Thursday, October 27, 2005
Harriet Shocks The Nation
I a move that can hardly be called surprising, Harriet Miers withdrew herself from consideration for the Supreme Court.
I discussed the nomination in more detail here and here. As I stated before my biggest fear is that Ms. Miers nomination may have been a planned failure in order to get a 'right-wing' extremist type nomination to appease the President's base of support. With the repeated pressure that this administration appears to be under, I am beginning to wonder if that type of nomination will be enough to recover. At this point I have to believe that even his base is becoming less enchanted with him, even if they are giving him outward support.
I would like to point out that when this nomination was made, and to some extent I still feel this way, the President and his advisors saw this nomination as a win/win nomination. I think they felt that if Ms. Miers was confirmed to the Supreme Court he won; and if the Democrats, as they obviously expected, were to object and shoot down the candidate that the future nomination could be more extreme with a long 'list' of qualifications that would then be harder for the Democrats to object to because of shooting down the Miers nomination. (Even if it was considered 'with cause'.)
Now I am not sure that that is the case. I believe that an extremist type candidate may not be approved and the Democrats will feel free to fight the nomination with out any issue. Ms. Miers withdrawing herself from the process makes the President look weak, specifically because most of the objections were coming from the 'right-wing' of the country.
I still think it is going to be a long discussion of the situation with the next nominee, but hopefully it won't be a long wait for the nomination to be made. (I wonder if the potential nominatee has already been chosen and they are just waiting for the 'right' time.)
I discussed the nomination in more detail here and here. As I stated before my biggest fear is that Ms. Miers nomination may have been a planned failure in order to get a 'right-wing' extremist type nomination to appease the President's base of support. With the repeated pressure that this administration appears to be under, I am beginning to wonder if that type of nomination will be enough to recover. At this point I have to believe that even his base is becoming less enchanted with him, even if they are giving him outward support.
I would like to point out that when this nomination was made, and to some extent I still feel this way, the President and his advisors saw this nomination as a win/win nomination. I think they felt that if Ms. Miers was confirmed to the Supreme Court he won; and if the Democrats, as they obviously expected, were to object and shoot down the candidate that the future nomination could be more extreme with a long 'list' of qualifications that would then be harder for the Democrats to object to because of shooting down the Miers nomination. (Even if it was considered 'with cause'.)
Now I am not sure that that is the case. I believe that an extremist type candidate may not be approved and the Democrats will feel free to fight the nomination with out any issue. Ms. Miers withdrawing herself from the process makes the President look weak, specifically because most of the objections were coming from the 'right-wing' of the country.
I still think it is going to be a long discussion of the situation with the next nominee, but hopefully it won't be a long wait for the nomination to be made. (I wonder if the potential nominatee has already been chosen and they are just waiting for the 'right' time.)
// posted by Little Wolf @ Thursday, October 27, 2005 
