I don’t expect what I am about to say will be popular here, but I am interested in your reaction. Sun Tzu says:
“The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities…It is best to win without fighting.”
Perhaps it is time to entertain the possibility that, with Bush’ nomination of Hariet Miers, we have already won.
Look, for instance, at what former Frist aide and hyper-partisan culture warrior Manuel Miranda is saying:
Only minutes after Bush appeared at the White House Monday to announce the nomination, Manuel Miranda, a conservative strategist and former aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist issued a scathing statement: ‘The reaction of many conservatives today will be that the president has made possibly the most unqualified choice since Abe Fortas, who had been the president’s lawyer. The nomination of a nominee with no judicial record is a significant failure for the advisers that the White House gathered around it.’
While cautioning that ‘the president deserves the benefit of a doubt,’ Miranda added, “Something has been left unachieved by the Miers nomination. A Republican president has yet to erase the stigma of the (1987) Robert Bork hearings and the David Souter nomination. The nomination of Harriet Miers has not rid us of the repugnant situation that a jurist with a clear and distinguished record will not be nominated for higher service. The nomination did not rid us of the apprehension of stealth nominees.
That, of course, is only one example of the consternation on the right with this pick.
Bush and the Republicans are on the rocks as the midterms approach. It’s been openly speculated that both the Senate and the House could turn Dem in 2006. Can we entertain the possibility that Bush waived the white flag and surrendered in order to save the Republicans’ skin?
Not a chance. We saw exactly the same screaming about Roberts, and guess what? Turns out the wingnuts were perfectly happy with him all along.
Not on the same scale. ALthough Ann Coulter wan’t happy, nearly every other conservative fell in line. The hostility here seems to me to be on a wholly different level then it was with ROberts.
Nope. We heard screaming from all over the place about what a horrible nominee he was. Especially after his position on that gay rights case came out.
All over Left Blogistan the sheep are being conned. Thought we were mostly goats over here, but I am so wrong!
Miers is just a Repub pawn. It’s a new Supreme Court–one that has learned to do what it is told. Reread your history of Nazi Germany if you don’t understand what this means.
Miers herself, is just a Trojan horse and a token–to deceive those women who think they still have some rights. She is not the ball game. The success of the con is the ball game. Sun Tzu is right, and it’s a surprise to see the Repubs following his recommendations. It is the Dems, and the progressives, who have just been defeated wihout a fight. It is not the final defeat, but it is the beginning of the end.
The fact remains: An entire American city is lost–in fact our main seaport–and those responsible continue to govern without hindrance. The hand-writing is on the wall, people. The great North American experiment in national democracy is over.
The fact remains: An entire American city is lost–in fact our main seaport–and those responsible continue to govern without hindrance. The hand-writing is on the wall, people.
And a month later, many people have forgotten about the drowning of New Orleans, as our new media has kindly kept the full scale of those horrors from continuing to bother the general public. Now the boy prince thinkss that he can get away with anything and everything, because no one will do anything.
How she will turn out. The point is that not knowing isn’t some kind of victory. Someone wrote a comment on a different story (I can’t remember which) and said basically this:
Says it all about both Roberts and Miers. Maybe we will get lucky and one of them won’t be a wing-nut. I sure wouldn’t lay money on it. And the process for selecting them is flawed, in that we won’t know their positions, and they are about to assume awesome power over our lives.
I don’t see a Democratic victory in here.
So, either
A) Bush fumbled. He purposely risked upsetting the base, but overreached out to the Dems, and is gonna get burnt for it — for the larger goal of getting along with the Dems to somehow save the Republican’s skin. (what I read above)
or
B) Bush pulled a feint (see Media Girl’s diary
or
C) Bush set himself up for failure against the Republican congress. Since he’s not running again, his poll numbers are irrelevant compared to theirs. Piss them off (unqualified crony Miers), let them rage and roar, withdraw Miers, replace with a real Republican Judge.
I’ve been thinking B all morning, but maybe it is C. Maybe as pontificator points out, they really are afraid of losing the House and Senate, and need to remind their base that despite their failings, the Republicans always deliver for their base, while very much distancing themselves from the Bush Scandal White House.
Its an even bolder gamble than the ones I’ve speculated on, but you do have a point. They are all sinking together, and the only way to stop it is to placate the base, not by placating the Dems.
.
George Bush says:
Even though I am incompetent, appear to be competent. Though ineffective, pretend to be effective.”
I prefer to call a horse a horse and not pretend it to be a cow, for later in the day a horse won’t give me any milk, no matter how hard I try!
[translated from Kon Fu Oui]
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