Update II: No time to celebrate. I agree. And I feel for Miers. If this post comes off as an attack against her, that wasn’t my intent. Bush is either getting bad advice or no advice. He looks a bit haggard in the photo, doesn’t he? Running a country, especially one with free expression and a free press, can’t be easy.
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Miers is gone.
But I predict George Bush will nominate another unqualified person. Perhaps his tailor. Or his dentist. Or his dog walker.
What did Bush learn? Maybe he learned that the people who put him in office actually expect him to be a conservative with common sense and choose someone qualified to sit on the highest court in the land, and not an unknown-quantity crony. We’ll see.
Other bloggers: SCOTUSblog, Michelle Malkin round-up, Captain Ed, Patterico, Pundit Guy (another round-up), The Buzz Blog, Jason Smith, The American Princess…
Dan Phillips says:
My fear now is that either W will nominate Gonzalez, for whom I have NO enthusiasm, but who is qualified, and pretty clearly NOT in our corner ideologically; OR he will nominate an excellent candidate, and our enemies will use the very weapons we just so thoughtfully handed them to oppose him.
Ugh! Read what I wrote about Alberto Gonzales last year. 
Dan adds: “To make sure I was clear, when I say Gonzales is “qualified,” I mean technically so — i.e. in the ways Miers’ critics complained that she was not.”
Mean Dean says:
It is my hope that Harriet Miers, by nobly putting her Nation and her President above her own personal ambition, would motivate George Bush to take this do-over opportunity to make a bold move to the right – and nominate a great thinker who understands the Constitution and is willing to forgoe the social fads of the day in favor of good law. Even if said nominee isn’t a long time pal of the Bush administration.
Important Update: Would Janice Rogers Brown, who has the proper judicial credentials, suffice? Will Bush dare?
If you’re bored with this topic, check out the Harry Potter post. Book 6 spoiler warning!
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I finally caved in. I’m glad he withdrew the nomination. I hope your “maybe” comes true, and we aren’t disappointed. But…is it a big maybe? More than likely.
I hope and pray that “he will nominate an excellent candidate.” Like…hmmm…oh, just anybody who’s not moderate.
I’ll be optimistic, but only for one more nomination.
Our SCOTUS prediction: Edith Jones.
It “can’t” be Alberto Gonzales because he was the President’s counsel before Miers and is disqualified for the same “reasons” Miers withdrew.
Now, perhaps, if Specter and company want to go back to playing nice with Schumer and friends they could urge Bush to name Cindy Sheehan.
I favor a strong conservative black woman. (Who says politics isn’t a big part of the game?) And I want a hard nosed former Senator like Alan Simpson or Phil Graham or even Zell Miller to be her handler.
I also want Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be the yardstick against which “extreme” is measured.
However, I am prepared to discover that President Bush has nominated reruns of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
I still want to see Priscilla Owens or Janice Rogers Brown (Rogers Brown more so I can see the real hate from the left manifest itself against a double minority). I just love a fight sometimes.
Bush blew it. He had his chance to nominate either one of them but he was afraid of a fight and being a “team” player to those losers who have to worry about running next year and in ‘08.
SIGH!!!
I don’t get how this would weaken the next nominee if the Prez picks a real conservative. The left is going to freak out whoever is picked. So what? The real problem is that maybe a quarter of Republicans are actually conservative (socially or fiscally, take your pick). To a libertarian leaning repub like me the shooting down of the Coburn amendment was the real kick in the guts(the Miers selection was pretty lame to). I completely understand La Shawn’s disillusionment with the Republican party.
If the President is smart he’ll pick a real conservative to rally the base for the upcoming Fitzmas indictments.
I can’t help but think of how much we may not know about Harriet Miers. How much we may have missed out on and how much is behind the scenes.
I was on the Hill a week ago and heard a lot of rumors about her withdrawal. Heck you didn’t have to be on the Hill for that. What I was surprised to hear in the Halls of Congress is the true sadness this nomination caused between certain conservative folks and the President.
I think the whole situation was sad.
Perhaps Janet Rogers Brown was really President Bush’ first choice and not Miers but used her as a fallback tactic should it not go through and get the Democrats to waste political ammo. Now, for them to attack on Brown’s nomination would make them, well, racist and hypocrites at the same time. They certainly don’t want to look like THAT!
Hmmmm….
Don’t be so sure Bush won’t pick Gonzalez. First of all, Bush is no conservative, and neither is Gonzalez, so he might pick the AG for no better reason than to “get even” with the conservative base of the party. Unlike Ronald Reagan who observed that if you agreed with him 70% of the time, you were NOT his enemy, with Bush you’re his enemy if you disagree with him on ANYTHING.
Ya know, there is life outside the beltway people. To some of us west of I-395, it is wrong to tar, feather, and practically boil in oil a candidate before she has had a chance to be heard. Well, now that it is done, I hope Bush picks a candidate so damn conservative that “she’d” make Ruth Ginsberg blush. Let the war begin.
Meirs withdrawal may blow up in Conservatives faces. Let me explain.
If the Democrats had filibustered against Meirs, they would have looked bad and possibly the Republican could have overode a filibuster by changing the rules. They probably would have had the support of the moderate Republicans in the gang of 14. .
Now, if Bush appoints a very conservative Justice in role of Scalia or Thomas, Democrats will Filibuster saying Bush has bowed to the “extreme right wing”. Republicans do not have the votes to stop a filibuster with certainty.
They do have the votes to excercise the “nuclear opiton” but ONLY if 5 of the 7 republican members of the “gang of 14 ” go along. They are the so-called moderate Republicans, and they may not support Bush with a very conservative Justice. So it may turn out that Democrats Filibuster and the Republicans cant stop them in the event of a very conservative Justice.
Bushes advisors will probably tell him to appoint someone “conservative” but not too “conservative”. And Bush will probably do it because after all he is not that conservative anyway.
If Bush appoints someone very conservative we may find out that Republicans dont have the votes to succeed. In other words, we may see that conservative are betrayed not by Democrats but by moderate Republicans in the gang of 14.
But, of course, Bush should appoint someone very conservative. And then we will see that our enemies are not only Democrates, but RHINO (Republican in name only) Republicans too. Which is what I have been saying all along.
You might be right, Ted, but what else could we do? Why would Bush nominate someone with no judicial record? It might have helped her get past the Democrats, but for all we knew she could have been a Trojan horse for us. Why should we trust him to do right by his base at this point? I hope it doesn’t backfire. I hope Bush does whatever he can, including a nuclear option if necessary, to get a qualified, conservative jurist to sit on that court before he leaves the White House.
There will never be another Rehnquist, unfortunately.
But, that doesn’t justify ruining someone’s career, and destroying her reputation, just because she doesn’t have a Harvard pedigree.
Who knows? Maybe Mr Bush will nominate another unqualified “friend”, after all he’ll be running for? in ‘06 or ‘08.
On the other hand if he goes for an extreme conservative and things then in turn go nuclear, well I can’t think of anything that appeals more to the American public at large than a government controlled on all levels by one party. And just in time for ‘06.
We can only hope.
The truly said thing about today and what has happened the last 3 weeks is that the actions of some in the Republican Party have not just hurt their party, it has hurt the country. It has hurt every one of We The People. This has made the judicial appointment process harder and more partisan and more beholden to ideological litmus tests for every nominee in the foreseeable future.
Who says that Janice Rogers Brown is even willing?
Would *you* set yourself up for all that BS? Maybe she likes her present job very much thankyou.
The “thing” about Miers is that she was so *shocking*. Do we all remember our initial reactions? I honestly think she likely volunteered to be the fall gal (sorta like Rove volunteers to be the evil master-mind) after Roberts ordeal.
The process of Senatorial drama and extended BS is going to limit our Supreme Court to individuals who are primarily enamoured of power because no one else is going to be willing to put themselves through that when they could stay in the nice home they bought, in their influential job, near family, and retain the flexibility of doing something *else* if they feel like it someday.
La Shawn
Personally, I was willing to trust Bush. Meirs said she had a “born again” experience, and its hard for me to believe that Bush would have nominated someone who would betray principle, especially considering the mistake his Dad made with Souter. If her religious experince was real (and I have no reason to doubt it) that would have been enough for me.
Once he nominated her I think he should have stuck to his guns. Bush seems to be easily influenced by pressure. I dont think thats a particularly good quality in a President. If he really believed in her, why not stick by her? In the end we may end up with someone worse.
Anyway, time will tell. Maybe we will end up with another Clarence Thomas, and that will be alright by me.
I would like to see a passionate pro-life nominee. But even more so, I want to see a gloves-off national abortion debate. As Ann Coulter has said in the past, the liberals will always lose in the arena of the abortion debate. I agree. But Bush from the beginning has been a moderate-centrist and is not up for a national debate on abortion. This is unfortunate.
It’s time for America to confront this issue head on with no longer looking the other way.
Cheers,
Alan Kurschner
I have to ask, after all the “sexism” charges leveled at the anti-Miers crowd prior to the withdrawal, –
If there were nothing different about Miers other than that Miers was a male named Harry Miers with exactly the same qualifications and track record, would we be feeling sorry for him right now? Somehow I doubt it; call me cynical. I just hear a lot of people saying they “feel badly” for Miers because it wasn’t her fault Bush put her in this position. Bull – as someone involved in the vetting process for other nominees, she probably knew as well as anyone what she was getting into.
Anyway, I hope Bush finds another nominee close to Roberts’ stature.
Bush needs to keep his promises. Or like his father he will crush the GOP in upcoming elections. The best thing for America and the GOP would be for him to name Janice Rogers Brown.
La Shawn, I have a blog linked on mine that is called “The Asylum” and they are predicting Luttig or Alito. So far, they’ve been right about Miers. Their forte’ is judicial cases.
Neal Boortz’ site today offered readers the opportunity to choose from among a slate of possible candidates. When I looked, two-thirds of respondents wanted Janice Rogers Brown.
>>>”There will never be another Rehnquist, unfortunately.”
Are you kidding me?
This William Rehnquist?
>>>”Lito Pena is sure of his memory. Thirty-six years ago he, then a Democratic Party poll watcher, got into a shoving match with a Republican who had spent the opening hours of the 1964 election doing his damnedest to keep people from voting in south Phoenix.
“He was holding up minority voters because he knew they were going to vote Democratic,” said Pena.
The guy called himself Bill. He knew the law and applied it with the precision of a swordsman. He sat at the table at the Bethune School, a polling place brimming with black citizens, and quizzed voters ad nauseam about where they were from, how long they’d lived there — every question in the book. A passage of the Constitution was read and people who spoke broken English were ordered to interpret it to prove they had the language skills to vote.
By the time Pena arrived at Bethune, he said, the line to vote was four abreast and a block long. People were giving up and going home.
Pena told the guy to leave. They got into an argument. Shoving followed. Arizona politics can be raw.
Finally, Pena said, the guy raised a fist as if he was fixing to throw a punch.
“I said ‘If that’s what you want, I’ll get someone to take you out of here’ ”
Party leaders told him not to get physical, but this was the second straight election in which Republicans had sent out people to intellectually rough up the voters. The project even had a name: Operation Eagle Eye.”
http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20001202roddy.asp
And you want ANOTHER clown like that on the Supreme Court?
Hmmm….
Exactly what color robe do you want this next Justice to wear? Black or white?
–Cobra
It is amazing to hear so many people without judicial or legal experience talk about the importance of judicial philosophy and its impact. Although everyone has a right to opine about any issue, those opinions should be consistent to foster any real consideration. Many people waxed endlessly about the importance of deference to the President’s choice of judicial nominees when democrats threatened to filibuster certain nominees. Yet, those same persons gave the President no deference on the Meirs’ nomination. Such hypocrisy undermines the arguments of conservatives (democrats have the same problem).
If politicians and others are to be taken seriously, they must have consistent positions.
Moreover, there must be independent research to understand what our laws really mean, the way laws have been interpreted throughout history, and the importance of the all those historical decisions on society. For example, if you argue for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, you must also argue for the reversal of Brown v. Board of Education. I dare say that many conservatives would never advocate for the latter. But I suspect many have not done the research to understand the similarities.
Point being, independent thought and research (not thoughts of pundits or speaking points)should be required of all who seriously want to opine about matters that impact our society. This, I suspect, would limit the inconsistencies that abound.
Was she raped? and by who?
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