Recovering from the quagmeir.

BizzyBlog posts the story of a President who recovered quite well after making a major speech advocating a mistaken policy.

I won't explain the mistake or reveal who the President was, but the point is that no one remembers the mistake now. By the same token, no one will remember the Miers mistake if the President recovers by appointing a qualified candidate now. If you don't believe me, read BizzyBlog.

We can do our part by assuring the President that we are up for the fight when he appoints his qualified nominee. Rather than speculate on who that nominee might be, we should focus on ways that we can promote that nominee.

I am not advocating that we blindly trust the President's next pick, but, instead, that we prove to the President now that he can trust us. We must reassure him that we can and will fight for a qualified nominee so that he need not fear that his nominee will be defeated.

Quotes of the day - Ann Coulter, Jonah Goldberg, Captain Ed

"With Miers withdrawal, Bush has us back on the team, ready to cheer for him unreservedly. All we ask is that you please not listen to Harry Reid next time."

Ann Coulter
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"No Gonzales, a thousand times no Gonzales."

Jonah Goldberg
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"Now can we nominate a candidate whose qualities and track record presumes we control the Senate?"

Captain Ed

We have one more chance to get it right.

Now that Harriet Miers has withdrawn her name from consideration for the Supreme Court, President Bush has another chance to appoint a qualified nominee that will interpret the constitution and has a track record that we can reasonably rely on.

But President Bush is not the only one who has received a second chance. Conservatives in the blogosphere have received a second chance also. My own opinion is that we blew it with regard to the Miers nomination when we failed to be vocal enough prior to the announcement of the nomination. Once the nomination is made, it is too late. If President Bush nominates another stealth candidate, I suspect we won't get another chance. The next nominee will not be withdrawn. Even the Miers battle cost the conservative movement something in terms of time and credibility and political "capital."

We should make it clear NOW that if President Bush puts forth a qualified, conservative nominee, we will back him 110%. The same blogswarm/blogstorm that derailed the Miers' nomination can and will carry the day for Judge Brown or Owens or any of the other qualified candidates.

One result of the Miers battle is that the administration has seen what a good blogswarm can do. [The administration should have understood this after Rathergate, but better late than never.] If we start swarming now for a qualified conservative, the administration won't make the same mistake again. A good blogswarm now will also convince the administration that the President has the troops to carry the day in the Senate.

The bloggers don't even have to agree on who is the best nominee. Numerous conservatives have their favorite candidates. We need only make it clear that all of us will fight and swarm for any of the qualified conservatives. I predict that the moderates/stealth proponents will try to appease us by saying that "we can't have a nominee that please everyone."

We don't want to please everyone. We want a nominee that will follow the law, refrain from judicial activism, strictly construe the constitution, refrain from inventing penumbras, etc. And we want the nominee to have a track record that backs up his or her promises.

I have quoted Janice Rogers Brown numerous times on these pages. We know her track record from quotes like this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

While I favor Judge Brown, I and all of the other conservatives would support wholeheartedly a large number of potential nominees.

To the administration, I say "Let's not waste the resources of the new media this time. Let it work for you instead of against you."

To the blogosphere, I say, "Everything you are saying today, keep saying over and over until the administration gets it right. Don't wait for the nomination to be announced. Don't forget about this issue merely because we might get distracted by other issues."

Jonah Goldberg has the right idea. No Gonzales, a thousand times no Gonzales.

Michelle Malkin posts a good roundup.

Blonde Sagacity and LaShawn Barber sound a similar note.

If we all talk about this as much over the next few weeks as we have over the last few weeks, we won't see this mistake again.

P.S. Click here to read why it would be better for a true conservative like Bork to lose than for a moderate like Anthony Kennedy to be confirmed.

I oppose the Miers nomination

N.Z. Bear is collecting data on which bloggers support and oppose the Miers nomination.

He will find those who oppose the nomination by searching for the phrase, "I oppose the Miers nomination."

So far, more of us oppose the nomination than support it.

My question is, where were the bloggers before the nomination was made? The time to make our feelings known is before the nomination is announced. It doesn't work if we sit back and wait while President Bush is making up his mind. We should have started blogging about this in November - or at least as soon as Justice O'Connor announced her retirement.

I think we should still talk about this, but let's also start talking about the next nomination NOW before it is too late. Let's let the President know what a mistake a Gonzalez nomination would be.

Laura Bush and Matt Lauer

Much of the blogosphere has reacted negatively to Laura Bush' interview with Matt Lauer this week on the Today show. Laura Bush stated that the conservative criticism of Harriet Miers was based on sexism. Typical of the response has been that of Peggy Noonan:

Sending Laura Bush out to make her first mistake as first lady, agreeing with Matt Lauer that sexism is probably part of the reason for opposition to Ms. Miers, was embarrassingly inept and only served to dim some of the power of this extraordinary resource.

I am not defending the nomination. I have made my thoughts clear here and here. Nor am I defending the use of the sexism card. But I am suggesting that the use of the sexism card was unintended by the White House. Bear with me here. The transcript of the quote appears at Big Lizards:

Lauer: Some are suggesting there's a little possible sexism in the criticism of Judge [sic] Miers.

Laura Bush: That's possible. I think --

Lauer: How would you feel about that?

Laura Bush: That's possible. I think she is so accomplished that... I know, I think that people are not looking at her accomplishments and not realizing that she was the first elected woman to be the head of the Texas Bar Association, for instance, and all the other things. She was the first, uh, woman managing partner of a major law firm. She was the first woman hired by a major law firm, her law firm.

emphasis added

I don't think Laura Bush intended to make that accusation. I think Matt Lauer threw in a suggestion and the first lady went with the flow.

Understand what Matt Lauer and the rest of the MSM/DNC anchors and reporters really are. They are not journalists as we understand that term. They are skilled propagandists. They are shills for one political party and one extreme ideology. They are the most skilled propagandists in existence. Their sole function is to promote their agenda in a way that does not lose their audience or reveal their bias.

Their role is more partisan than that of any trial lawyer. A lawyer (1) openly advocates his client's case and (2) is somewhat constrained by the law. But MSM/DNC interviewers can pretend to be objective. They have as much experience in extracting admissions from witnesses as any lawyer. They do it live in front of millions of viewers every day. That is all they do - advocate leftist ideology, hide their advocacy wioccasionalnal with occasional head fakes into pretend objectivity, provide assistance ("softballs") to friendly witnesses who share their advocacy goals, extract admissions from those who are not so cooperative. Only those who can accomplish these tasks under the microscope of the television camera are clever and fit enough to ascend to the position of Today show host.

By contrast, George Bush (by virtue of our ever expanding federal government) is concerned with items such as policy, fundraising, the economy, education and every other area that affects our lives. He is not single-mindedly devoted to propaganda.

Laura Bush is a mother, teacher, librarian and first lady (in no particular order).
She has never devoted her life to propaganda.

Laura Bush is no match for Matt Lauer. If Matt Lauer wants Laura Bush to say that Miers' opponents are sexist, she will say that they are sexist. If Matt Lauer wants to turn Laura Bush against her husband's base, she will be helpless to resist. Matt Lauer will hijack Laura Bush' mouth and use it as a weapon against conservatives just like the terrorists used American planes to destroy lower Manhattan.

This analysis does not excuse Laura Bush or the White House. When the White House sends a Laura Bush into the den of an MSM/DNC lion, this result is inevitable. It is the inevitable result of George Bush seeking help from the MSM/DNC in a fight against his own base.

When you get in bed with a dog, you wake up with fleas. We now have to wash off the fleas, fumigate the bed and rid ourselves of MSM/DNC tactics. I think it is time for George Bush to stop fighting his own supporters stop seeking help from the MSM/DNC and take Peggy Noonan's (and others') advice.

The MSM/DNC hates George Bush no less than they did several weeks ago. George Bush will need his supporters more now than ever. I ask George Bush to withdraw this nomination and unify his supporters once more.

Harriet Miers - The Bork/Kennedy scenario

Earlier I wrote that blame should properly be attributed to certain Republican moderates in the Senate for the fiasco that the Miers' nomination has become.

I also proposed that conservative senators vote "no" so that Democrats will be forced either to support her or face a real constitutionalist nominee to replace Miers.

Some conservatives have suggested that because Bush was backed into the corner by McCain/Graham et al., we should not oppose this nomination and we should recognize that it was Bush' best option. In fact, the opposite is true. As I wrote yesterday:

Had Bush nominated a well known, qualified judge, the blame would have been placed squarely where it belongs - On McCain and on the leftists that control the Democratic Party. But because Bush has chosen a stealth nominee, he has shifted the blame onto himself. He has protected those who would stab him in the back. Bush takes the blame instead of those who undermine the conservative fight to reestablish limited government.

I think Bush' best course would have been to nominate a known conservative. Had the nomination failed, he then could have resorted to a stealth nominee. If you are not sure about this idea, think back to 1987. Would Reagan have been better off nominating Anthony Kennedy first without ever nominating Bork?

I believe that conservatives benefited from the Bork nomination. [The best scenario would have been for Bork to have been confirmed - but that didn't happen.] Given a choice between a failed Bork nomination and no Bork nomination, the failed Bork nomination worked better.

(1) The Democrats' behavior during the Bork Senate hearings revealed the Democrats to be who they really are - partisan hacks. See the comments in Thomas Sowell's biography.

(2) The Bork confirmation process exposed Arlen Specter as the leftist he really is. The resulting Republican mistrust forced him into a primary battle during the next election that he could head off only by championing the cause of Clarence Thomas in 1991.

(3) Conservatives are much more prepared today for a confirmation battle than we were in 1987. Had Reagan failed to nominate Bork and gone directly to a moderate, he would have only postponed the inevitable leftist ambush. Leftists were waiting to ambush a conservative nominee. The Bork episode provided a learning experience and prepared us for the Clarence Thomas episode and for the confirmation of all of the conservative appeals court judges that President Bush has now overlooked in favor of Miers. The conservative preparation for the Roberts' confirmation hearings was much more thorough than the preparation for the Bork hearings. We have learned that confirmation depends not so much on the candidate and his testimony, but on the ideological battle that we must wage in the media.

(4) Perhaps most importantly, the leftist attacks on Bork galvanized the conservative movement. "Bork" became a verb in addition to a noun. There is a name for what the Democrats do. We can identify it, talk about it and prepare for it. We can campaign against them for using those tactics. We have a martyr. Judge Bork is more widely read now than he ever was before. He has written numerous books since 1987. He appears regularly on radio and TV. He is a highly sought after lecturer. I have no doubt that if Robert Bork were still young enough to be nominated, he would be confirmed today. Conservatives have learned a great deal about the constitution and what the left has done to it as a result of the post-1987 activities of Judge Bork. We now use that knowledge in political debate.



The lesson of the Bork episode is that we should not hide from ideological battles over the Supreme Court. Even if we lose, we win.

We lost the Bork battle in 1987, but conservatism was the ultimate winner. That victory has taken almost two decades of education, argument, debate, campaigning, etc. There is no reason to squander the fruits of that victory by nominating a stealth candidate now. Confirmation battles, even losing battles, are not to be feared.

Let the Democrats make a martyr out of Janice Rogers Brown. Nominate Brown now, and she will emerge either as a martyr or a Supreme Court justice. If Brown emerges as a martyr, we can always go back to Miers or some other stealth candidate.

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Update - Michelle Malkin posts a weekend Miers roundup.
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Peace Like a River nails it also.
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Another update
David Limbaugh explains that this fight is not about elitism, but about the "struggle to remain free."
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And another

Michelle Malkin and Polipundit provide a roundup of bad news for the Miers nomination.

Harriet Miers - who is to blame?

Previous - An idea . . .

A number of commentators have weighed in with their thoughts on who really is to blame for the Harriet Miers debacle. Thomas Sowell rightly points the finger at the moderates in the Republican party in the Senate:

President Bush has taken on too many tough fights -- Social Security being a classic example -- to be regarded as a man who is personally weak. What is weak is the Republican majority in the Senate.

When it comes to taking on a tough fight with the Senate Democrats over judicial nominations, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist doesn't really have a majority to lead. Before the President nominated anybody, before he even took the oath of office for his second term, Senator Arlen Specter was already warning him not to nominate anyone who would rile up the Senate. Later, Senator John Warner issued a similar warning. It sounded like a familiar Republican strategy of pre-emptive surrender.

Before we can judge how the President played his hand, we have to consider what kind of hand he had to play. It was a weak hand -- and the weakness was in the Republican Senators.

Mark Levin reminds us of John McCain's disastrous deal earlier this year with the Democrats -

But McCain — who wants to be president and has now endorsed Harriet Miers — and his cadre must not escape scrutiny for their blunder.

McCain's backstabbing does not excuse President Bush. Had Bush nominated a well known, qualified judge, the blame would have been placed squarely where it belongs - On McCain and on the leftists that control the Democratic Party. But because Bush has chosen a stealth nominee, he has shifted the blame onto himself. He has protected those who would stab him in the back. Bush takes the blame instead of those who undermine the conservative fight to reestablish limited government.

- More on McCain here (peripherally related).

- Wizbang Carnival of Trackbacks.

- Captain's analysis of WaPo coverage.

An idea for the Miers nomination

Previous Miers post here - White House running scared.

I have an idea as to how conservatives should handle the Harriet Miers nomination. What do you suppose would happen if a fair number of Republicans refused to support the nomination in the Senate?

I believe that if Republican support were less than unanimous, a large number of Democrats would cross the aisle and vote for her. (A fair number voted for Roberts, but only because Democrats were going to lose anyway.) If Miers lost 30 or more Republican senators, I think the Democratic groundswell in Miers' favor would be very large. The Democrats will not let this one get away. Bush has goofed, the Democrats know it and the Dems are going to make sure Miers gets on the Court. This nomination is the 2005 equivalent of Bush I' tax increase from 1990. The Democrats needed that tax increase to put Bill Clinton in the White House in 1992. The Democrats need the Harriet Miers debacle to put Hillary (or some other leftist) in the White House in 2008.

A Republican exodus would force the Democrats to show their hand now and make it obvious that the Democrats favor stealth candidates and fear ideological debate.

I know it is not much of a strategy, but it is better than having Miers confirmed by Republicans while the Democrats pretend to oppose Miers with their usual cries of "homophobe, racist, Halliburton, warmonger, anti-choice. . . . "

The other benefit is that Republican senators might retain their own bases even as George Bush loses his base. We might hang on the Senate in 2006 if the Republican Senators avoid taking the blame for Harriet Miers.

White House running scared?

I think the White House realizes that the Harriet Miers nomination has gone over like a lead balloon. Dick Cheney is taking the almost unprecedented step of appearing on both the Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity programs today. He is trying to shore up the conservative base. That would not have happened had the administration not logged in to the internet this morning and seen this and this and this and this and . . . . . . well, you get the idea.

The new media is doing its job. I don't know what we are going to accomplish, but we should continue. We should refuse to accept euphemisms, excuses and doubletalk.

One mistake President Bush has refused to make is to raise taxes. He won't make this mistake because he knows that raising taxes cost his father a second term. The conservative backlash works.

I think President Bush now knows that he made a mistake with this Supreme Court pick. But if we back off now, he will make the same mistake again if another appointment opportunity occurs prior to 2009. We are now fighting over the next nomination. Keep up the fight so that we might have some chance of getting an Alito, Owen or Brown next time.

A victory for Harry Reid? - the Harriet Miers nomination

I haven't been able to find any blog opinion yet about the Miers nomination. I guess everyone else is still writing - or scratching their heads.

I wrote last week about Harry Reid's threat to President Bush designed to prevent the nomination of a conservative. The threat appears to have worked. We will not know for sure until it is too late - several years into Miers' tenure on the Supreme Court.

I also wrote that this battle would have been winnable - even with a conservative nominee.

President has decided to play it safe again and go for the easy confirmation. But playing it safe now is the equivalent of gambling with the next thirty years.

I do have a few predictions based on recent events (barring any unforeseen revelations). While I am sure that the left is breathing a sigh of relief over this nomination, they will make their usual attacks anyway. They will run ads (or try to run ads) depicting Miers as a baby saving, minority hating, torture excusing, warmongering, Halliburton crony. The Democratic Senators will make fools of themselves on the Judiciary Committee, after which Miers will be confirmed by a slightly wider margin than was Roberts.

I heard the NBC commentator (Russert or some other mouthpiece) say that Miers is single. I don't know if she was ever married, but I would bet my life savings that the left is already looking into the gay angle (having failed to turn up incriminating evidence on Robert's son).

The left knows that Miers will be confirmed regardless of what they do. The left probably believes that there is a good chance that Miers will turn into an O'Connor or a Souter. This nomination is the left's payoff for 18 years of Democratic obstructionism. Despite the existence of a Republican President and Senate, the left has prevented the President from seizing his one opportunity to create a conservative majority on the Court.

The left has proven the virtue of patience and perserverance. We in the blogosphere should remember and learn from this lesson.
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Update - Powerline expresses disappointment.

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update

Laura Ingraham is "extremely disappointed."

Glenn Beck wonders what is the "point of having a Republican Party" anymore.

Michelle Malkin is underwhelmed. [Michelle has a more thorough roundup.]
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another update

check here for my analysis of the White House reaction.

Confederate Yankee confirms predictions of leftist accusations of homosexuality.