WHAT TO DO ABOUT MIERS
By Ted Baiamonte Comments: bje1000@aol.com (10/06/05)
It goes without saying that for most Republicans the Miers nomination appears to be a huge huge mistake. The first major problem is that she was a Democrat until 1988. This alone is enough to cause major heart attacks among Republicans. My God! She became a Republican, seemingly, as her career became associated with Bush and the Republicans in Texas; not for ideological reasons. Her career is about her career, not about ideology, while the Supreme Court is about only ideology.
Second, even if she is now and remains an ideological Republican long after Bush has left Washington, those who know her and those who look through her career see primarily a career oriented person; not someone who will bravely stand up for Republican ideals against forceful liberals on and off the Court. The Supreme Court is a wonderful bully pulpit where logical, well written, very ideological decisions are read for eternity by Constitutional scholars and Constitutional law students who in theory may be open to a logic they have not seen anywhere else. Miers apparently has absolutely no Constitutional experience and not one discernible Constitutional opinion despite a 35 year career in law? With Miers, this once in a life time opportunity to have a brilliant forceful Republican ideologue on the Court is lost. Come on, the Republicans have a 55 seat majority on the Senate; there may never be a better time to appoint another Scalia or Thomas to the Court.
The only hope is for Republicans to unite to urge Bush and Miers to withdraw the nomination. You hear many Republican screaming frenetically about the nomination but not proposing a strategy? Why are they wasting their breath? If Republicans united against Bush he would have to balance the embarrassment of withdrawing his nomination against the loss of the ideological base of his party. As a lame duck President hopefully he would make the right choice which would reflect well on the Party for decades to come. It was one thing to support Bush on an ever expanding liberal Federal Budget, but now he is asking us to roll over on the social issues too. They at least should have been sacrosanct. Enough is enough!
If the nomination goes to vote in the Senate at least some Republicans will vote for her. Probably most of the Democrats will vote for her too knowing that a rejection, no matter the grounds, would most likely result in the nomination of someone in the saintly mold of Scalia. Therefore, asking Bush and Miers to withdraw the nomination is the only option.
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