The Harriet Miers nomination redux
Scott Kirwin
*Congratulations to the Chicago White Sox, from a former Chicagoan, lifelong Cardinals fan, and believer that Shoeless Joe belongs in the HOF. - SK
So Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to the Supreme Court, and the President has reluctantly accepted it. I did not support Ms. Miers’ nomination, and actively called for her withdrawal. However I am not jubilant, or even happy that she will not be confirmed to the Supreme Court. While I do feel relief, I am mostly filled with concern over the President’s decision to nominate her in the first place, and the apparent drift of his presidency so early in his second term highlighted by this nomination.
The person responsible for this nomination should be forced to tender his or her resignation immediately, and the President should “reluctantly accept”it. If this person was the president himself, his advisors should resign for their failure to convince the president that it was a bad pick. If they tried but didn’t succeed at convincing the president, then they should resign for their failure to get backing for Ms. Miers nomination after it was announced.
As a center-right supporter of the president, I am not happy. This whole episode weakens the Bush’s presidency at a time when it should be nearing its peak. After next year’s elections, the President will be a “lame duck” and his influence will wane as speculation about his successor captures the headlines and spotlight.
The war on terror continues, a housing bubble is near to bursting, and the massive budget and trade deficits threaten American prosperity. Now is not the time for a weakened presidency, yet the Miers nomination has done just that.
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And, in my past six years or so as an observer of George W Bush, I have never seen this otherwise good man in such a dire political or leadership funk and he has now fallen into. I would prefer a US Supreme Court that would be conservative enough to keep their fingers over standing previous decisions. Especially in that the majority of Americans are willing to live with some restrictions over abortion and they plainly do not want it outlawed again.
It can now be seen that Bush would have been far better off not nominating Harriet Miers to begin with, considering that she has had no connection at all to constitutional law. I doubt that he conferred with anyone at length before choosing her. Now, it is obvious to the US Congress and to the public at large that he plainly caved in to the religious right in not backing her through the nomination hearings.
Which means that he will have a very difficult time getting all-around support sufficient to confirm anyone seen as likely to help overturn Roe v Wade. And if the hard right Republicans were to succeed in accomplishing anything approaching that, I am certain it would mark the end of the era of Republican control of Congress, and probably the presidency as well. Nobody understands the temper of the American nation adequately until some political cabal of the moment succeeds in taking away some long-held right, as did the Christians of the early 20th century, who brought this country national prohibition of licquor manufacturing, sale and consumption. My own assumption is that abortion will be practiced just the same, even if these people were to strip it of its legality.
The rest of the president's problems have mixed elements of tragedy and terrible timing. The terror attacks against us, the obvious need to take military action in the islamic world, our excursions into Afghanistan and Iraq, the slow pace of a postwar fix-up in Iraq, even the unprecedented hurricanes of 2005 with their massive destruction of much of the gulf coast and major economic dislocations, represent a truly unkind piling on against the president.
Whether Rove, Libby or anyone else will be indicated over what seems like trumped-up charges of identifying what now appears to be an ordinary CIA office employee, remains to be seen. But it seems certain that Bush has lost enormous political capital, and little else will be accomplished in terms of useful legislation by this presidency.
Too bad, because he started well. But now he is shrinking before our eyes.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Some of this may be coincidental but some of it may be a consequence of term limiting the office.
John Roberts was a stellar choice. Miers was DOA.
The Senate needs a candidate that is superiorly qualified upon which they can Advise and Consent.
Term limits remove the power of the people to excercise half their basic right in government. They also institutionalize incompetence.
Try reading up on the power of incumbents these days. It's damn near impossible to unseat an incumbent of either party.
The dirty little secret is that nearly everyone who gets to DC joins in to make sure those who get there, stay there.
Now. Unless you can convince all those truly fortunate incumbents to draw honest electoral districts in all fifty states, I'm going for term limits.
Acton once said that "absolute power corrupts absolutely." I think it would be more accurate to say that unchallenged power corrupts even more so.
Keep the bastiches in DC scared, and they'll listen to their constitutents more closely. If you want an idea of what they really think, drop by Porkbusters for a very, very long list of excuses blowing off concerned voters.