Harriet Miers Withdraws Nomination

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This needed its own thread:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/AR2005102700547.html

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

hello justice luttig!

― _, Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:13 (twenty years ago)

The problem is that the more experienced sitting judges the right wing wants Bush to nominate are all controversial extremists who never hesitate to voice their conservative judicial activist opinions.

Luttig is scary, as are Pricilla Owen and the others on the alleged list.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:16 (twenty years ago)

http://www.theeagle.com/images/mugs/6786_600.jpg

― _, Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:24 (twenty years ago)

It's short-term vs long-term damage. I'd much rather nominate an Antonin Scalia than a hack like Miers.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:25 (twenty years ago)

If the opp party had any balls, stonewall and don't confirm anybody for 3 years.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:28 (twenty years ago)

A Scalia type will arrogantly cause trouble for a lifetime, a hack will just go along with the flow. I'd rather have the hack. The Dems do not have the courage to filibuster.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:29 (twenty years ago)

who is that--thats the sexiest man i have ever seen in robes, and im counting priest porn!

― anthony, Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:32 (twenty years ago)

Mispronunciation of the day nomination: Trent Lott — "Ruth Gator Binsberg"

― I do feel guilty for getting any perverse amusement out of it (Rock Hardy), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:35 (twenty years ago)

I like that CNN is calling bullshit on the "executive privilege" argument repeatedly.

― I do feel guilty for getting any perverse amusement out of it (Rock Hardy), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:40 (twenty years ago)

It's almost like the administration nearly admitted that it might have been wrong.

― James Mitchell (James Mitchell), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:40 (twenty years ago)

anthony thats our next supreme court justice, self-professed "legal nerd" j. michael luttig

― _, Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:41 (twenty years ago)

Cheap way to try to fight the news cycle to a draw, especially with Fitz waiting til Friday.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

Another Scalia is NOT what the Court needs, regardless of their politics. He's an arrogant, pompous ass...admittedly, a smart one, but still. Don't read footnotes? Come ON, dude.

― Big Loud Mountain Ape (Big Loud Mountain Ape), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:56 (twenty years ago)

Anybody willing to bet that this was timed to coincide with Fitzmas?

― Mickey (modestmickey), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:58 (twenty years ago)

Damn, gabbneb beat me to it

― Mickey (modestmickey), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:00 (twenty years ago)

please stop saying fitzmas

― _, Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:01 (twenty years ago)

A pity, I was preferring to see this drag out some more. Oh well!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:04 (twenty years ago)

i still think she'll be a great footnote to history

― _, Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:10 (twenty years ago)

This is the sexiest SCOTUS justice we've ever had:

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/assets/jb/reform/jb_reform_taft_1_e.jpg

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:11 (twenty years ago)

Imagine if all presidents were eventually promoted to the Supreme Court. Can you imagine Clinton, Ford, Carter and Bush on the court?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

I can totally imagine a cheerful non-entity like Ford on the bench. He WAS on the Warren Commission after all.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:15 (twenty years ago)

>The Dems do not have the courage to filibuster.<

Obv, or to do much else.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:19 (twenty years ago)

Ah yes, Alfred, but I meant all the same time. The lunch breaks would be hilarious.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:23 (twenty years ago)

i think nixon wouldve made a good justice

― _, Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:23 (twenty years ago)

It would have added zest.

What's amusing to me is all the e-mail NRO world is getting (and publishing) saying about how horrible they were to have been attacking the president all this time and hoping 'they were happy now' etc. This is precisely why I wanted this to drag out forever!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:25 (twenty years ago)

The Miers meltdown was a Schrodinger's cat situation, except that we were gonna be equally screwed whether the cat was dead or alive. It was pretty entertaining while the cat was in the box, but the only options (either Miers or some more obviously conservative choice) were both bad. Of course, there's some slim chance Bush will be so pissed at his "base" that he'll turn around and appoint Gloria Steinem, but prolly not. And the hard right is really going to be beating its chest after taking out Miers. They've tasted blood.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:25 (twenty years ago)

Here's an idea of what the ex-presidents-as-justices would do on their lunch break:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/photoessays/blueroom/images/05-c4367-4a-reagan-398h.jpg

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:26 (twenty years ago)

REAGAN: "Well...I think I see Clinton comin' out of the john...."

ihttp://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c4367-25.jpg

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:28 (twenty years ago)

ihttp://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c4367-25.jpg

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:33 (twenty years ago)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679783628/104-8925527-8973514?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance

― _, Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:33 (twenty years ago)

Damn, gabbneb beat me to it

actually, I expected gabbneb to note that Bush's nomination wasn't allowed "a full vote of the Senate" but I guess I'll do that.

the only way this shakes the news cycle is if Bush has another appointee ready today or tomorrow. Otherwise, the Miers issue is totally dead and has almost no effect on whatever Fitz does. She will be buried mid-section everywhere if there is any sort of official Plame news today or tomorrow.

This is a great day for the president.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:47 (twenty years ago)

The Note mentions Michael McConnell, who I thought would be his Roberts pick.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:50 (twenty years ago)

Actually, they're just waiting for a Rove indictment, and then Bush will nominate Rove. Peasy!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:51 (twenty years ago)

I think Bush is gonna raise both middle fingers high and nominate Janice Rogers Brown

― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

don OTM. My guess is an announcement from Fitzgerald this afternoon and an announcement re: a new nominee from Bush tommorrow. It's clumsy and it might not work, but that's how they have to roll when Karl Rove isn't at the helm.

― J (Jay), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

Some rumblings indicate that there might not be a new nominee announcement for a bit. We'll see, obv.

Brown seems logical, but who needs logic these days?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

no, the Fitz announcement is going to be tomorrow unless they've deliberately misled the media about the timing

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

it would take brass balls to nominate JRB the day Rove does the frog march.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

I thought Fitzgerald had a press conference scheduled for this afternoon?

― J (Jay), Thursday, 27 October 2005 14:06 (twenty years ago)

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 27 October 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

Damn this shit changes fast.

― J (Jay), Thursday, 27 October 2005 14:10 (twenty years ago)

They're all probably just having a pizza party in there.

"So how many indictments you want?"

"I dunno, ten?"

"Sure."

"Thanks. Catch the game last night?"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 14:19 (twenty years ago)

ned you forgot teletype html for the true custos experience

― _, Thursday, 27 October 2005 14:24 (twenty years ago)

Hahahah. I can but only try to imitate the master.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 14:29 (twenty years ago)

hahaha!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 27 October 2005 14:38 (twenty years ago)

Meanwhile, Hewitt tries to claw back...something.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 14:39 (twenty years ago)

FWIW, to achieve true Custos:

FONT="Courier"

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 27 October 2005 14:53 (twenty years ago)

This will leave her free to do "Surreal Estate."

― andy --, Thursday, 27 October 2005 15:11 (twenty years ago)

Latest rumors are Fitzgerald wants more time and may have asked the judge for that. So there may be no indictments tomorrow, just speculation on whom Bush will nominate.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 October 2005 17:24 (twenty years ago)

oh, the photo that began this month of fun:

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/POLITICS/10/03/scotus.miers/top.bush.miers.ap.jpg

― kingfish neopolitan sundae (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 27 October 2005 17:49 (twenty years ago)

NRO readers -- this versus that.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 17:55 (twenty years ago)

Bushie and Miers together like babies and pacifiers

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 27 October 2005 18:04 (twenty years ago)

Ok, well, this is the point where the crack is starting to taste really bad...

― iDonut B4 x86 (donut), Thursday, 27 October 2005 18:07 (twenty years ago)

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/012894.html

Either Harry Reid is a genius or he is just a very strange man.

― J (Jay), Thursday, 27 October 2005 18:17 (twenty years ago)

A bit of a false conflict there.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 18:18 (twenty years ago)

It got a bit overshadowed since the withdrawal followed hot on its heels, but the last bit of WTF about this, as noted here as well as elsewhere, was the fact that the last on-record White House spokesperson for the Miers effort was one Michael Brown, who until recently had a career in disaster management.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 October 2005 18:24 (twenty years ago)

This column from earlier this week predicted this exactly:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/20/AR2005102001635.html

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 27 October 2005 18:38 (twenty years ago)

from that TalkLeft bit:

“In choosing a replacement for Ms. Miers, President Bush should not reward the bad behavior of his right wing base. He should reject the demands of a few extremists and choose a justice who will protect the constitutional rights of all Americans.”

Well, this looks like this is the framing they're going with right now(Chuck Schumer said the same thing). Let's see how well it goes.

― kingfish neopolitan sundae (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 27 October 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

In choosing a replacement for Ms. Miers, President Bush should not reward the bad behavior of his right wing base.

I'll bet money this is precisely what he will do

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:00 (twenty years ago)

unless the rare event happens, he get petulant at them attacking him, and goes for Gonzalez...

― kingfish neopolitan sundae (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:07 (twenty years ago)

Probably best for a different thread, but..

If conservatives are SOOO trying hard to get a Supreme Court that will overtern Roe vs. Wade, yet there is speculation that Roe vs. Wade being overturned could hurt Republicans in the long run, why are they pursuing it so strongly?

Granted, a "Republican" really is a disjunct notion in this context.

― iDonut B4 x86 (donut), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:26 (twenty years ago)

Because the people pushing it are A.) convinced that most Americans agree with them, polls be damned; and B.) making a stand on principle, ramifications be damned. There is no gray area at all in abortion for a lot of people on the pro-life side, and hence no room for negotiation.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:31 (twenty years ago)

So, let's say Roe vs. Wade gets overturned... Election year comes.. some states pass laws legalizing abortion... many states pass laws making abortion illegal.. and some are still in between.

It's quite complex to explain it, but this is just going to isolate the pro-life people even more, once the cascading effect of such an overturn were to occur...

― iDonut B4 x86 (donut), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:39 (twenty years ago)

I guess what I'm saying is.. Roe vs. Wade being overturned could backfire onto the pro-lifers in ways that make it worse for the pro-life movement. Do they not see this? I can't imagine they don't.

― iDonut B4 x86 (donut), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:41 (twenty years ago)

Then again, seeing how badly Bush has fucked up his second term so far, I guess I should stop giving the benefit of the doubt to pretty much anybody in this country anymore.

― iDonut B4 x86 (donut), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:42 (twenty years ago)

There is no gray area at all in abortion for a lot of people on the pro-life side, and hence no room for negotiation.

yeah. goes along the same criticisms of theocracy, that anybody who thinks their politics are Straight from God & thus correct, just, & righteous won't exactly be too open for agreeable compromises.

― kingfish neopolitan sundae (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:46 (twenty years ago)

The first thing they start pushing for if Roe is overturned is a federal anti-abortion law, fuck the states. Maybe even a constitutional amendment. Point being that no victory is ever enough, and they will be able to keep it alive as a political wedge forever. And yeah there would be some backlash, but it's hard to say how much. I think most Americans more or less want legal abortion -- polls suggest about two-thirds -- but even a lot of people who want it legal are squeamish about it and not given to political organizing around the issue. And even without a federal law, you're talking whole big sections of the country where abortion would just be straight-up outlawed. There are probably 25 state legislatures that would pass that bill tomorrow, given a chance.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:47 (twenty years ago)

I guess what I'm saying is.. Roe vs. Wade being overturned could backfire onto the pro-lifers in ways that make it worse for the pro-life movement. Do they not see this? I can't imagine they don't.

Aren't there more abortions in most 'red' states than in most blue ones?

― M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:49 (twenty years ago)

Bush will reward his right wing base because without it he's a third-rate failed baseball and oil company executive with a grade-school teacher for a wife.

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:53 (twenty years ago)

also, there are plenty of people who were all for the "partial-birth abortion" ban not having any exceptions for anything. If you were raped or you would die in child birth, too bad.

Where's the stat...in Al Franken's new book, i think, that something like 17 states have laws on the books right now which would immediately kick in to ban any and all abortion if it was ever overturned. Of course, there are plenty of states with laws ready to keep it legal, etc.

But hell, at this point, it's just strategy to dangle the carrot in front of the batshit fundie folks to turn out, vote, and (most importantly) dump millions of dollars into your groups. Same thing with a Constitutional Amendment banning any gay folks from choosing who they want to wed.

There are no shortage of folks in power now who'd immediately put that in if they could, but I think a larger percentage who understand its value as a wedge issue. When he was last in Portland, Jim Wallis talked about getting into a debate with the Focus on the Family people, about how the massive number of divorces nowadays had more to do with heterosexual dysfunction than anything else. He got them to agree with him on that, but they then said that they couldn't go out & proclaim that, b/c it would kill off a good portion of their funding.

Hell, the fact that there's even all the focus on abortion, instead of say actually addressing the problem, begs the question of this being more an issue of political utility than principle.

― kingfish neopolitan sundae (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:54 (twenty years ago)

Aren't there more abortions in most 'red' states than in most blue ones?

yup, from what i've heard. Along with rates of STD among populations where "abstinence-only" sex-ed is the only requirement.

― kingfish neopolitan sundae (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 27 October 2005 21:59 (twenty years ago)

xpost: Oh there are ideas for "addressing the problem" too. Like the war against deliberate childlessness that you mentioned. Some of these people are really pushing their ideas to their logical extremes.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:01 (twenty years ago)

I think that abortion will become illegal again in this country within our lifetimes. Remember that scene from Godfather II where Michael sees the Cuban rebel blow himself up in a cop car?

I don't see any liberals blowing themselves up over anything these days.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:02 (twenty years ago)

well, we also don't have massive riots with election fraud, either.

we live a comfortable life here, so it's a rare occasion that someone goes that route(or stocks up on guns & ammo & MREs to fight off the gubmint, etc).

― kingfish neopolitan sundae (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:06 (twenty years ago)

The same way that Some would say that Republicans would want to keep abortion around to insure their base won't go anywhere, I wonder if Democrats want to keep Republicans in charge so that they can have something to fund-raise for.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:08 (twenty years ago)

xxpost

Yeah, but the "pro-life" forces never turn it inward. They just shoot doctors and bomb nurses and cops.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:15 (twenty years ago)

And they think that they're John Brown for doing that.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:24 (twenty years ago)

I don't see any liberals blowing themselves up over anything these days.

One of many reasons I call myself a liberal. But point taken.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:32 (twenty years ago)

They just shoot doctors and bomb nurses and cops.

If stop performing abortions, the terrorists will have already won.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:46 (twenty years ago)

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