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Oct

12

Miers’ Nomination — When the Going Gets Tough . . .

Posted By: 'Okie' | 8:13 am — 10/12/2005 | 1 Comment See comments below:

A couple of things about the Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court — According to James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, if Bush wanted to nominate a woman to the court, and apparently that is his intention, then his short list of potential nominees was really short — like maybe, a list of one? The LA Times reports on Dobson’s conversation with White House deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove:

Dobson said that the White House had decided to nominate a woman, which reduced the size of the list, and that several women on it had then bowed out.

“What Karl told me is that some of those individuals took themselves off that list and they would not allow their names to be considered, because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter that they didn’t want to subject themselves or the members of their families to it,” Dobson said, according to the transcript.

It will be interesting to see what, if any, public comments will be made by Janice Rogers Brown, Edith Brown Clement, Carolyn B. Kuhl and Priscilla Owen. BTW — all of these are on the danger list of the Feminist Majority Foundation as being anti-women and anti-abortion, so you know that any one of them being the nominee would have led to Armageddon at the confirmation hearing!

Next thing, it looks like the staff of the Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee are getting uppity, and they don’t like the Miers’ nomination one bit. From the New York Times today:

As the White House seeks to rally senators behind the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers, lawyers for the Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee are expressing dissatisfaction with the choice and pushing back against her, aides to 6 of the 10 Republican committee members said yesterday.

“Everybody is hoping that something will happen on Miers, either that the president would withdraw her or she would realize she is not up to it and pull out while she has some dignity intact,” a lawyer to a Republican committee member said.

All the Republican staff members insisted on anonymity for fear of retaliation from their supervisors and from the Senate leaders.

Yeah, like shut the U-know-what up and let me be the Senator? Or maybe, a not-so-subtle message being sent to the White House.

“You could say there is pretty much uniform disappointment with the nomination at the staff level,” another Republican on the committee staff said. “It is clear there is quite a bit of skepticism, and even some flashes of hostility.”

Another Republican aide close to the committee said, “I don’t know a staffer who approves of this nomination, anywhere. Most of it is outright hostility throughout the Judiciary Committee staff.”

Committee chairman Senator Arlan Specter did make it clear that the Senators would be making their own decisions. Hmmmm, guess we’ll see.

Hugh Hewitt has some comments on these loose lips:

Very nice. Committee staffers are often very bright, and superb politicos, unless they are simply the grandchildren of rich donors. There are brilliant staffers, and there are copy machine staffers. Some went to law school and excelled there, some have clerked on high or even the highest courts. Others have never worked a day in the private sector on behalf of a client. The incredible disloyalty they are showing in this instance to their bosses, the Committee, the nominee and, yes, the president, is not surprising, but disheartening. In fact, if they acted without the authorization of their Member, they will have violated the Canons of Ethics of the Bar. A small matter for some, no doubt, but call me old school.

Hugh has been the voice of reason on the Miers’ nomination since the beginning, and notes that some of the former vociferous opponents to her nomination are softening and turning around.

It’s not a major election year, but it certainly seems like it’s gonna be an interesting November after all . . . (db)

[. . . and no, Mr. Atos, I "never jumped out of a jetliner over the Central Cascades," -- I'm afraid of heights!]

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  • J Force

    To change the subject from Miers’ nomination to a speech President Bush gave on October 6 to the National Endowment for Democracy, I’d like to make a comment about his “calling out” radical Islam and his differentiation of radicL Islam from the religion of Islam.

    Essentially I say: President Bush: Stop the PC Dribble and State the Facts!!
    When Bush distinguishes between “Radical Islam” and the “Religion of Islam” he’s engaging in PC dribble. The fact of the matter is that all Islam is radical, no matter how it is positioned outwardly to the masses, no matter how the apologists sugar coat it for us with a veneer of “the religion of peace.” There will never be any true peace or understanding between the non-Muslims (Infidels) and Muslims until: (1) The religion of Islam changes and modernizes itself or (2) We take appropriate steps to Stop the dysfucntional diatribes and anti-West rhetoric of the Muslims or (3) the Koranic directed Dar al-Islam (House of Islam) is extended to the entire world and Islam is victorious in creating a World-Wide Caliphate–in the medieval sense. When there is a world Caliphate State (achieved by any means–politically, militarily, etc.), then, according to Islamic teachings, there will be a Dar a-Salam (House of Peace), with Muslims in control and governing a religious Caliphate State, with all the Infidels either converting to Islam, killed for non-conversion or living in a separate but not-equal ghetto existence and severely taxed for being an “Infidel.” Nothing like bringing back the memories of the good-old days of the Ottoman Empire! The faster we realize the real objective of Islam, the faster we can develop appropriate strategies to counteract it. Otherwise: Ave Mohammed, morituri te salutamus!