As often as I'm wrong, I'm glad to take credit when my prognostications turn out right now and again. I smelled "Harriet E Miers Blood in the Water" on 10-22. At that, though, I didn't realize how quick it was coming. I'd entered a Miers-withdrawal pool predicting an exit on November 4- the last Friday before the hearings would have started.
I'm not sure who else had openly predicted her failure, but it seemed pretty obvious. She had NO public support. All right wingers and Republicans just totally were not buying. As I predicted, the Democrats didn't have to lift a finger. The Republicans took this one out. Ted Kennedy even got to say some fake nice words about her after the fact.
One useful point of this has been drawing some lines around the president's support. The absolutely only people supporting this nominee were blindly chauvinistic Bush partisans- and perhaps a few personal friends of Ms Miers. I'm sure she's a fine woman- she just wasn't nearly qualified for the Supreme Court. Everybody else even on the right clearly has some point where they will get off the Bush bus. The Miers misfire proved that. Ah well, we can now all go back to not knowing how to spell her danged name.
Meantime, of course, who's next? Bush really screwed the pooch with this Miers pick, and he badly needs to rally the troops. What President Bush needs now worse than anything is a big uniting knock-down, drag out fight where the right are all motivated to absolutely go to the mattresses.
This brings me on the eve of Halloween to again hopefully invoke the spook what is haunting the nightmares of Democrats: Janice Rogers Brown. Now is the PERFECT time to drop her right in the mix. For starters, she'd have total teary eyed total support from all right wing types, and even likely a large majority of libertarian oriented types. Heck, even I would approve.
Meanwhile, she's the absolutely most difficult serious known quantity conservative jurist for Democrats to oppose. Being a black woman raised in the Jim Crow South pretty well takes away the normal civil rights trump cards the liberals like to play. I just don't see how even the best demagoguery from the DNC is going to help Democrat senators convince their black constituents that Brown is a proponent of Jim Crow.
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Article comments
1 - Michael J. West
What if it goes completely the other way? What if he lashes out at the REPUBLICANS for his next nomination as revenge for Harriet Miers?
2 - Cunning Linguist
If Bush cares at all about the future of his party he will do the right thing and nominate someone who his conservative base can genuinely support.
I'm only 28 years old so I was too young to understand politics for the most part when Reagan was president. But sometimes I have this dream where I am in my early 30's rasing my own children and America is on top again. We are doing things right again. Economy is good. We're respected by those whose respect we seek and feared by those who we wish to fear us. All this because in my dream Ronald reagan is still President. I am sure I am smiling as I lay sleeping during this dream.
Then I wake up and Remember W. is president and my smile goes away. Then I remember the piece of human excrement that was president before him and I am even more disconcerted.
I am growing more and more upset with the Bush presidency every day but for different reasons than the commie scumbags that represent the left in this nation.
Bush better get with the program or he will lose all his support. The same one that Reagan was with. Thsi next court nomination is the perfect example to start doing so. I just hope he's not too stupid to take it and right the ship.
3 - G. Oren
Good post Al. I think Bush will nominate a blue-ribbon conservative judge with impeccable credentials - and a woman. The base will rally, and the Senate will eventually confirm. But the GOP is different now than it was even a month ago. Conservatives of every stripe realize that Bush is a lame duck, and that his supposed strengths have a debilitating downside - the midterms will give us a good indication of the nations temperature and what the playing field will look like for 08.
To CL, At 19, I cast my first presidential vote for Ronald Reagan - the 80's were no paradise - but RR managed to restore the military, take the initiative away from the Soviets, and , with the help of the work of the Fed - under Volker - managed to set the course for a long-term economic recovery. It is hard to remember now how dispirited the nation was in 79-80, the Iran hostage fiasco etc... the long hangover from Vietnam. RR is undoubtedly the best President of the post WWII period - IMO.
Clinton was succesful because he managed to "triangulate" (Dick Morris's term) and put into law many conservative precepts - he was a centrist and no flaming liberal (gays in the Army aside - he learned a good lesson from that). He also benefited from the continuation of an expanding economy through continued good management at the Fed and respectable fiscal prudence.
You're right CL, W is no RR he's managed to take a ship load of the nation's goodwill - post 9/11 - and put us in a hell of a mess. The dems may make some gains out of this, but our advantage is they don't have a leader, yet, that can put forward a credible vision. We need to spend the next few years repairing our base and weeding out the neo-cons, finding a commonsense voice on foreign policy and fixing the fiscal mess. We've got bigger problems coming down the pike in the next 5-10 years, and we need serious people to address them.
4 - Cunning Linguist
What are we going to do about Hillary G. Oren?
And who are we going to run in 2008?
I'm not a big fan of Mccain or Guliani.
I don't think Frist, Gingrich, or Jeb Bush can win.
I hear that Senator George Allen from Va may run.
What are your thoughts on him?
5 - patricia white
Forget it, Cunning. He IS just too stupid..It will take the Republicans a long, long time to recover from this clown.
6 - Bennett
Good post, thanks Al. I hope that you're wrong about the next nominee though...
Bennett
7 - Cunning Linguistf
Yes Patricia Bush hasn't been good for the GOP but still..........
look at the Dem leadership.....John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Hillary, Howard Dean........
I think the GOP be just fine.
8 - Anthony the Sane and Sensible
I hope it is Janice Rogers Brown. She would be the perfect pick.
But why do you say that Al??? She is Pro-Life.
9 - Cunning Linguist
She would be a good pick because we'd get to watch the Dems show their true colors and call her an uncle tom.
I can just picture it now. Ted Kennedy on the floor of the senate lectruring to us how Janice Rogers Brown would bring back the days of slavery. When will this guy go away so we don't have to listen to his BS. Seriously they shouldn't have stopped with Bobby. Talk about your friggin hat tricks.
10 - G. Oren
Well, we know who the nominee is at any rate.
CL, I don't think we have to worry too much about Hillary, she may run - but she will wish she hadn't.
I don't know who we'll come with up by '08' - I like McCain and Gingrich.
11 - RJ
Bush picked a solid conservative, who happens to be a white male. The Dems are already attacking his nomination, simply because he is a white male who happens to be conservative.
The GOP will solidly support this pick, and they will get him nominated by a fairly close vote, say 59-41.
After this, the Dems will be on defense...
12 - Anthony the Sane and Sensible
He is a Pro-Life Conservative AND he is Italian.
What more can we ask for???
13 - RJ
Ask Bush himself!