The GOP Slogan Should be: More Bork, Less Pork
By Bonnie Chernin Rogoff (10/05/05)
When the news came that President Bush nominated White House Chief Counsel Harriet Miers to fill the vacancy left by the retiring Sandra Day O’Connor, I was stunned. I learned that George W. Bush worked with Senate Democrats behind the scenes to help in his selection.
Harriet Miers is not qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. George W. Bush is no longer fit to be president, although lying to your constituents is not an impeachable offense.
The truth is coming out on this nominee. Like Supreme Court Justice David Souter, she has never been married. In World Net Daily, Joseph Farah reports that Harriet Miers “is on record as supporting the establishment of the International Criminal Court, homosexual adoptions, a major local tax increase and women in combat.” Mr. Farah quotes Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness:
“As White House Counsel, Ms. Miers either approved of the Department of Defense’s illegal assignments of women in units required to be all-male, which is still continuing in violation of the law requiring notice to Congress in advance, or she was oblivious to the legal consequences of those assignments.”
The last thing we need is a feminist activist on the Supreme Court.
George W. Bush has spent billions of dollars on hurricane relief, is running a war ineffectively, consulted with Bono resulting in unprecedented money to Africa for AIDS, and has reneged on his promise to close the borders. Now he’s backtracked on his promise to select Supreme Court justices in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. This is a sickening betrayal to the conservative base, and it’s exactly what the Democrats want.
President Bush said it all in his recent news conference: No litmus test, and no questions about abortion to Harriet Miers. She’s his personal lawyer, he likes her, she’s loyal and he knows her for many years. Perhaps the president is concealing her opinions on critical issues in order to assure her confirmation. Nevertheless, she lacks experience for the High Court. I can go through the Yellow Pages and pick any lawyer with qualifications equal to Miers.
Senators Schumer, Reid and Feinstein are grinning ear to ear. The liberal news media is ecstatic.
The real question is: Why did President Bush do it? I beginning to think he is being blackmailed. Somebody must have something on the president. Why else would he destroy what could have been a great legacy?
He could have named staunch conservative Justice Scalia for the position of Chief Justice, but preferred a brilliant Harvard lawyer with a scant paper trail. The paper trail on Harriet Miers is non-existent.
Some conservatives point to the fact that Ms. Miers wanted the America Bar Association to change their stance on abortion from “pro-choice” to neutral. However, she also contributed to Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 1988. By that time, his view on abortion shifted 180 degrees from pro-life to “pro-choice.”
President Bush was re-elected by a conservative pro-life majority. Maybe he had no litmus test for Miers but this was the ultimate litmus test we had for the president, and he has abandoned his base. The Republican Senators have a duty to oppose the president and Harriet Miers on behalf of their supporters.
Because Harriet Miers is not a judge and with no record to prove her conservative merits, we cannot predict how she will rule on critical pro-life issues such as abortion, euthanasia, human cloning and embryonic stem cell research. Also uncertain are Ms. Miers’ views regarding the right to religious expression, public display of traditional religious symbols, the right to bear arms and own private property without government intrusion. There were many potential conservative ideologues with outstanding credentials such as Judges Michael Luttig and Edith Jones whose views are known. By appointing a woman with no track record, President Bush wanted to avoid a showdown with Democrats, so he conceded to them and chose a “consensus” candidate. This is a slap in the face to the conservative GOP base, and should be viewed as nothing less.
Harriet Miers can end up being the ultimate conservative dream; a stealth candidate and strict constructionist once she’s seated on the High Court, but that is beside the point. The direction of the High Court will determine the future of the country, and rulings on such issues as religious freedom and traditional values now hinges on promises from politicians, rather than the will of the people who entrusted them for public office. Republican presidents have given us their word in the past, and have failed us. President Bush’s word that Harriet Miers "will strictly interpret our Constitution and laws” and that she will “not legislate from the bench" is not good enough. The nomination is an outrage and a sellout to the liberal establishment.
Read this exchange that took place when Rush Limbaugh interviewed Vice President Dick Cheney on what Rush calls a disappointing choice:
Rush: Is there a reason why conservatives known quantities about whom the President’s supporters wouldn’t have questions were not chosen… Michael Luttig, Edith Jones and others…any reason why those names were left off this time?
Cheney: Well, I wouldn’t take this as negative on anybody. We looked at a very broad range of candidates, and frankly I hope we have additional vacancies down the road that the President will be able to fill, and some of those people you mentioned will definitely be, I would expect, on everybody’s short list…He is convinced Harriet will do a great job on the court as am I, and I think you’ll find when you look back ten years from now that it will be a great appointment.
Who can disagree with Rush’s follow-up question: “Why do we need to wait ten
years? There are people that he could have nominated that we would know that about now.”
The GOP leadership has been feeding us promises. ‘Promise’ can be found in your supermarket dairy case. It’s fake butter. It’s time to clean up the American political diet and support candidates that will stick to a real basic menu of social conservatism and traditional values. If the GOP leadership were honest, they’d adopt a new slogan: More Bork, less pork. At least you know what you’re getting.
Copyright 2005 by Bonnie Chernin Rogoff. All rights reserved.
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