Along with the cartoon, The Conservative Voice Daily‘s e-mail sent “RNC Abandons Conservatives” by Nathan Tabor and, around the same time, BooMan sent me the link to John Fund’s shocker, in today’s Opinion Journal, on how Karl is selling Harriet with a lot of big promises or, if you’re Senate Judiciary chair Arlen Specter, “backroom deals.”
The nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court is such a below-the-belt blow to conservatives — leaving them angry, marginalized and ignored — that they’ve been protesting at full volume, and digging so hard for the goods on Miers that they make the Gannongate teams look like a bunch of “I Spy” kids.
The anger! Robert Bork to Chris Matthews: “Now I think we’re learning that she is disqualified or unqualified. … She can’t write, and she can’t think except in cliches, apparently.”
BORK: [S]he wrote a column for the “Texas Bar Journal” and it’s nothing but cliches of thought and the writing is terrible. It’s not anything like a Supreme Court justice should be.
MATTHEWS: So the tight, economic of a court decision, she is not capable of writing?
BORK: Apparently not, as far as one can tell.
NYT columnist David Brooks, reports The Washington Note, wonders as well: “Can She Write a Clear Court Decision? Can We Confirm a Ghost Writer?”
Beyond her, um, lack of skills, there’s her uncharted terrority on key conservative issues.
Armed with detailed notes provided to him anonymously, John Fund is able to describe, in-depth, the now-infamous Oct. 3 conference call to Christian conservative leaders about the Miers nomination. Fund’s Opinion Journal piece is titled “Judgment Call: Did Christian conservatives receive assurances that Miers would oppose Roe v. Wade?”
Here Come Da Judges
Fund tells us that “[a]lso on the call were Justice Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court and Judge Ed Kinkeade, a Dallas-based federal trial judge.” The two judges joined moderator Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association, James Dobson, and “Gary Bauer of American Values, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation and the Rev. Bill Owens, a black minister.”
Mr. Dobson [interviewed by Fund for this story] says he was surprised the next day to learn that Justice Hecht and Judge Kinkeade were joining the Arlington Group call. He was asked to introduce the two of them, which he considered awkward given that he had never spoken with Justice Hecht and only once to Judge Kinkeade. According to the notes of the call, Mr. Dobson introduced them by saying, “Karl Rove suggested that we talk with these gentlemen because they can confirm specific reasons why Harriet Miers might be a better candidate than some of us think.” …
Continued BELOW …
What followed, according to the notes, was a free-wheeling discussion about many topics, including same-sex marriage. Justice Hecht said he had never discussed that issue with Ms. Miers. Then an unidentified voice asked the two men, “Based on your personal knowledge of her, if she had the opportunity, do you believe she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?”
“Absolutely,” said Judge Kinkeade.
“I agree with that,” said Justice Hecht. “I concur.” […]Judge Kinkeade, through his secretary, declined to discuss the matter. Justice Hecht told me he remembers participating in the call but can’t recollect who invited him or many specifics about it. He said he did tell the group that Ms. Miers was “pro-life,” a characterization he has repeated in public. But he says that when someone asked him about her stand on overturning Roe v. Wade he answered, “I don’t know.” He doesn’t recall what Judge Kinkeade said. But several people who participated in the call confirm that both jurists stated Ms. Miers would vote to overturn Roe. […]
The conference call will no doubt prove controversial on Capitol Hill, always a tinderbox for rumors that any judicial nominee has taken a stand on Roe v. Wade. […]
Some participants in the Oct. 3 conference call fear that they will be called to testify at Ms. Miers’s hearings. “If the call is as you describe it, an effort will be made to subpoena everyone on it,” a Judiciary Committee staffer told me. It is possible that a tape or notes of the call are already in the hands of committee staffers. “Some people were on speaker phones allowing other people to listen in, and others could have been on extensions,” one participant told me.
Here Come Some Mo’ Judges
The two judges’ participation in the call is buttressed by today’s appearance of six former Texas Supreme Court Justices for a photo-op at the White House — and to try to calm the conservative uproar:
“U.S. President George W. Bush (2nd R) speaks as he poses with former Texas Supreme Court justices in the Oval Office of the White House to show support for the pick of Harriet Miers for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, October 17, 2005. (L to R) Former Associate Justice of Texas Supreme Court Eugene Cook, former Associate Justice of Texas Supreme Court Raul Gonzalez, Attorney General of Texas Greg Abbott, (seated) a former associate justice of Texas Supreme Court, former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice John L. Hill, former Associate Justice of Texas Supreme Court James Baker, Bush, and former Associate Justice of Texas Supreme Court Craig Enoch were present. (Yahoo/Reuters)
(By the way, the White House’s press release is a quick paste-up job, without even the full names of any of the former justices.)
Despite these considerable efforts — and questionable conduct in making behind-the-scenes assurances to conservatives that Harriet is cool on Roe v. Wade and abominable homosexuality (Miers’ gay rights views are major concern of conservatives) — conservative pundits aren’t reassured. And conservatives lament how their outspoken concerns about Miers’ nomination will affect the future:
Here Come The Unhappy Judge
On Thursday’s MSNBC Hardball, Chris Matthews interviewed former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.
BORK: Oh, he’s going to fight for it, and I think he’s—and, by the way, if she should be defeated, for some reason, which I don’t think she will be, his next nominee will be a real jab in the eye to the conservatives because he …
MATTHEWS: You think they’ll go to Gonzales where he wanted to go in the first place?
BORK: I don’t know where he will go, but I think he [Bush] is so fed up with the conservatives, that they can’t expect anything good out of him in the future. …
Tablor’s previous articles at the Voice include “Charles Darwin Disagrees with Homosexuality,” “Adultery Is Killing the American Family,” and ever popular themes like “Liberals Hate GOD (Why do you spell God in ALLl CAPS, NATHAN?)” and the ground-breaking story, “Believe It or Not: Abortion Causes Illegal Immigration.” (Oh, we believe, oh yeah.)
Mr. Tabor’s “lonely eyes” today are cast upon the Southern Democrats:
[T]he Republicans were the party of Abraham Lincoln and the War of Northern Aggression. Folks down South had neither forgotten nor forgiven Sherman’s March to the Sea, or the occupying troops and carpetbaggers …
The Democrats were decent, church-going, patriotic citizens who believed in God and country, in that order. They toiled in fields, factories and textile mills. They enlisted in the Armed Services in disproportionately high numbers during wartime. Their core values were what we call conservative today.
Then the 60s came along, claims Tabor, and messed up the Democrats for — like — forever. But, Tabor asks, can those conservative Southern Dems cast their lonely eyes to the Republicans? Not at the moment::
Sadly, the Republican Party leadership has begun to promote so-called moderates like Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger under its newfound “Big Tent” philosophy. Now conservatives are faced with the same challenge that Southern Democrats faced in the 1970s. But, unlike Southern Democrats from a few decades ago, modern conservatives do not have a viable option in the other major party.
All “conservatives” have a choice. We could join forces with the Southern Democrats to form a new party; we could look to one of the existing third parties; or we can stand our ground and fight for that which we built. I believe we should fight for control of the party we built. The Republican Party cannot sustain itself on its “moderate wing.” The GOP needs conservatives to maintain its majorities and to win national office. Conservatives, not moderates, built the Republican Party.
Like many other conservatives, Tabor criticizes Miers’ nomination: “If W Is Conservative, Why Miers?.
Fund concludes today’s revelatory piece:
There are philosophical reasons for Republican senators to oppose Ms. Miers. In 1987, the liberal onslaught on Robert Bork dramatically changed the confirmation process. The verb to bork, meaning to savage a nominee and distort his record, entered the vocabulary, and many liberals now acknowledge that the anti-Bork campaign had bad consequences. It led to more stealth nominees, with presidents hoping their scant paper trail would shield them from attack.
President Bush has now gone further in internalizing the lessons of the Bork debacle. Harriet Miers is a “superstealth” nominee–a close friend of the president with no available paper trail who keeps her cards so close to her chest they might as well be plastered on it. If Ms. Miers is confirmed, it will reinforce the popular belief that the Supreme Court is more about political outcomes than the rule of law.
And that outcome will disappoint not only the lonely conservatives, but the similarly powerless liberals.
If she doesn’t withdraw, Ms. Miers will let us all know more when the hearings commence, tentatively slated for Nov. 7.
All emphases mine.
