Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Salon.com - War Room

Ok, you read this:

When George W. Bush was asked this morning about a report that the White House is thinking through contingency plans for the withdrawal of Harriet Miers' nomination, he responded with what we thought was a non sequitur: Rather than confirming or denying the report, the president said that he will refuse to release documents reflecting the advice Miers has given him as a member of his White House staff.

and then you scratch your head and say "wha?". I think this means that there is an idea floating around about how to get Miers out of the picture. the plan? proclaim that these documents will NOT be released, as they are priviledged, then have the Senate demand that they cannot POSSIBLY approve said attorney without the documents. she THEN steps down because she cannot give them what they want.

they need a facade, and that's the one i'm betting they use.

2 comments:

CSH said...

is she really that hard to pass as a possible supreme court nominee? I thought, for all that she wasn't great, she was at least passable. What's going on?

Polly said...

no, she's not. I recently heard someone i really like to read (Dahlia Lithwick) say that it seemed that bush tried to pick 2 judges. one for the bookish, pundit class, and one for the down home christian fundamentalists. Miers was the latter.

It seems bush and his inner cabinet were REALLY caught off guard on this, and why not? I'm trying to be completely non-partisan here, but think about it. Bush has pulled off some remarkably NON-conservative crap and just said "trust me" and that was enough--FOR HIS ENTIRE POLITICAL CAREER. now, regardless of how non-sensical it might have been to pick her, i can see someone lulled into a belief (rightly so) that whatever you do will be OK when it always was.

I mean, this is a guy that had conservatives saying it was nobody's business just WHAT his Cocaine problem was! so why shouldn't he expect to pick the former head of the TX bar?

I say its 2 things killing this nominee:

1. is that they've worked for a GENERATION to create a BENCH of hardline rightwing judges with spotless records so that when the moment was right they could FINALLY change the tide started with Justice Warren in the 50s. THIS was their moment and they don't get their prize, at least not HOW they want it, and they are mad.

2. they want the fight. they don't want to just have this appointee, they want to have someone that is and unabashed, open conservative so that they can have the Senate floor fight over this--one that they will win, and THEN the court can be changed. victory on both turfs. i honestly believe it is THAT important to them. otherwise, why turn on someone that you know will likely agree with you?