Half of GOP Senators Doubt Miers:
From the Monday Washington Times:
Nearly half of Senate Republicans say they remain unconvinced that Harriet Miers is worthy of being confirmed to the Supreme Court, according to a survey conducted by The Washington Times.
As with the nomination of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the vast majority of senators say they will not announce their final decisions about the nomination until after Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, which are expected sometime next month.
What's troubling for President Bush, however, is that 27 Republican senators -- almost half of his party's members in the chamber -- have publicly expressed specific doubts about Miss Miers or said they must withhold any support whatsoever for her nomination until after the hearings.
I get the impression from the article it is much more of the former than the latter, but the Times does not name that many names of the 27 senators who are unconvinced, let alone provide a breakdown for why they are unconvinced, so it is impossible to tell.
Democrats figured out that W wasn't trustworthy more than five years ago. Texas Democrats have known for a decade.
I would have hoped the disgraceful Torquemedas in the senate and the media would have waited until Miers actually says something before they started conducting another Spanish inquisition.
I believe the qualifications of Miers are far from inarguable.
Also, you assert that Miers is "inarguably" qualified. This is a joke, right?
"To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.
It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entire branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure."
Bush has told us he knows Miers and knows that she has the "right" views on how to interpret the constitution. If you don't take Bush at his word, do you think he is a liar or a fool?
If you won't take his word on Miers, why should I trust what he has to say about 1) why he invaded Iraq; 2) Social Security privatization; 3) the benefits/risks of his tax plan; 4) the detention Americans (or anyone else, for that matter) based on his word alone that they're associated with terrorists; 5) anything else.
The lesson the Miers nomination has little to do with Miers herself. It has to do with conservatives finally learning that Bush is not a man to be trusted.
The senators on the judiciary committee will get a chance to listen and ask questions and then the whole senate will vote yes or no.
That's how our system works.
"He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure."
Erp: that was either a great parody of Miers' defenders, or quite silly.
And the other half are either mute or are voicing reassurances similar to Dobson's "trust me" or Hewitt's equally mind-vacating "it ain't all that hard" rationale and tired repetitions of the "elitist" charge. Even Beldar's more thoughtful and energetic defenses of Miers, while they avoid most of the mindless reassurances, succeed only to a limited degree (I'd support Miers for mayor based on his defenses, but not for SCOTUS justice).
If centrist/conservatives recline in their couch potato apathy on this nominee and allow her safe passage w/o proper critical review they well may, in the formulation of the cynic, "deserve what they get". However, there remains an opportunity to transcend both cynicism and apathy in this situation and to reply with a more focused and a more substantial critique. (Not forgetting it's also senatorial weaknesses which may, in large part, have predicated Miers's nomination.)
Miers, on the basis of virtually all the critical indicators at this point, should be rejected - and resolutely so.
For a lot of reason, the ability to trust a president matters. My question remains to the conservatives: If you don't trust W here, why should we trust him on anything else?
I don't care whether you trust him or not (though I'm not a conservative). I don't trust him farther than I can kick him - though I'll weigh evidence he adduces in support of his position. Sometimes that leads me to agree he's right; sometimes not. Unfortunately, he's rarely any good at actually arguing his case, even when there's good evidence to support it.
In this case there is very little evidence, and the arguments using it are so far pretty unconvincing.
As a libertarian, my 'conservative' instinct is to NEVER trust ANY politician just on his word. Bush is no exception. Either a proper argument is made, or it isn't. Trust only extends to believing that if a proper argument has been made, the resulting course of action will be followed faithfully.
Of course on another thread I discovered that I am actually a Post Modern Libertine. I am going out tomorrow to get a bunch of PML buttons made up.
It's interesting that none of the responses so far have said that Bush is a man worthy of trust.
So far, I don't agree with Public_Defender's opinions on the nature of truth, lies and opinion, but he has been reliable in other ways.
I understand why people are so sure of their opinions, because I'm sure of mine. I also understand why people think so little of their political opponents, for similar reasons, but it isn't to our credit.
Yours,
Wince
Argument from false premise: You assume that trusting Bush is the same as agreeing with him.
It's interesting that none of the responses so far have said that Bush is a man worthy of trust.
I trust Bush to execute an agressive foreign policy of the type I support. I also trust him to pursue profligate fiscal policies, approve every bill that crosses his desk, advance a sometimes questionable social agenda, and reward his faithful.