Repeating Myself
Whatever her qualifications or politics, Bush's nomination of Miers has succeeded in provoking open warfare in the once-united Republican Party.
There's bad blood boiling in the blogosphere, and I have to think that's pretty much what's going on in the rest of politically-attuned Red State America. It's bad now and it's likely to get worse.
Brilliant. A real masterstroke.
More than 300 comments followed. Here's a well-written one:
Look everyone who is personally attacking everyone who dares to question this nominee. I, and many other conservatives, pretty much supported Bush ONLY becuase he promised conservative SUPREME COURT justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. We put up with his very liberal domestic policies (aside from tax cuts, but those are hardly permanent), ONLY because we felt conservative Scalia-like Supreme Court justices were the most important thing (and not only because of abortion). We have kept fairly mum about our distaste for most of Bush's domestic policies, and vocally supported him most of the time. When it came his turn to do the right thing and repay the conservative base, he gave us a wink and said "trust me."
He has done nothing to earn that trust when it comes to a Supreme Court nominee, and we've been burned on the "trust me" tactic for supreme court nominees in the past. Even if Miers turns out to vote like Scalia (something I seriously doubt - I don't believe she will even be as conservative as O'Conner based on everything I've read about her), Bush has still given the big finger to conservatives with this pick.
Bush knew what the conservative base wanted, he knew why we supported him, he knew why we worked for him and defended him, and he still failed to deliver. He did not have to give us a nominee like Janice Rogers Brown who would have been very controversial. Luttig would have basically sailed through like Roberts and would have made conservatives very happy. But, Bush decided he did not care what conservatives thought, or what work they did for him, he was going to nominate his friend. That is a betrayal of the base, and asking us to just "take it" for the team is too much. This is all the conservative base has worked for for Republicans for 20 or 30 years - and they know it. Asking for Supreme Court nominees that we have confidence in is not too much to ask - particularly when it is all we have asked for. So now, we know where conservatives stand.
Our choice now is whether to simply blindly pull the lever for republicans from here on out, even though they consistently screw us, or do something to force them to move to the right. Yes, in the short term democrats are likely to win some elections if the conservative base punishes republicans, but ultimately it will force the republicans to stop screwing the conservative base and over time will move this country to the right. You have to look at the big picture. Are we interested in keeping republicans in power no matter what, or are we interested in pushing conservative ideas and principals forward?
Posted by Great Banana at October 13, 2005 08:32 AM
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