Miers -- Flames from the Right

Much about SCOTUS nominee Miers is uncertain. But the irritation of right-wing sock puppet David Frum is an enjoyable, if not conclusively hopeful, sign.

"...The Miers nomination ... is an unforced error. Unlike the Roberts' nomination, which confirmed the previous balance on the court, the O'Connor resignation offered an opportunity to change the balance. This is the moment for which the conservative legal movement has been waiting for two decades - two decades in which a generation of conservative legal intellects of the highest ability have moved to the most distinguished heights in the legal profession...

"I worked with Harriet Miers. She's a lovely person: intelligent, honest, capable, loyal, discreet, dedicated ... I could pile on the praise all morning. But there is no reason at all to believe either that she is a legal conservative or - and more importantly - that she has the spine and steel necessary to resist the pressures that constantly bend the American legal system toward the left.

"I am not saying that she is not a legal conservative. I am not saying that she is not steely. I am saying only that there is no good reason to believe either of these things. Not even her closest associates on the job have no good reason to believe either of these things. In other words, we are being asked by this president to take this appointment purely on trust, without any independent reason to support it. And that is not a request conservatives can safely grant.

"There have just been too many instances of seeming conservatives being sent to the high court, only to succumb to the prevailing vapors up there: O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter. Given that record, it is simply reckless for any conservative president, especially one backed by a 55-seat Senate majority, to take a hazard on anything other than a known quantity.

"...the pressures on a Supreme Court justice to shift leftward are intense... Harriet Miers is a taut, nervous, anxious personality. It is impossible to me to imagine that she can endure the anger and abuse - or resist the blandishments - that transformed, say, Anthony Kennedy into the judge he is today.

"Nor is it safe for the president's conservative supporters to defer to the president's judgment and say, 'Well, he must know best.' The record shows I fear that the president's judgment has always been at its worst on personnel matters..."

http://frum.nationalreview.com/

Bill Kristol doesn't like it either:

Disappointed, Depressed and Demoralized http://www.weeklystandard.com/

Another Unqualified Crony, will it ever stop? (Think he would have learned from "Heck of a job" Brownie) Never been a judge, never written an opinion, always a Dubya protector and syncophant. Some ocnservatives are going to jump off a cliff over this one!

Sixty and single= lesbian?

>Sixty and single= lesbian?

The blogspots are already all over it, tongue in cheek. Or whatever in wherever.

SCOTUS Nominee Harriet Miers

None of us know much about her, but I have a couple of predictions to make based on this profile in the Washington Post…..

1 - DailyKos and the others on the Anti-Religious Left will seize on this paragraph and insist she must be a lesbian:

Miers, who is not married and does not have children, was active in professional organizations and eventually was elected head of the Dallas and Texas bar associations, where she was known for encouraging members to do pro bono work.

After all isn’t every strong, single woman with no kids a lesbian?

2 - The Human Rights Campaign will oppose her nomination unless she publicly accepts her obvious lesbianism, has this week or proves she has had an abortion in the past. The HRC will call her a “threat to the future of mankind and future architect of the Montana Gay Concentration Camps.”

3 - Log Cabin Republicans will issue a wussy statement about their wanting questions answered and a fair process established in the Senate confirmation hearings, and express hope that….ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Even though I am confident that a ton of gay Republicans in DC must know Ms. Miers and/or her staff either professionally or through friends since she has worked in the Bush White House for years. Now that I think about it, maybe for Christmas I will give the Log Cabin Board and staff a new set of balls. For their ‘holiday tree,’ of course...

UPDATE DOS: Here’s the expected yawner from Log Cabin Republicans.

(Washington, DC)—“Log Cabin looks forward to a thorough and thoughtful review of Harriet Miers’ nomination to the United States Supreme Court. Recognizing the importance and impact of the Supreme Court, we support the confirmation of all fair-minded jurists to the bench. Given the lack of a public record on Ms. Miers, the confirmation hearings will be a critically important part of the confirmation process. Log Cabin will carefully study Ms. Miers testimony during this confirmation process, particularly as it relates to questions of basic fairness for gay and lesbian Americans.”

UPDATE TRES: The Human Rights Campaign has a less-than-over-the-top-and-bilious reaction so far, to my surprise. Hmmm.. is it because she is a lesbian?

http://www.gaypatriot.net/

Frum backpedals

This just gets better. From Ben Wickler's blog (http://shows.airamericaradio.com/alfrankenshow/blog/115328):

David Frum, former White House speechwriter, has come down hard against Miers. From his blog at the National Review:

"Harriet Miers is a taut, nervous, anxious personality. It is impossible to me to imagine that she can endure the anger and abuse - or resist the blandishments - that transformed, say, Anthony Kennedy into the judge he is today.

"Nor is it safe for the president's conservative supporters to defer to the president's judgment and say, "Well, he must know best." The record shows I fear that the president's judgment has always been at its worst on personnel matters."

But earlier this morning, he came down even harder--and then quietly backpedaled. Some time between 9:52 AM and 10:18 AM this morning, he removed a paragraph from between the two paragraphs posted above. Here it is, recovered from the cache in my Google Desktop search:

"She rose to her present position by her absolute devotion to George Bush. I mentioned last week that she told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. To flatter on such a scale a person must either be an unscrupulous dissembler, which Miers most certainly is not, or a natural follower. And natural followers do not belong on the Supreme Court of the United States."

Why the retreat? Did David Frum get an angry phone call from an upset White House--a White House discovering that the conservative movement isn't as blindly loyal as the Supreme Court nominee it's supposed to rally behind?

RE: Frum backpedals

Why take your lesbian lawyer out to clear brush??

http://rawstory.com/images/new/BushMiersranch.jpg

RE: Frum backpedals

I'm afraid I must agree with Frum on this issue... if she truly believes that Bush is "one of the most brilliant men" she's ever met, well, if even the conservative right can't keep a straight face on that one... .

Trix

The Trouble with Harry

This nominees' nickname is "Harry", I kid you not!

>Sixty and single= lesbian?

Seeing how Miers was Director of the Texas State Lottery, Bill Maher says; "The only balls she touched had numbers on them"

His show was great tonight. So many great gag lines about Bush's competence and a large number of them were from Anne Coulter

Can you believe Ann Coulter saying "George Bush should be taking care of his base, not fucking his base"??

You Go Girl!

But, remember the line from from Fahrenheit 9/11:

"What an impressive crowd: the haves, and the have-mores.

Some people call you the elite, I call you my base."

Dubya could really give a shit about the Real Right!

She was a hoot. but I believe the remark about George f_cking his base was set up by discussing Bill Clinton's term and the fact that as a Democrat Clinton knew how to handle his base (the entendre referring to his sexual activities).

the whole show was funny and Ben came off as a bright and involved activist. All that and new rules. I especially liked the last one: George has to enlarge his circle of friends to allow possibly better qualified cronies. Man, I must have blown liquids through my nose four or five times during that show.

Separated at birth?

What the Miers debate needs is more cheap shots. Herewith ... two who really should not let themselves be photographed in sidelight:

http://www.thousandrobots.com/blog/files/palpatine_02.jpg http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/POLITICS/10/10/miers/vert.miers.sunday.ap.jpg http://blog.lib.umn.edu/archives/snackeru/greet/palpatine.jpg http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/POLITICS/10/07/miers.ap/story.miers.reid.jpg

Gushy Letters

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art3/1012055miers1.gif

Miers Outed on Roe

Well, now we know. From the WSJ, no less.

Judgment Call

Did Christian conservatives receive assurances that Miers would oppose Roe v. Wade?

Monday, October 17, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

Two days after President Bush announced Harriet Miers's Supreme Court nomination, James Dobson of Focus on the Family raised some eyebrows by declaring on his radio program: "When you know some of the things that I know--that I probably shouldn't know--you will understand why I have said, with fear and trepidation, that I believe Harriet Miers will be a good justice."

Mr. Dobson quelled the controversy by saying that Karl Rove, the White House's deputy chief of staff, had not given him assurances about how a Justice Miers would vote. "I would have loved to have known how Harriet Miers views Roe v. Wade," Mr. Dobson said last week. "But even if Karl had known the answer to that--and I'm certain that he didn't because the president himself said he didn't know--Karl would not have told me that. That's the most incendiary information that's out there, and it was never part of our discussion."

It might, however, have been part of another discussion. On Oct. 3, the day the Miers nomination was announced, Mr. Dobson and other religious conservatives held a conference call to discuss the nomination. One of the people on the call took extensive notes, which I have obtained. According to the notes, two of Ms. Miers's close friends--both sitting judges--said during the call that she would vote to overturn Roe...

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110007415

RE: Miers Outed on Roe

>Well, now we know.

Now you know what? That 2 friends of Harriet Miers are of the opinion that she will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?

Do you think that, if asked, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's friends would have said that she'd probably vote to affirm Roe v. Wade?

Why are people treating the fact that Miers' friends have opinions about how she'll vote as some sort of earth-shattering smoking gun? What does it prove? You think someone who knows a Supreme Court nominee - any Supreme Court nominee - for 20 years isn't going to have an opinion about their likely views on future cases?

>From the WSJ, no less.

I don't understand this comment. What is it about the Wall St. Journal that you think makes it such an unlikely source - or a notable source - for this item?

RE: Miers Outed on Roe

>Why are people treating the fact that Miers' friends have

>opinions about how she'll vote as some sort of

>earth-shattering smoking gun? What does it prove? You think

>someone who knows a Supreme Court nominee - any Supreme Court

>nominee - for 20 years isn't going to have an opinion about

>their likely views on future cases?

You missed it. That is not the smoking gun. The smoking gun is that we now know, insofar as we can know anything from a news report, how it was done:

"Mr. Dobson says he spoke with Mr. Rove on Sunday, Oct. 2, the day before President Bush publicly announced the nomination. Mr. Rove assured Mr. Dobson that Ms. Miers was an evangelical Christian and a strict constructionist, and said that Justice Hecht, a longtime friend of Ms. Miers who had helped her join an evangelical church in 1979, could provide background on her. Later that day, a personal friend of Mr. Dobson's in Texas called him and suggested he speak with Judge Kinkeade, who has been a friend of Ms. Miers's for decades.

"Mr. Dobson says he was surprised the next day to learn that Justice Hecht and Judge Kinkeade were joining the Arlington Group call. He was asked to introduce the two of them, which he considered awkward given that he had never spoken with Justice Hecht and only once to Judge Kinkeade. According to the notes of the call, Mr. Dobson introduced them by saying, 'Karl Rove suggested that we talk with these gentlemen because they can confirm specific reasons why Harriet Miers might be a better candidate than some of us think.'"

Since you can't work it out for yourself, I'll let David Frum give you a (surprisingly) cogent explanation of where this could lead:

"Can we pause to absorb the full magnitude of this catastrophic misjudgment?

"1) Conservatives have argued for years that it is utterly improper for senators to probe nominees' personal views on religion and abortion. With this stunt, the White House has not only invited but legitimated a line of questioning that conservatives have opposed for almost two decades.

"2) If Fund is right, the White House was acting in such a way as to persuade a group of religious leaders that they were being given more information on a nomination than would be given to the US Senate. Congress - and yes Republicans in Congress - already feel that the White House treats them with contempt. Now congressional-executive relations have been damaged even further, with potentially lethal consequences for everything that remains of the president's legislative agenda." Etc.

http://frum.nationalreview.com/

>>From the WSJ, no less.

>

>I don't understand this comment. What is it about the Wall

>St. Journal that you think makes it such an unlikely source -

>or a notable source - for this item?

Because the Journal's reporting standards are as high as any paper in the country, arguably higher than all but a handful. (In my industry I get calls from reporters at WSJ, NYT, FT, IBD, Barrons, BusWk et al. None has a fact-checking regime as stringent as the Journal. Ego busters may now toss darts.) Also because I think the firewall between news reporting and editorial stance is stronger there than at many papers.

RE: Miers Outed on Roe

>You missed it. That is not the smoking gun. The smoking gun is

>that we now know, insofar as we can know anything from a news

>report, how it was done:

There's no question that the White House's strategy here was to get that vile James Dobson on board with Harriet Miers before announcing the nomination. And to do so, they had a couple of her friends tell Dobson what he wanted to hear - that they THINK she will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Here's what your favorite source, David Frum, also had to say about this: "The stunt also threatens Republican relations with religious conservatives. The assurances offered to the Arlington Group were almost certainly empty."

I agree that Dobson wanting to know what her vote will be on Roe is hypocritical and slimy (in light of the right-wing's insistence that results don't matter and nominees shouldn't be asked about them), and it's surely manipulative of the White House to feed the easily manipulated Dobson the Roe bread crumbes he so desperately craved.

But while you can argue that this may be an indict of Dobson or even Karl Rove, this says nothing about Harriet Miers or the merit of the nomination.

More to the point, I don't understand what liberals want with this nomination. Harriet Miers seems to be under-qualified and malleable. Isn't that better from the liberal point of view than some hard-core, unmoveable conservative jurist who really is going to be like Antonin Scalia?

>Because the Journal's reporting standards are as high as any

>paper in the country, arguably higher than all but a handful.

>(In my industry I get calls from reporters at WSJ, NYT, FT,

>IBD, Barrons, BusWk et al. None has a fact-checking regime as

>stringent as the Journal. Ego busters may now toss darts.)

>Also because I think the firewall between news reporting and

>editorial stance is stronger there than at many papers.

I agree with your praise for the WSJ's news reporting division and with your assessment of its separation from its editorial content. But the author of the reporting about this Miers call is John Fund, who, I believe, writes for the WSJ's op-ed page and not for its news sections.

RE: Miers Outed on Roe

>More to the point, I don't understand what liberals want with

>this nomination. Harriet Miers seems to be under-qualified

>and malleable. Isn't that better from the liberal point of

>view than some hard-core, unmoveable conservative jurist who

>really is going to be like Antonin Scalia?

To be honest, I got carried away exulting over what looks like yet another public fumble by Turd Blossom the formerly untouchable. I agree a pliant, manipulable Miers is much the best that liberals can hope for.

>I agree with your praise for the WSJ's news reporting division

>and with your assessment of its separation from its editorial

>content. But the author of the reporting about this Miers

>call is John Fund, who, I believe, writes for the WSJ's op-ed

>page and not for its news sections.

Point taken. My news/editorial distinction was a non sequitur. As for Fund's facts, I assumed the signed staff op-eds are subject to some degree of fact-checking but I don't have any knowledge about that side of the house.

RE: Miers Outed on Roe

It's nice to see some one actually change their opinion here after reading another's post! Doesn't happen often. For the record, I thought Doug made a good argument. If Miers withdraws, who would be next? Only someone the right would like better! SHe has at least shown that she can change her position over time, and, in a long term on the COurt, could possibly make an effort to prove her mettle as a real jurist and not Bush's gal pal. I won't hold my breath though!

RE: Miers Outed on Roe

http://sfgate.com/columnists/asmussen/

Flip flops

>It's nice to see some one actually change their opinion here

>after reading another's post! Doesn't happen often.

I promise not to make it a habit. If everyone stopped defending the indefensible, so much fun would go out of this board.

>SHe has at least shown that she can change her

>position over time

And on a dime!

"In their meeting this afternoon, Sen. Specter thought Ms. Harriet Miers said she agreed with Griswold v. Connecticut and there was a right to privacy in the Constitution. After Sen. Specter commented on that to the news media, Ms. Miers called him to say that he misunderstood her, and that she had not taken a position on Griswold or the privacy issue. Sen. Specter accepts Ms. Miers' statement that he misunderstood what she said."