What does Bush do now?

October 27, 2005

Harry Reid released a statement this morning that touches on the political reality behind Harriet Miers’ withdrawal.

“The radical right wing of the Republican Party killed the Harriet Miers nomination. Apparently, Ms. Miers did not satisfy those who want to pack the Supreme Court with rigid ideologues.” […]

“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.”

That’s true, of course, but getting out of his current predicament won’t be easy for the president. He didn’t have the strength to bolster Miers’ chances, but he isn’t any stronger now that she’s gone.

There’s been a conflict for a while about responsibilities in filling high court vacancies. The White House is looking at the Constitution and believes it’s Bush’s choice. The far-right GOP base is looking at the election results and believes it’s their choice.

Immediately after Justice O’Connor announced her retirement, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said, “We have been waiting over a decade. We will seize this opportunity.” Moreover, Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, declared, “For President Bush, social conservatives and the senators they helped elect, the moment of truth has arrived.”

Far-right activists believed they’d play an integral role in choosing the nominee and/or have some kind of veto power over a choice they found unacceptable. Instead, they got neither when Harriet Miers got the nod.

Now, Bush gets a second shot. So does his base.

Does he bow to the demands of extremists and nominate a hard-right nominee? Does he recognize his abysmal approval ratings and pick someone who’d garner broader support? Does he intentionally antagonize the left to help pull attention from the Plame scandal? Time will tell.

” Does he intentionally antagonize the left to help pull attention from the Plame scandal?”

BINGO

  • “Rove in a corner” is a scary prospect. Get ready for the mother of all confirmation battles.

    Now, I think this is a fight we can win, and one we should embrace: a judicial philosophy of dismantling the regulatory/welfare state and giving James Dobson veto power over your sex life and reproductive choices will never be popular. But we have to dig in: no equivocating, no compromise with extremism on the bench.

    Bush and Rove will see this as the chance to save their majority next year. But if done right, it can also be the final nail in the coffin of right-wing misrule.

  • The unfortunate likelihood is that Bush will nominate someone the right-wing wants (and the rest of us don’t want) because all he has to do is satisfy 50 senators, and 55 out of 100 are GOP. It shouldn’t be too hard to find someone who’s both rabidly right-wing and has the support of most of the GOP.

    It sucks hard, but I just cannot imagine Bush doing the right thing and finding someone who the country can support at the risk of losing the interest of his base, who could easily boycott the next election in protest and cost the GOP some seats, including one in the White House.

    I’m more pessimistic than dajafi, I don’t see how we can win this one.

  • I’d bet he will nominate someone from the radical right. It will please his base, and he would much rather see the media cover a fillibuster/nuclear fight than the Traitorgate trials.

  • Will a moderate nominee depress the far-right base or fire it up? After all, they see themselves as some sort of persecuted majority. Might they not rally to action to elect even wingnutier candidates? A far-right nominee might actually be what depresses religious wingnut turnout in ’06. .

  • C’mon people. This is a no lose situation for the Dems (provided they don’t muff it).

    The fact that W’s #1 nom had to pull out is egg on his face.

    Now, if he nominates an uber-right wing wacko, he will please the right, but further alienate “main stream” republicans, who (let’s face it) have already started expressing displeasure with this admin’s policies. Repugs are the “show me the money” party and they aren’t going to be too happy to go through with a battle to support a wacko for an increasingly unpopular president when they are already worrying about their campaign coffers. The right will lose the battle, because Dems will filibuster until 2008 if they have to and there is no way Repugs will risk further political capital with the nuclear option (esp. in light of the current scandals). So does W really want to risk having another nom “voluntarily step down” or does he want to get a judge in place relatively quickly?

    And, if he nominates a sane moderate, the American people win and the Insane Right lose again.

    Oh, and by the way…. WORLD CHAMPION CHICAGO WHITE SOX!!!!

  • Since Miers’ nomination, the alliance that the fiscal conservatives (well, more accurately, “let’s make money for the rich,” branch of the GOP has seen a split with the social conservative branch, who have felt betrayed — apparently never realizing before that Bush/Cheney really didn’t care about them but was just using them for their own ends.

    Bush gains no advantage by playing to the Dems. It’s not like we’d all turn around and vote Republican from now on if he picked a liberal. There’s also no need to play to us, as it has been shown in the past that Republican presidents can pick pretty much any extreme right-wing judge and get them in, despite our protests, as long as they don’t have nanny or pot problems.

    Politically speaking, the last thing they want to do is alienate the Christian conservatives in their alliance. Doing so has already broken their tight control over the media (something liberals apparently are unable to do — only conservatives are allowed to get face time complaining about this president). And alienating these voters will keep them away from the voting booths and could even result in a third party candidate in the next election who will promise to get roe v. wade overturned. Or at the very least, demobilize the church support and other troopers who volunteered for bushco last election.

    Bush has absolutely nothing to lose by picking a right-wing wacko.

    Did the fact that liberals were happy to pile on Miers’ nomination have any effect on this withdrawal? Hard to say. We’re extraordinarily ineffective at getting our message out, so greater support might not have been of any importance. And there’s the trickiness of having liberals support her, thus confirming conservatives’ worst fears. But we could have searched for talking points that bolstered her credibility, made clear we didn’t think she was on our sides, but a moderate Republican with respectable credentials, instead of sitting on the sidelines, as is our usual behavior, once again choosing impotence. No doubt we’ll be whining next week about the new candidate and how awful Bush is, as usual. But if that’s what we’re doing, for once, I think we should take some of the blame.

  • Harry Reid is a genius, and I regret having previously doubted his tactics. Miers was an abhorrent nominee who deserved unanimous opposition from both sides of the aisle. However, Reid had the foresight to sit back and let right-wing infighting undermine her nomination, leaving the Democrats for the most part out of the debate and free to fight tooth and nail against a far-right second choice without being labeled as “obstructionist.”

    Well played, Senator Reid. I applaud you.

  • I was going to write virtually the same laudatory comment that James Dillon did. Reid comes out of this on top of the world.

    I’m not at all convinced The Shrub will go to an even farther right Christ-professing whacko than his trusted Crime Family consigliera Miers. After all, the right wing turned on him, and that’s unforgiveable disloyalty in his parnoid, spoiled, drug-addled mind (running around the WH tranting at paintings and slugging the walls?). Okay, you bastards … here’s your goddam nominee (up yours, Dobson): Patrick Fitzgerald.

    Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

  • I haven’t quite decided what he is going to do. Is his administration in a position for a confirmation process that is any more difficult than Roberts was and with the upcoming Plame “events?” I doubt it. Of course the difficulty can come from many different directions most notable from the Democracts and the hard right. I am not convinced he is going to choose someone to solely pacify the right. I think he might choose someone who is bland but confirmable – he needs to get the SCOTUS pick off the table. Someone who won’t need a lot of handholding, coaching, spin, work, etc. After, all Rove might be gone, Hughes is at State (for now), Gonzales is a Justice, and the rest may be in jepordy over Plame as well or just plain not up to the task.

    Sure Bush will want to appease the right – but if I were him I would choose first on the criteria of how smoothe their confirmation process would likely be and then on ideology.

  • Have enjoyed reading the various scenarios proposed on these posts…

    I wonder if Chris Ellinger is on target here…can Bush really afford erosion in his wingnut base???…the wingnuts will demand a wingnut nominee, the Dem’s will oppose, and a filibuster/nuclear option fight ensues (a fight his wingnut base has been spoiling for).

    Question is…does Frist really have the strength, appetite, and the votes to schedule a vote to end the judicial filibuster??…the far right hasn’t done him any favors recently, and he has his own problems, obviously enough.

    So, maybe O’ Connor keeps her seat on the Supreme Court through this term while the Repub’s and Dem’s are fighting it out…more abortion cases are in the pipeline this term and we’re presumably assured of a 5-4 vote in favor of the Roe v Wade precedent as long as she stays. It will be interesting to see how Chief Justice Roberts plays his hand on abortion if O’ Connor stays for a while…

  • I have no idea what he is going to do, because he obviously never uses logic in making his decisions. However, by nominating Miers, he’s at least given token consideration to gender balance on the court. Now he can say he tried but it didn’t work out. Therefore, if he ever did have aspirations to put Gonzales on the SCOTUS, now might be his chance. Though it won’t be an easy confirmation, and doesn’t erase the chance that Dems could filibuster, Gonzales has already been through the crucible of senate confirmation, and all the Repugs who went on record supporting him for AG won’t turn on him now. Plus, as nauseating as it is, they get to use race discrimination as a defense against any criticism of the candidate. Still, it’s anybody’s guess.

  • We’ve already won!

    Come on people!

    Just follow the lead of Harry Reid. I’m serious, the answer is right in his words. Read his statement again! It’s as plain as day!

    His positioning and framing of this issue is picture-perfect.

    Bush *lost* because he is *weak* and is merely a *puppet* of the radical right-wing elements. Keep repeating this. DON’T STRAY FROM THAT MESSAGE! It sets a trap. It exposes any moderate who follows Shrub’s instructions as a PUPPET OF THE RADICAL FRINGE RIGHT-WING!

    This is the kind of shit the wingnuts have been doing to us for 25 years. Nice to see Reid giving them a taste of thier own medicine. Whenever our moderate proposals get stuck or blocked, they blame it on “radical left-wing elements”. Trying to split us apart, and scare moderates away from taking a stand. NOW IT IS OUR TURN TO DO IT TO THEM!!

    This is a great gift, a great idea Reid has put forward. Let’s use it.

    Shrub lost on Miers because his frothing wingnut base is using him like the cheap whore he is. Anyone who supports Shrub, therefore, is also being used like a cheap whore by those dangerous radical right-wing elements! Keep repeating it! Say it over and over again! Let’s get Democrats on all the talking head shows repeating this over and over and over again! Say it with your friends and neighbours: Miers withdrawal shows that THE REPUG PARTY IS HELPLESS PATSYS OF ITS DANGEROUS RADICAL RIGHT-WING BASE!! Nobody likes weakness or wimpiness. Repugs are weak and wimpy because they can’t stand up to their powerful special interests that are out of the mainstream of America. Does this story sound familiar? Exactly. It’s time hit them with this club, HARD.

    I am so eager for revenge here I can taste it in my mouth; I feel it coursing thorugh my veins. Reagan, Atwater, Gingrich, and Rove *destroyed* the Democratic party with exactly this technique. Now it is their turn to feel the pain of destruction.

    As I said *before* Miers withdrew: no matter what Shrub does here, we win. And I’ll say it again: whomever he nominates, we win– if we keep the pressure on and stick to our story. He nominates a moderate? We get a moderate, 1 point for the ‘D’ column. He nominates a wingnut? If we get our position embedded into the media (by repeating it endlessly before his next nomination) then his nomination of a wingnut IS A SHOW OF WEAKNESS! Read that again. And score 1 point for the ‘D’ column there too. Then we filibuster it, and because of our positioning (this is important!) we get moderate Repugs to stand with us– otherwise they are weak, merely tools of the wingnuts. Score *another* 1 in the “D” column.

    Yes you’re reading this right. Tails we win, heads he loses. Miers withdrawal is a sign of his utter weakness and pandering to his radical, right-wing base. They are out of the mainstream. And anyone he nominates must either be in the mainstream or he and his supporters are exposing themselves as mere puppets.

    No mercy!

  • My gut believes that Bush will nominate Justice Consuelo M. Callahan–fitting the demographic preferences of Bush. However, I can also see Bush leaning right on this one, selecting Justice Janice Rogers Brown — D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Dems let her through with cloture with their filibuster memorandum of understanding. Will the Democratic signees back down in congeniality and declare that Rogers Brown is not of the mainstream judicial thought? Will this be yet another flashback to 1968 with the filibuster of Abe Fortas? A means to shift focus away from the criticism of the situation in Iraq?

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