocons.
Mark, you are dead on. I think many of these comments are. But there seems to be little comment on the simple fact that the Pres likes who he likes- call it cronyism, xenophobia, etc. but he wants one of his own Houston group on the SCourt. Aint much more complicated than that.
From TNR:
DUE DILIGENCE: You can’t make this stuff up. The counsel to the president of the United States wasn’t licensed to practice law in D.C.:
Earlier this year, I received notice that my dues for the District of Columbia Bar were delinquent and as a result my ability to practice law in D.C. had been suspended. I immediately sent the dues in to remedy the delinquency. The nonpayment was not intentioned, and I corrected the situation upon receiving the letter.
I guess we can knock “detail-oriented” off her ever-shrinking list of qualifications.
Bush has *not* always delivered on judges. Look at Ed Prado, Connie Callahan (whom he’d actually short-listed for this vacancy!), et al., not to mention all the Clinton judges he renominated.
Besides, that was when Gonzales was in charge of vetting. This term has given Roberts… and a big fat nothing.
“This term has given Roberts… and a big fat nothing.”
Priscilla Owens, Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor,Richard Griffin, Susan Nielson, David McKeague, Thomas Griffith?
These are all _solid_ conservative nominees. The truth is, Roberts was a stroke of brilliance and ultraconservatives were gritting their teeth with _him_. Bush has put a massive conservative stamp on the federal courts but that isnt what this is about any more.
Brain cramp. That’s the only answer I can come up with…
I can’t wait till the Senate Dem’s start grilling her on religion and abortion. They will expose themselves for the far left wing of the Democratic party that they are. Even if the Republicans vote to oppose her based on her limited track record, middle class American will recognize the committe Dem’s for what they are. Bush wins either way. It’s a rope-a-dope.
I don’t know if everyone has seen this, but this “blog”:http://balkin.blogspot.com/2005/10/is-miers-nomination-in-trouble-some.html summarizing successful and unsuccessful SCOTUS nominations, provides the numbers to indicate that a highly qualified candidate will receive favorable votes from even Senators who perceive the candidate has “ideologically very distant.” Scroll down to the chart for the quick summary.
Please show me a precident for qualified, experienced judges like William Prior and Pricillia Owens being filibustered when they had the votes to pass.
I only know of one SCOTUS nominee that arguably was ever filibustered and that was Fortas for Chief Justice on grounds of idealogy (civil rights) and cronyism.
I think lower court appointments are apples and oranges. I imagine the name recognition of William Prior & Priscilla Owens was less than 5% during their filibusters. This makes it hard to galvanize public support to break the filibuster or call in the nuclear option.
I only know of one SCOTUS nominee that arguably was ever filibustered and that was Fortas for Chief Justice on grounds of idealogy (civil rights) and cronyism.
Abe Fortas was initially supported by a majority of Republicans. His nomination for Chief Justice was withdrawn after a threatened filibuster, when he admitted to sitting in on White House staff meetings and briefing Johnson on private SCOTUS deliberations. They ought to have threatened him with impeachment, not a filibuster.
Marc Buehner
Your analysis of this situation is very accurate. It is becoming evident if this link is true that the President has more to worry about than the weakness of the Senators in the Republican Party. When people start raising money they are raising the stakes.
Link: http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/101805/miers.html
If this leads to more challenges at the local level it is likely to roil the Republican party and expose it for the bigotry and extremeism in it. From my point of view a good thing.
As to a Democratic filibuster against her it will not backfire. the Roberts appointment set the bar to high. By the Roberts Standards Brownie Miers is just that. That means the so called solid conservatives with a “RECORD” will come to the fore. Then we can have a real debate about the role of the Supreme Court.