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October 6, 2005UPDATED: Miers: GOP Senate didn’t want to FIGHT?I thought I was done but then I saw this Novak piece and read this little tidbit: Two weeks ago, Bush was seriously considering another Texas woman he likes and knows well. The nomination of Federal Circuit Judge Priscilla Owen would have been highly regarded in the conservative community. Owen was confirmed for the appellate bench only after the compromise forged by the Group of Fourteen, and Republican senators advised the White House they did not want to fight for her again so soon. Is this true? While Novak is clear that he finds this to be no excuse for the nomination of Miers, this is still a very interesting little tidbit…and we need to know if it’s true. Because if the senate Republicans communicated to the president that they were not in the mood to do battle…then perhaps the president said, “you don’t want a battle? Well then here is Reid’s list of acceptable nominees - here, he mentions Harriet, so you know what, I’ll NOMINATE her…and then maybe next time you won’t tell me you’re not in the mood to do battle…” I’d like some more information on that one little line…because frankly, everything I’ve seen of this president tells me he is not afraid of a fight. And everything I’ve seen of the Senate GOP tells me they ARE. Perhaps rather than beating up on the “president who betrayed” some folks should be beating up on the “senators who won’t fight…” Mark Levin at NRO is saying something similar. UPDATE: http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/10/06/miers-gop-senate-didnt-want-to-fight/trackback/ 17 Responses to “UPDATED: Miers: GOP Senate didn’t want to FIGHT?” |
October 6th, 2005 at 11:56 am
If Novak is right, then the party ‘elite’ are posturing for the cameras- sadly, nothing new there.
In fact, if Novak is right- even partially right- it only goes to show that Mr Bush’s strategic thinking is on the mark.
There are better places to spend politcal capital than on bullets to be used in an uneccessary Senate battle. It isn’t as if Harriet Miers is the ENEMY here.
That political capital would be better spent on Social Security reform, for example. If the President- and the party- is regarded as less of an ideologue or confrontational, that will play well for the GOP down the road in the next election.
It would be nice to see the GOP regarded as the party of reason for a change.
Let the dems be reactionary.
October 6th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
When I think of all the appeals for money I get from the GOP…. This story has the ring of truth to it. There is a majority of Republicans in the Senate but they act as though they were a minority. They are not in the mood for a fight. Fine. Don’t ask for my money and don’t blame President Bush.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:18 pm
I think this sounds very likely. Even with the nuclear option (which I still believe would hurt the Republican party with the country overall) he had to know he would have the votes. Would you trust Bill Frist after his stem cell speech? And so many other senators who have let him down consistently over the years? Now we can get a shift right because Ms. Meiers is definitely a conservative. We have the stellar conservative scholar asked for by the elitist conservatives in Roberts, and we go on to fight another day IF the Republican electorate puts strong senators in. That’s not up to George Bush, that’s up to us.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
The Republicans are only lucky that the Democrats are such dirtbags, for, by their own merit, there wouldn’t be much reason to vote for them.
As far as Miers goes, her being an Evangelical is not the problem, I mean, only in a perfect world would the SCOTUS be nothing but Catholics, the problem in my view is her betrayal of the Catholic Church. She even got baptized a second time.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:22 pm
Well sometimes a leader has to lead. If the troops are acting cowardly a good leader can snap them out of it. Even our mostly spineless Republican senators can stand upright when push comes to shove.
Sometimes a tactical withdrawal is necessary, though I think in this case it was.
October 6th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
Anchoress, I am perfectly willing to criticize Bush. But Novak is ignoring the obvious when he goes on to attribute Miers to Bush’s irritation.
If they wouldn’t fight for Owen, what conservative were the GOP senators willing to fight for? Let’s be honest. She was the obvious pick, because she had already been confirmed once and it would have made it very hard for the Senate to reject her now.
Anchoress, it is not Bush. It is the Senate. They are looking at election time next year. That is why Specter didn’t want Bush to nominate anyone at this time but rather to wait until next year. You just know that Specter was furious that Bush wouldn’t do that. They wanted to be voting for the nominee after the 2006 election while having held hearings right before it to get their air time.
This is so obvious that I can’t see what people are thinking!
October 6th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
“I mean, only in a perfect world would the SCOTUS be nothing but Catholics”
.
Well, I certainly don’t think that would be a perfect world.
October 6th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
Queasy Feeling
Did Bush pick the cipher Harriet Miers because he knows he’s politically weak, and in fact about to become politically weaker due to indictments by Fitzgerald? I’m trying to wrap my head around why he would do this. It may…
October 6th, 2005 at 5:34 pm
Bush’s problem, and one the posturing Senators are pretending doesn’t exist, is the RINOs in the Senate. And these are RINOs on one significant issue — abortion. As long as one poorly decided case is the dominant issue for confirmations (and I say poorly decided whether or not one believes in whether abortion should be available), and it is an issue that overrides a candidate’s intelligence, experience, ability, everything, the only votes Bush can count on are the anti-Roe votes. And the RINOs can’t be counted on for that. This means that Bush’s candidate will probably lose on a filibuster, since the real Republicans will not be able to have enough votes for cloture. Bush simply cannot afford that type of humiliation, especially if he has a stealth candidate whom he truly believes will be a judicial conservative.
October 6th, 2005 at 5:44 pm
Re: Bookworm
The Democrats have iron discipline when it comes to supporting abortion, the Republicans don’t. Hell, that creepy Specter character is pro-abortion and he’s the committee chairman! From what he said to Roberts, one could have thought he was a Democrat, he was more fierce than them actually. Specter got the name and face he deserves.
October 6th, 2005 at 5:48 pm
Maxed Out Mama, that is an interesting look at it all- if not a bit disturbing.
Where does party loyalty end and public interest begin?
October 6th, 2005 at 11:06 pm
It isn’t as if Harriet Miers is the ENEMY here.
Hear, hear! You sure wouldn’t know it from the anti-Miers hysteria, though.
I’ve had it with Frist. I blame him more than ANYONE for this internecine warfare. I wish he had 1% of Delay’s testicular fortitude, and then the GOP Senate majority would be FAR better off. It’s Frist that’s started all this infighting LONG ago.
October 6th, 2005 at 11:12 pm
“the problem in my view is her betrayal of the Catholic Church. She even got baptized a second time.”
Hey fella, I’m a Baptist. Don’t get me started!
October 7th, 2005 at 4:57 am
When I was a kid growing up my Baptist friends would say Catholics were going to hell and my Catholic friends would say the same thing about the Baptist’s. I always found that confusing.
October 7th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
[...] and Jesus Roundup: Miers bad for everyone? Chuckaquiddick: Compare and Contrast Al Qaeda at Ramadan? Without Gorelick’s Wall…Excellent, undercovered speech CELIBATE Gay men may be priests A Swine-ish Censoring! Paranoia Ascending… Miers Meltdown Melee! A terrible story made worse UPDATED: Miers: GOP Senate didn’t want to FIGHT? Small moments of Grace for Ed More Miers? I must, I must! Infantile and needlessly injurious: UPDATED Emails on Miers…(updated) Blogging will be light…(UPDATED) Then there were those NON-FLOODED Buses Human Spirit - Dark and Light Help me with this FlyLady, please? [...]
October 7th, 2005 at 5:57 pm
[...] He looks like a leader again. In the past two days, the President has looked scared, defensive, and petty. By putting up a real nominee, he has the ability to put the onus squarely on the Senate and give them a healthy shove instead of looking like he’s being led by the nose by the likes of John McCain and Lindsey Graham, which is what Robert Novak (thanks to The Anchoress) is saying has happened here. It’s high time that the President actually get in front of the Gang of 14 and let them know they have some work to do. [...]
October 27th, 2005 at 4:51 pm
[...] UPDATE: Someone just emailed me asking me if my day-one “rope-a-dope” theory - that the President submitted Harriet as a rebuke to GOP Senators who had said they would not fight for a Janice Rogers Brown, and daring them not to fight for the next one - still holds? Eh. Whatever. The President is not a stupid man or a reckless one. There WAS a reason for the Miers nomination. It was not made in a vacuum, and when people sneer, “he nominated her because Laura wanted a woman,” they don’t sound much different from the lefty wingnuts who sneer, “we only went back to Iraq so he could finish his father’s war.” [...]