Redstate

Perhaps the best that I've ever read on this site.

  I agree that the Miers spat hurts the party.  But why should we be the ones who have to back down?  We can back down and half the base is upset.  Bush backs down and exactly two people would be upset.  The onous it seems to me, is on President Bush and Ms. Miers.  

worry. Miers was not a repub when she made that statement. I may have said the same thing pre-epiphany. She has helped Bush put many fed-soc judges on the texas and fed cts.

again, awesome diary

that the establishment Republicans will learn from this debacle, largely of their own making, that they can take the conservatives for granted, slap them around, and make them ride the back of the bus, and suffer no ill consequences?

We can redouble our efforts, but we will never be rid of the establishment element of the party, for host of reasons which have been discussed ad nauseum.

...we can control own reaction. We cannot control George W. Bush's actions. We can attempt to influence those, but we have to be mindful of the fact that those efforts may not succeed and may risk putting us in the exact same place as the Democrats were under Truman and Carter and that the Republicans were under Nixon and George H.W. Bush.

I too concur that this is one of the best stories I've seen here at RedState, especially since the Miers nomination came down.

My personal political story is one of many twists and turns, and I have spent time in my life as a liberal Democrat, before I knew better, but never have I claimed, as Harriet Miers did, that the NAACP, for example, is not a politically-charged organization. I also, for what it's worth, never joined a Progressive Voters League.

This sort of thing just strikes me as being entirely confusing, and I certainly hope that Miers is willing to answer questions about all of this, like anybody else with these kinds of transgressions and inexplicable statements would have to.

As people who consider ourselves conservatives, or at the very least Republicans, I think we do deserve an explanation as to why an organization of quality and deserving of respect like the Federalist Society would be considered too "politically charged" by our latest Supreme Court nominee, but not the NAACP, the same organization whose leaders slandered our President.

Every course has risks. In the addendum, I suggested the swaying factor for me. Every conservative Republican has to make their own choice. All I offer is my advice.

I am a very conservative originalist, but not (yet) a member of the Federalist Society - maybe that's why I don't see anything wrong with Miers refusal to join and (accurately) describing the Society as "politically charged"?

to equate not opposing Miers with being and establishment Republican.

I'm not one and I've been sufficiently appalled by the churlishness and myopia of a lot of Miers opponents that I now support her.

would be on "the anti-Miers' preferred list" ? And be more likely than a Bush confidant that has been instrumental in Bush's sterling originalist appeals court nominees and CJ Roberts to join Scalia and Thomas in correct rulings?

Dales,

A well researched and superbly composed post, as all of yours inevitably are. I concede that your strategery makes more sense in the short run, but I propose that mine is better for the long run.

Of course, there are significant differences between now and 1992 which I tried to bring out in the diary, but I really wonder how long we should expect to keep electing Democrats for the sake of the war on terror.

as Bush is the one making the nomination and is ultimately the one who will have to live with her as part of his legacy.

When you look at the people he has stuck by over the past five years do you really think he's the type of guy to throw a friend overboard to appease a cybermob?

Horrible, isn't it?

As has happened a few times in the past week and a half, each time I find myself concluding that the best thing conservative Republicans can do is suck it up and hope for the best, more comes out that makes me want to bang my head on my desk.

Happens to me every morning around this time, except that the wall in my living room has a good sized-dent and some missing plaster because I like my desk too much, and I worry about damaging my server's RAID array.  

But in general I agree:  the President has thrown us the curveball of curveballs, and although sucking it up isn't something we really want to do, the in-party support numbers are crucial.  In a way, it's a test of our strength as a party in what has become the sharpest disagreement among friends that I've ever seen.  I'm not going to fight this battle against Miers any more, instead I'm going to keep the faith and keep my fingers crossed.

Side note:  as with her support for the Raggio lecture series at SMU featuring Gloria Steinem, I believe her seeming lack of support for the Federalist Society in favor of is an artifact of the political climate at the time.  She's a shrewd woman.  Progressive campus politics are essentially totalitarian.   Do you want to change that?  Join the fight for Academic Freedom, either by helping Horowitz' group or talking with people like AcademicElephant.  But do something, because otherwise groups like the Federalist Society are going to continue to be marginalized in academia.

At the time she made the statement, the NAACP was not as "politically charged" as it has become?!  I think if you ask the current Bush White House Counsel, she would have to agree with you now the NAACP (especially with Jullian Bond) has left it's noble civil-rights beginnings in the dustbin of history.

> the Federalist Society would be considered

> too "politically charged" by our latest

> Supreme Court nominee, but not the NAACP,

> the same organization whose leaders slandered

> our President.

Did the NAACP slander George H.W. Bush (President in 1990)? I don't recall that they did. They certainly are overtly political, but they always claim not to be--especially in 1990 when it wasn't as obvious as it is now.

An excellent, thoughtful and insightful diary, my compliments.

That being said, we are faced with a 'fait acompli.' The President has nominated Ms. Miers and will not withdraw the nomination unless there is some serious skeleton hanging around somewhere.

I think it is telling that several of the other possible nominees asked not to be considered, most likely due to the abusiveness of the entire process, and I can't blame them. It has been noted in other quarters that this is an indication that the potential nominees had no faith that the WH would stand behind them. Personally I don't see that as valid. Concern by the nominee for the abusive nature of the confirmation process would be valid whether or not the nominee thought the President would fight for them. Sensible people simply don't need to be dragged through the mud by people like Schumer, Reid, Kennedy et al, with or without Whitehouse support.

At the end of the day I think it is foolish for us to blather on too the degree that we are. For most of us the bottom line of support for the President is that we believe he and the party are doing the right things for America and that the opposition would not. Abandoning the Republicans at this point means electing Democrats; listen to them, watch them and then ask yourself if that's a good idea. There are good Democrats in the world, Democrats who love this country and do not want to damage her. But they are not the ones in control of their party right now.

The NAACP was not always as poltically charged as it has become. Barry Goldwater was a co-founder of the Arizona NAACP.

But as I struggle in my mighty effort to take both sides on every point, my recollection is that it had become pretty politically charged by the timeframe involved, even if it has gone on to become even more partisan subsequently.

I know a few people who have followed the same trajectory.  And there has been some churlishness; but the whole, defensive meme of "sexism, elitism and anti-evangelicalism" has been pretty darn churlish, too.

That said, what little we know about her is not exactly encouraging, and is surely not the sort of thing calculated to calm the fears of those of us who dread the prospect of another defeat that keeps on taking from us.  And I would venture that there is a correlation between an establishment Republican and supporting the nomination, and between being a conservative and being skeptical and opposed.  Correlation, not causation or identity.  Moreover, a conservative movement that cannot, or will not, exert influence over the establishment, or even exact tribute, deference or - God help us - revenge, is a conservagive movement that can, and will, be kicked to the curb or (insert preferred metaphor here).  

conservative, I actually think that, no matter what happens, Bush will not risk such a roiling like this again. I think Bush was shocked at the level of outrage. He should have had GOP senators in and prepared them and assured them of her originalist views. I hate to admit this in some ways, because I do think a defeat would be potentially catastrophic for the 2006 and i do think the haesh attacks from the right risk a lot while we are at war as well, but if Miers goes thru, and, as I expect she is attacked from the left, we will have best of all worlds. Rove has had a teachable moment.

Don't forget all this happened around the time she was serving on the Dallas City Council. When you're working for a large US city, saying bad things about the NAACP would have been seen as argumentative, indeed probably would have hurt her working relationship with some of the fellow board members.

Not something to be done likely.

Not many people recall Goldwater's involvement because that would contradict the racist views they try to pin on him.

The premise that conservatives oppose Miers and "Moderate" or "Establishment" Republicans support her is faulty.

Lots of Conservative Republicans are behind Miers, especially evangelicals. I think it's more accurate to say a piece of the conservative movement is opposed.

Bush would turn on the cybermob.

This is a President who values loyalty, and who returns the favor to those who are loyal to him.

He will NOT toss Miers overboard, and you can bet he is going to be less willing to trust those who were part of the cybermob (particularly NRO) again.

thinking that the uproar will have a good effect on Bush and net good effect long term, so long as Miers gets through. Bush should have lined up GOP senators for Miers BEFORE the announcment and should be as nice to the far right like me, as he is to his enemies. A Miers w/d would be bad.

What will really be intersting is if she is defeated by the same coalition many suspect a known paper trail nominee would be defeated by.

There's always a chance (slim maybe) that there's some real actual Rovian strategery behind all this. Wouldn't it be great if the Bush Administration could somehow lull Justice John Paul Stevens into his happy retirement, with at least the prospect ... the prospect ... that his replacement won't hate his Stevens' guts and spit on his grave? At least while he's alive.

I believe her seeming lack of support for the Federalist Society in favor of is an artifact of the political climate at the time.  She's a shrewd woman.

  That doesn't lessen my concern.  My biggest problem with Miers is that nothing in her background suggests anything more than a shrewd political operative and a loyal friend of Bush.  One of the strongest arguments the pro-Miers peope make is, "but look at all those great conservative Judges she helped push for".  But what suggests that she did that out of conviction rather than expediency?  Pushing for Owens and Rodgers Brown was the smart political thing to do, just as speaking nice about the NAACP and dissing the Federalist society was the smart political thing for a Dallas councilwoman to do back in the 80's.  The truth is we haven't the slightest clue what Harriet Miers believes.  We control the Presidency, control the Senate, have been handed a historic opportunity, and the President has essentially given us a canidate who could be anything from fantastic to atrocious.  It's just not acceptable.  For Miers to get my support her testimony for the Committee is going to have to be absolutely Borkian.  

The U.S. Supreme Court should be about principle and qualifications, not politics. Politics are precisely what has gotten President George W. Bush into this mess. Suggesting that politics are the way out of the mess is preposterous.

The nominee most certainly is not the nominee. Nominees can withdraw and be withdrawn based on publlic pressure; the Senate (see Federalist 76) must confirm the nominee in fulfillment of their constitutional responsibility for advice and consent.

The SCOTUS is far too important, especially given that this next seat will be a swing vote, to settle for less than the best. And cronyism at this level is abhorrent and will shadow the Republican Party forever if allowed to remain.

There are two basic ways to support your party - as a cheerleader in blind support of everything they do or as a constructive critic who attempts to make them as good as they can be. It is, frankly, the difference between a soft approach and a tough love approach. It is amazing, to me, to see how many soft cheerleaders like Dales, Carol, Fred Barnes, Brit Hume, and Hugh Hewitt we have in our midst. Thankfully there is much more intellectual heft and gravitas among those in the tough love camp - William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Peggy Noonan, Robert Bork, John Fund, Pat Buchanan, Michelle Malkin, Robert Novak, Professor Bainbridge, Erick, etc.

a correlation, not that there was unanimity down the lines.  And evangelicals are split on the merits.

We'd need to know the history of the local NAACP chapter to really be able to come to a fair judgement on that.

given his frozen in time color-blindness. I don't know how he would have evolved, but I thank God the undiluted truth and American ideal was spoken by him so forcefully and informs the GOP and fed-soc of 2005.

That's me, the cheerleader. Rah rah.

Demanding that the world be the way it should be is a utopian precept, not a conservative one. The conservative impulse is to see the world as it is, flaws and all, and make do as best possible. Strive for improvement, as you suggest, but it is a fool's errand to demand perfectability.

The nominee most certainly is who it is. As I clearly wrote, the nomination could be withdrawn (at a cost), it could be defeated (at a cost), or it can be confirmed (at a cost).

If the cost is too high, we are the post-Truman Democrats, the post-Nixon Republicans, the post-Carter Democrats, and the post-George H.W. Bush Republicans. If you feel that is pocket change, your bank account is significantly larger than mine.

to take place in short order.

The opponents of Miers, IMHO, have broken the old rule of "if you shoot at the king you've got to kill the king." They shot at Bush and for their effort they're going to get Justice Miers and a White House that doesn't return their phone calls. Quite honestly, if the White House did have future dealings with those who have been most vociferous in their opposition I'd be sorely disappointed.

Very impressive piece and well thought out. My fear is the same in that the majority will be beyond repair if the battle continues.  The conclusion would be Hillary or another democrat will be able to repalce Stevens and Ginsburg with liberals which will keep the court where it is for a longer period of time.  

Right now I feel the majority is still in good shape and a recent Rasmussen poll shows Republican support for Meirs is @ 54% while only 17% are against.

If there is another vacany during GWB term the backlash he has felt from this will be remembered and most likely a known conservative will be appointed.  

Actions have consequences. You can stand on principle without falling on your sword. Your list of conservatives you claim are cheerleaders is simply ridiculous. It makes you look like nothing but a cheerleader for the opposition.

Liberals always assume that failing to agree with the is the same thing as not arriving at your conclusions independently. This is exactly the same assumption you are making about everyone who fails to obey your view of the nomination.

Great diary!

"The war on terror swings my choice. It is not the time to cede the majority."

What can I say? Absolutely precisely exactly correct.

I was thinking of that very maxim all morning.  But to be perfectly honest, with the exception of most of the war policy, this adminstration hasn't exactly hewed to very many conservative principles, so conservatives may now be in a catch-22: either we get kicked to the curb for failing to kill the king, or we get kicked to the curb because the party establishment has learned, over the past five years, that we can be kicked and kicked again, and will still crawl back.  There is a strong possibility of dark times for conservatism, regardless of the resolution of this fiasco.

Is not the more appropriate time to flex conservative muscle during the primaries? If conservatives, a group I count myself among, and evangelicals, ditto, want to show we won't be kicked around any more, seems to me the time to do it is during that time when we choose our candidates and leadership. Am I wrong?

This is just pure hokum. I can just as easily say, with exactly the same degree of truth:

There are two basic ways to support your party - as a constructive critic who attempts to make them as good as they can be or as a whiny, disloyal brat. It is, frankly, the difference between a soft approach and a tough love approach. It is amazing, to me, to see how many destructive voices we have like William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Peggy Noonan, Robert Bork, John Fund, Pat Buchanan, Michelle Malkin, Robert Novak, Professor Bainbridge, Erick, etc.  we have in our midst. Thankfully there is much more intellectual heft and gravitas among those in the tough love camp - Dales, Carol, Fred Barnes, Brit Hume, and Hugh Hewitt.

There is a difference between knowing someone for ten years and watching his/her conversion over ten years.

Why do I get the feeling the President's not really going to view them as relevant any longer?

If anything, he might start considering their squealing as a sign he's doing something right.

At the grassroots level, if we were to seriously oppose this nomination, I think the time is rapidly slipping past the moment where we could be effective if that were our goal.  So let's think about what we'd want to do to reinforce to the President that we want her nomination withdrawn.

Really, the only things that I can think of would be to organize a massive media campaign a-la Alliance for Justice and Democratic Underground.  We'll have to flood the phone banks of our Senators, make sure our voices get heard on talk radio, send emails to the White House, sign online petitions, and establish websites opposing her.  We know the numbers.  We've got the email addresses, or could hire a firm to construct a write-in website.  

I thought about this briefly the other day, in the context of an online petition.  How would we phrase it?

• WHEREAS Harriet Miers is a stealth nominee for the Supreme Court of questionable qualifications and credentials and




• WHEREAS The President's nomination of Miers has deeply dismayed many of the loyal members of this party at a crucial time in history and




• WHEREAS This division in the party is being exploited by Democrats who wish to see the Republican majority and electoral prospects for Republicans in 2006 dwindle and




• WHEREAS An esteemed group of Republican commentators and pundits from across the country and representing the views of millions of Republicans have expressed their outrage at this nomination and




• WHEREAS There exist a large group of alternative nominees who would be acceptable both to the deeply conservative base of the party as well as to its more moderate adherents and




• WHEREAS...

You get the idea.  So far, although there's been a lot of grousing and kvetching here on RedState and a lot of highly charged debate, and people like Steve Dillard were interviewed on NPR and have gone on record as saying that "They're DONE" there hasn't been much in the way of truly organized opposition to her candidacy in terms of coordinating large number of people into a movement.  We haven't crossed that rubicon yet, and I suppose that if we're going to try to convince the President that we're so deeply opposed to Miers that we simply cannot stand for her nomination to proceed, that's what we're going to have to do.  And just based on the wildly discordant voices that I've heard here in the past week, we're not unified enough to pull it off effectively.

When the Democrats are opposed to a nominee, they pull out all the stops to cause that nomination to fail.  They're ready with the brass knuckles and the senate staffs and the grassroots websites, etc., etc.  If anything, their message machine is more integrated than ours is when it comes to a question of fundamental principle.  

So:  is that what we want to do?  Because we can register the domain names and take up collections and build the websites and organize the call-ins and threaten our Senators, and dig deeply for every single misstatement Miers makes going back the past 20 years.  We'll be the ones engaging in the witch-hunt, and we'll be the ones kicking and screaming against our own nomination.

Is it worth it?  That's the question.

...playing in my head.

"Is not the more appropriate time to flex conservative muscle during the primaries?"

Yes, a point I raised.

I think back to Reagan's example. He tried to beat Gerald Ford for the 1976 nomination. He fell short. He backed Ford, and Ford almost came from behind to win-- and would clearly have been preferable to Jimmy Cater in retrospect.

He regrouped, and triumphed in 1980.

And one of his pieces of wisdom was that he could not accomplish anything if he didn't get elected. Another was the 11th commandment.

We need to get back to Reaganism in oh-so-many ways.

Very impressive piece and well thought out. My fear is the same in that the majority will be beyond repair if the battle continues.  The conclusion would be Hillary or another democrat will be able to repalce Stevens and Ginsburg with liberals which will keep the court where it is for a longer period of time.

  But if Miers is another Souter it doesn't even matter who replaces Stevens.  Game over, we lost.  There is a conservative in the White House.  It is absolutely beyond rediculous that President Bush has put us in a position that we have to oppose a Supreme Court nomination.  This battle isn't weakening us for 2008.  I'll still be here in 2008.  Bush's betrayal isn't pushing me to the left.  It just ensures that I will fight that much harder for a true conservative in 2008.  In the meantime, I'd like to do eveything I can to help torpedo this nominee and force our current President to do what he should have done all along.    

The nomination of Harriet Miers is the last straw. In that sense it is a good thing. Critical mass has been reached to stand up to the direction Bush is taking the Republican Party.

How many of you signed on for the party of cronyism, deficits, pork barrel spending, affirmative action, nation building, more entitlement programs, and fear of tackling energy policy and tax reform and Social Security reform and Medicare reform and the filibuster? Who wants to be associated with the party of Jack Abramoff?

A party whose only goal is the maintenance of power rather than the manifestation of conservative public policy needs to be confronted and changed.

At least we California Republicans can be proud of Governor Schwarzenegger, who has called a special election this November to tackle the biggest issues with no regard for his personal popularity through the ballot proposition process. Chicken George II should have such courage.

Some of you need to be fitted with red, white, and blue cardigan sweaters that say GOP on the front. The pom-poms can be generic. Your cheerleading is killing the party and the country it is supposed to be leading.

Sort-of makes you wonder if there will be any value to an "endorsement" (shadow, of course) of any candidate by GWB.  I suspect not - none positive, in any case.

But with the field wide open (on the assumption that the Veep isn't interested in the promotion), GWB can just as easily stay out of it - and the process would probably be better for it.

GWB was the nominee precisely because we did turn out for him in the primaries; if this nomination should turn out to be a negation of principle on the order of O'Conner or Souter, then we will have prima facie evidence that flexing muscle during the primary process and falling in line thereafter is not sufficient to prevent either the leftward drift of American jurisprudence or being taken for granted.  If we shoot at the king and miss, we're screwed, but if we crawl back after every betrayal, every beating, we're just battered wives.

There really isn't an easy answer.

Gone are the days of moderate Democrats successfully running for national office.  They don't make it out of the primaries.  When Joe Lieberman is considered a moderate by the Democrats, the word itself has lost any real meaning to them.  The country is more polarized now than I have ever seen, and will remain so until the nutjob left loses its death grip on the purse-strings of the party.  The Democrats are hanging on by their fingertips and survive primarily due to massively wealthy liberals and legacy voters from minority groups and the poor.  Moderates continue to migrate away from the Democrats every year.  The more leftward the party tilts, the more rapidly the true party moderates jump ship.

For both the Democrats and the Republicans, the party base is the party base.  2/3rds of voters are going to vote their party regardless of the nominee.  There is absolutely no chance that the core constituency of the Republican party is going to be so appalled by anything George Bush does that they decide that they think Hillary Clinton, or whoever the Democratic nominee is, is an attractive alternative to George Allen, or whoever the Republican nominee is, and vice versa.

The battle for President is the battle for the "squishy" voter, the Independent, both big 'I' and little 'i'.  There are a certain number of reactionary independents who ping pong around based on whatever they are told by the press and the rumor mills.  They are the sole reason that popularity polls jump up and down by large percentages based on whatever the headline or cause du jour happens to be.  The balance of the independent voters are actual moderates who shun political parties for ideological reasons.  As true moderates, they are going to trend toward the Republican party until the Democrats swing a considerable distance back rightward and become the party of Kennedy and Jackson again.

The Democrats can huddle in corners, rubbing their hands and chortling with glee over the purported meltdown of the Republican party, but they are grasping at straws.  Instead of peering out the window at the elephant in the front yard, they need to turn and look at the jackass in the mirror.  Then they will see where their problems lie, and only then can they start down the road to becoming a viable national political party once again.

Hmmm.

Then the question is: So what worth is loyalty then?

Haven't conservatives been loyal for the past 5 years?  Years that have seen conservatives having to, again and again, "suck it up" and show loyalty to the President regardless of incredible damage he has done to conservatives?

If the President so values loyalty, then where is his loyalty to conservatives?

you have two choices: be civil and lay off the characterizing people who disagree with you as "cheerleaders" or get dropkicked from the forum.

The choice is yours. I'm down with any decision you make.

Let me stipulate that Miers is another Souter; I am not sure of this, but to examine your premise I'll go with that.

The math would then be:

O'Connor (swing) -> Miers (liberal)


Stevens (liberal) -> ?

If the ? is filled with even a swing, then it is not game over, but rather just a missed opportunity. We'd have lost time, but not everything. This is why it is important that we avoid going the route that the Democrats did post-Truman, the Republicans did post-Nixon, the Democrats did post-Carter, the Republicans did post-George H.W. Bush. We have to keep fighting for more at-bats.

No question, it would be better to have:

O'Connor (swing) -> Scalmos (conservative)


Stevens (liberal) -> Thomia (conservative)

That's what I would prefer, but the path to that does not appear to be present. We're going to have to find a way to get a President who will replace Stevens and future vacancies in manners we are happier with in order to get the win that you and I both want.

do you think he's seeing this response as wounded loyalists or as the outcry of disappointed opportunists?

How long is the list of the "most vociferous"?

Party discipline is all well and good, but carried to an extreme you have the libertarian or socialist parties. Carried to the other extreme you have the democrats of the 70's and 80's, an unwieldy mass just sitting there waiting for someone to come along and pick it to pieces ("Reagan democrats" anyone?).

If anything, this episode exposes a split between republicans and some conservatives. So far, it does not seem to need any sort of remedial party discipline, regardless of the outcome, and calling for one may simply further harden positions. It's interesting to note that the most vociferous involved on either side haven't reached this point yet. Once the persuading stage passes, that could change, but the democrats actions may obviate that as well.

We'll see.

True there are no easy answers. I wonder, however, if we can safely draw the conclusion that flexing muscle during the primary process is insufficient based on this one example. It's definitely fair to say that there were extenuating circumstances on this administration in the first place, but it is also fair to say that the next round of primaries are going to be different from what most of us have experienced in our lifetime.

We're following a two-term president that most likely will not be followed by his Vice, in a party that is more actively conservative at the base than ever before, with (hopefully still) majorities across the board, a far more politically aware voting public than ever before, and with the leftie stranglehold on the media freshly and permanently cracked open.

We face an increasingly definable enemy in a global struggle, one that by contrast illustrates, despite the left, the degree of freedom of tolerance in this country, both religious and otherwise.

We have defining and polarizing issues on our side, and vague notions on the democrats side.

And best of all, we have a party uniformly afraid of what it would mean to have Hillary for president.

I think the upcoming selections are going to define the party for decades, and moreover, I think they are the opportunity to be part of that defining process.

These are all just the impressions of someone who admittedly doesn't have enough time to really be up to speed on politics. But it's how it looks from my point of view.

he could be. But in others, not.

While most of you guys may wish for every nominee to be a arch-Conservative judge the reality is that the more that the President tries to tip the scales the more he is going to get pushback from the Left and Middle.

Let's say that Stevens retires in the next year.  The reality is that the President isn't going to be able to replace him with heavy duty Conservative.  The Middle likes there to be balance on the court and it is the Middle that dictates these sorts of things.  So he'll try another stealth guy or he'll pick someone very moderate.  

I don't think there is much pushback from the middle for conservative jurists. The middle does not like the sort of judicial activism that has been driving conservatives batty for years either.

How does he tell the difference?

It was only weeks ago that a 'permanent' GOP control of government was tossed around.

Now the discussion is when will the GOP fade away.  

I should have included in my last reply-- remember, George W. Bush twice was elected while making campaign promises to appoint judges in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. If conservative judges were a bugaboo with the middle, he would have lost badly.

but I don't believe this episode ends when Justice Meirs is elevation. I think that many of the people who oppose Bush on Meirs will continue to oppose him on other things until they feel vindicated.

Some things are permanent. In the mortal, human, history of the world sense of permanence anyway.

Do you really want a Supreme Court justice that is afraid to speak her mind about organizations as radical as the NAACP because she is afraid of how other people will take it?

I think this story is the most condemning against her so far. I have seen nothing to tell me that she is a strict contructionist. If you were to look at her by the company she kept before GWB, you would swear she was a flaming liberal.

on your stats regarding low approval ratings and losing control of the presidency in the next election -- its a pretty small data from which to draw any conclusions.  This is especially true given the unique nature of the 2008 elections, which will amazingly be the first election in 50 years that didn't feature a sitting veep or president (it will also likely be only the second Republican ticket in 60 years that didn't feature a Bush, a Reagan, or a Dole).  that makes it somewhat unique, and will make it easier for the next nominee to distance themselves from this President.  Thus, I don't think the results in '76, '80, or '92 are particularly informative.

That leaves '52, which does seem like a decent analogy. the problem is that Dems don't have a candidate of the stature of Ike, and Reps haven't been in power for 20 years like the Dems had been. Talk about "time for change."

I think the real danger for conservatives is general disillusionment with the conservative cause if Bush nominates two more squishes.  If there was ever a President one would have thought would give us two solid conservatives, it would have been this one.  I'm still not convinced he hasn't, but judges is my number two voting issue (like a lot of other people).  If this President can't swing the Court Right, I'd be much more likely to stay home in '06/'08.

The original diary refers to those of us on the opposite side as unwise. But my characterization of such folks as cheerleaders goes beyond the pale.

I guess civility and open debate is in the eye of the beholder.

Unfortunately, whenever dealing with Presidents, we are limited to a few data points. When dealing with Presidents who have attained only certain other criteria, there are going to be even fewer data points.

I concede that just because something has happened four times before does not mean it will happen in the fifth iteration.

spend time trying to tell the difference.

most people care that much about judicial activism and I don't think that most people vote based on who the President is going to nominate for the Supreme Court.

Most Americans couldn't tell you what Lawrence v Texas was about.  Or Raich.  Or Kelo for that matter.  

Most Americans are distrustful ideologues of any stripe and prefer a balanced government to one run by ideologues.  

...in the eye of the beholder?

I handled your insult by taking it in good humor, if it was intended with such or not. However, it did come across as an insult. I would assume that anyone who came to a different conclusion to me thinks my advice is unwise. If they said so, I would not have considered that insulting.

For what it is worth.

Remember this exchange:

http://www.redstate.org/comments/2005/10/3/74558/9332/58#58

Welcome back.  It's good to have you in the fold.  

You are obviously both passionate and reflective. I applaud your ability to question your original assumptions and come to a somewhat opposite conclusion.  

In the end, I think most of us here will hold our noses and support this nominee.  And it will turn out to have been the right thing.  We will be rewarded with a known judicial conservative when one of the liberal justices retires.  

I think it has become more politically acceptable to cast the NAACP as a politically charged organization than it was then.

Especially by a white woman from Texas.

But even on the basis of a few data points, we can conclude that Veeps and Senators have a hard time getting elected President, because we understand the causal mechanism behind the correlation.  Here, I think the lack of a sitting Veep running in '08 probably makes the correlation you point out less bothersome, because the likely causal mechanism at work for much of the correlation (sitting President/Veep running in the next election) is removed, especially if the GOP opts to go with an "outsider" or "maverick" in '08.  

A low Bush approval rating might, however, make the road rockier for an insider like Condi.

Nitpicking aside, an excellent post.  As per always.

please do it on factual grounds. A search of this page shows "unwise" appears exactly once: when you use it.

if we show up for elections in 2006 and give money to candidates.

And while I will readily agree that most people would not know SCOTUS decisions by name for the most part, I think they do realize when the court strikes down the pledge, or demands the removal of the commandments or christmas displays, or approves the taking of homes to give to businesses under eminent domain.

If you're asserting that most people in the middle don't like the idea of the judiciary overriding the other branches of government from a philisophical perspective, you're probably correct.

On the other hand, people in the middle seem pretty happy about a lot of the specific decisions.  The Roe decision always gets a lot of support in polls.  As flyerhawk points out, most people don't know about Lawrence, but I suspect the general sentiment from the middle was that the government should stay out of people's bedrooms.  On the other hand, Kelo was definitely a decision a lot of people didn't like (but, that's true on both sides of the aisle).

Bottom line, from a philisophical level I think you are probably right, but when you get down to how the judicial philosophies play out, I think you'd see a pretty mixed bag in terms of reactions to individual decisions.

Given some of the cheap shots taken at Miers taken by some of the critics, he may not be inclined to spend the time.

They not only failed to "kill the king", their failure involved taking cheap shots at a close friend of the king.

I did the exact same thing.  Scary, huh?  :)

that we need to have a clearer debate on this as courts around the country order taxes raised, etc. The debate is that we the people should make our own laws, not courts. Robert's umpire analogy was beautiful but I do hope that we can have a more in the raw debate on this than was had with Roberts, and I don't assume we won't on Miers. In fact I hope we do. And to have a devout Texas  Christian lady as the dme's target makes it all the better. I think the critics will be impressed with her at the hearing and that GOP senators will force the issue thru their leading questions.

But Meirs in nearly the same breath said that the NAACP is not politically charged.  Yet it is known as one of the most "charged" organizations in the country.  The Federalist Society does hold rallies, it holds symposiums and invites liberals!

How many people know that the court recently made a ruling on the Pledge?  How many people care?  

These are events that fire up the edges, not the middle.  The Middle doesn't much care these cases.

Kelo may have had some traction but I sure didn't see it.  At least I didn't see it outside of the blogosphere.

I probably could have expanded upon this, but I didn't and it made my piece weaker in its omission. In each of the four examples, there was a phenomenon which took place in the party going over the cliff-- a schism developed. Democrats were divided on what to do with the Korean war post-Truman, with tension between northeastern liberals and southern conservatives. Conservatives tried to, and almost did, depose Ford post-Nixon. Reagan deftly exploited the fracture between southern conservative "Reagan" Democrats and the liberals. And we all know the fracture of the Reagan coalition that Clinton, aided by Perot, took advantage of.

I do not think this is a good time for a brawl within the Republican coalition.

he has been insufficiently appreciative of the loyalty of many conservatives, and that this apparent ingratitude may colour his perceptions now.

I am a strict constructionist and have used the text faithfully to make my point, I think.

If Dales position is "wiser" then what is the implication for those of us who disagree with him? I do not think "unwise" is such a stretch in this context.

If someone presumes to be "wiser" and give advice to other conservatives, I think they are getting personal and should expect to get such in return. The pomposity of such a piece deserves like in return. If you can't take it, think twice about dishing it out. It only proves the point about soft Republicans, I think.

My biggest beef with the position of so many pro-Miers folks is their failure to acknowledge that there is such a strong case to be made against this nomination. And the implication that those of us making such a case are not "wiser" and could use some political advice is an insult. Go ahead and support your President, but do not imply that those of us on the other side are any less Republican, less wise, or less conservative than you are.

I am a strict constructionist and have used the text faithfully to make my point, I think.

If Dales position is "wiser" then what is the implication for those of us who disagree with him? I do not think "unwise" is such a stretch in this context.

If someone presumes to be "wiser" and give advice to other conservatives, I think they are getting personal and should expect to get such in return. The pomposity of such a piece deserves like in return. If you can't take it, think twice about dishing it out. It only proves the point about soft Republicans, I think.

My biggest beef with the position of so many pro-Miers folks is their failure to acknowledge that there is such a strong case to be made against this nomination. And the implication that those of us making such a case are not "wiser" and could use some political advice is an insult. Go ahead and support your President, but do not imply that those of us on the other side are any less Republican, less wise, or less conservative than you are.

And yet, if Miers proves to be anything less stellar as a jurist, Bush will have thrown a grenade into the midst of those favourable omens.  He's gambling, even though he says he's sure about her temperment.

But that's the point! Better to be wheeling and dealing amongst ourselves than with the left. That's a sure sign of republican ascendancy, which I believe is the whole thrust of Rove's work for the past 25 years. If it gets to that point, we're in the midst of extended GOP rule, which we may be. I don't think the lasting adverse effects will be within the party. If the democrats cannot surpass their Roberts no vote totals on Miers, the way is clear to fight the filibuster fight.

between party loyalty and dangerous blind faith.  When do you know you have crossed it, other than when it's too late?

"The Middle doesn't much care these cases"

IIRC, this particular tangent started when I said I did not agree with you that the middle pushes back against conservative justices like Scalia and Thomas.

Heh.  Best quote in a while.  Just so you know, I plan on appropriating it.

If we follow that rule of thumb, we could never give our advice on what is the best strategy to follow, because that would imply that another strategy is not best, which is insulting to those who think it is.

At the risk of being insulting to you, I do not think that is a wise way to go.

I don't think that the middle pushes back on justices because they are Conservative, or Liberal for that matter.  I think the middle pushes back when the balance of the court is threatened.  

Take out the "cheerleading" and "Chicken" references, and revise and extend the Schwarznegger analysis and you're on to something.

For all the criticism of Ahnuld as a liberal/RINO/whatever, the initiatives are direct attacks on democrat policy planks. The only easy thing about them is they don't immediately involve personal opponents (officeholders aren't at stake), but it's a masterful use of the biggest tool he's got against the core of his opposition.

The Republican Party is straining from it's unusual position of being in power for so long in Congress and also owning the White House for a term and a year. Bush tries to run his operation like a Parliamentary one, where conflict is not allowed between the executive and legislation heads of the party, which is not only stupid but blatantly in violation of the obvious intent of separation of powers.

Now he expects the Senate to be his little poodle and confirm a crony of his to the Supreme Court. It's like he missed 8th grade civics class. It's just ridiculous. Conservatives can only win by beating Miers-- it will be a major statement against the mushy, failed approach of the Bush administration and also a signal of strength from Capitol Hill.

The GOP cannot allow Miers to be put on the Court if it wants to remain in power. Only the sheer, unrelenting incompetence of the Democratic Party has to date kept Republicans in control-- one day the Democrats will get a better leadership, and when that happens, all the pawns the RNC gagged and bound will come back to knock them down (immigration, spending, etc.)

I think you would agree that the biggest change to the balance of the court comes when a conservative is replaced by a liberal, or vice-versa.

I do not recall there being a big push-back from the middle when Byron White was replaced with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Similarly, at the time Souter was confirmed, he was considered to be a conservative (read Kennedy's objections to him and Starr's advocacy for him), and he was replacing the