George Will, welcome to the party

October 5, 2005

I’m not entirely certain, but I think George Will’s column today said the president is incompetent.

First things first. Will’s column was about Harriet Miers and the undeniable reality that she’s unqualified for the Supreme Court.

[T]here is no reason to believe that Miers’s nomination resulted from the president’s careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers’s name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists. […]

It is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court’s role.

Kos’ Armando notes that this helps elucidate some of the conservative anger of Miers’ nomination. That’s true, but I think the even more important point is that Will’s column only tangentially skewers Miers — this column is actually a harsh repudiation of Bush.

The president’s “argument” for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons.

He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections.

I knew conservative deference for Bush had slipped of late, but for one of the nation’s most widely read conservative columnists to question, in print, the president’s “ability to make sophisticated judgments” is a very pleasant surprise.

It’s taken five years, but apparently skepticism over the president’s limited intellectual prowess is reaching bi-partisan consensus.

Bush has driven the bus over the cliff, passengers are screaming and flying out of their seats as the vehicle tumbles end over end, with the rocks at the bottom of the cliff rapidly rushing closer, and George Will wonders if the driver’s license is valid.

  • It’s like a secret door has been opened and conservative commentators have been given two options: say the president is a great leader or start distancing yourself. More and more are feeling the power to walk through the door.

    Bush coudn’t have done it to himself better, surround your people with sychophantic yesmen and women, then when the people are really starting to watch, hoist that flag up again with Miers. It would only have been better if she had an Arabian Horse Association in there somewhere.

  • Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers’s nomination resulted from the president’s careful consultation with people capable of such judgments.

    So not only is he stupid, he’s a liar too.

    Best George Will column ever.

  • It’s simply startling how fast the conservatives have jumped on Bush. There have been rumblings of dissatisfaction, but it seems to have avalanched in the last couple days.

    Now we have conservatives questioning Bush’s intelligence and his honesty. When we said such things, a mere 4 years ago, our patriotism was ridiculed. We were called irrational. Now the people from the right are sounding more and more like us.

    Maybe Bush really is a uniter!

  • I think it is interesting that conservatives are suddenly concerned about a nominee being unqualified considering that they helped elect the most unqualified presidential candidate twice.

    Miers is just as qualified to be a Supreme Court justice as Bush is to be president.

  • Will doesn’t yet seem to realize that Curveball’s only argument for everything is “trust me,” and there was never any reason to on any front.

  • The thing that’s so silly about this conservative melt-down is that they are behaving as if all of a sudden Bush isn’t serious about his responsibilities.

    Worse for them, they think by some magic, the Senate is going to get serious and put a check on this guy. If Bill Frist doesn’t get this nomination onto the Court, Karl Rove will terminate his (not very serious) presidential ambitions before Christmas.

    And worst of all, for us, a president pretending to be serious is just ok with Will and Kristol. Who needs serious policies and a well planned occupation when invading a non hostile country. Why worry about trillion dollar debt and deficits, tax cuts for our cronies without considering consequences won’t do too much harm. Cronyism isn’t necessarily a sign of non seriousness. “Bin Laden determined to attack the US” are just words on paper. Not serious.

  • Too bad he didn’t write this column in October 2004! We are going to be stuck with this jack-a-ninny for 3+ more years. Maybe he’ll become so ineffective after next years mid-terms that he will have to let alternate realities exist. That could be fun but I’m concerned what a wounded and cornered prairie dog might do. As Geo. Will notes he basically sucks.

  • Okay, I guess no one can see the writing on the wall. The nomination of Miers and the conservative uproar is yet another Rove ploy to add impetus to the 2006/2008 elections. On one hand it is providing the conservative pundits the ability to diss Bush with what is, to the average Joe, a minor issue without commenting on Iraq or Katrina. The folks who voted for Bush in 2004 probably excuse cronyism and treat it as an example of “values”. This nomination also allows those running in 2006/2008 to put a little distance between Bushie’s abyssmal approval ratings and their own opinions — again without discussing Iraq and Katrina. And, while doing so, Rove also tells Dobson and other influentials in the base to spread the word that Miers is actually a perfect fit for the religious right. No facts needed. Trust is the message to the base. That is all they need to hear. This nomination may be Rove’s greatest triumph to date!

  • The best line from the column:

    “For this we need a conservative president?”

    For some odd reason, George Will thinks Bush is conservative. I guess he hasn’t heard about the Medicare expansion bill or the balooning debt or the nation building or the huge federal aid for Katrina relief or the …

    The editors of The Washington Post ought to wake George Will up from his Rip Van Winkle nap.

  • Texas Lottery Commission = Arabian Horse Association.

    NOW can we impeach him? Pretty please??

  • Will concludes that “her credentials … are her chromosomes”. I disagree. Her credentials are that she fits well into that peculiar crowd of women close to Bush: Laura, Condi, Karen. All these women appear to adore the Shrub, work tirelessly in his behalf, find personal fulfillment in protecting and promoting him, maybe showing him what a real mother could be like? Quite a contrast with his real mother, who seems to have found him disgusting prior to his presidency. There’s something Freudian in all these doting mother-substitutes, I think, but I can’t fathom it. None of the men around him seem close to him. They don’t even seem like friends. If anything, they all seem to be pals with his father, assigned to watch over the Shrub and hide him from hostile, or even neutral, public view. Very strange.

  • I find it absolutely incredible that Republicans are using the same term to deride Bush’s Supreme Court appointment: “Trust me.” That mantra has served Bush well — as Laszlo said above — as Republicans happily swallowed and defended every nitwit notion and action our wartime president has foisted on the nation.

    Faith-based idiocy. I liked Clinton, but I didn’t “trust” him any more than other politicians.

    That Bush is comfortable with his pick because he “looked into her heart” isn’t convincing. He “looked into [Putin’s] soul,” as I recall. I wish he’d “look into” better ways of making decisions.

  • I’d just like to mention that my mother, who is both smart enough to have a master’s degree and misled enough to listen to Limbaugh and watch O’Reilly everyday, believes George Will to be a moderate. When I recently referred to him as a conservative, she quickly corrected me and acted as if Will didn’t reflect a right-wing position at all. Now, I’ve never seen him as being stupid or fanatical, but when George Will’s considered a moderate, things are just screwy.

    And of course, that’s the standard they use which makes Howard Dean a far-left extremist and Michael Moore a traitor. They’ve shifted the entire political spectrum, simply to not appear as extremist as they truly are. And so it is with all of their antics. When they look out of wack with reality, they just change reality.

  • The Shrub is the same congealed, incomprehensible bowl of mashed potatos today that he was 5+ years ago.

    It kind of stretches credibility that “master” observer and commentator, George Will, is just now realizing that Shruby has “neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution” It took Harriet Miers nomination to remove the scales from his eyes?

    Will and all the other “conservative” complainers at the moment have been enabling Dear Leader and bestowing upon him the Cloak of Invisibility since he was pulled out from under his rock in ’99 hoping he would be their key to all power.

    George Will could have written the basic jist of this column years ago. But he didn’t. Why not?

  • Burro –

    George Will could have done this years ago.
    Actually, I think he might have. Check this
    from his column today:

    ” In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech. The day before the 2000 Iowa caucuses he was asked — to ensure a considered response from him, he had been told in advance that he would be asked — whether McCain-Feingold’s core purposes are unconstitutional. He unhesitatingly said, “I agree.” Asked if he thought presidents have a duty, pursuant to their oath to defend the Constitution, to make an independent judgment about the constitutionality of bills and to veto those he thinks unconstitutional, he briskly said, “I do.” ”

    Presumably, then, George Will must have written about
    this back then, and expressed the same opinion. In fact,
    it would seem that the recent nomination has done nothing
    but confirm his original opinion. I’m guessing, but it seems
    persuasive. But I simply don’t know. Long ago, I stopped
    reading and watching George Will, who always seemed
    too wrapped up in his own rhetoric to take seriously.

  • Bully for George Will. He may have thrown a few needles into haystacks here and there but he’s written a lot of words in the last 6 years and very few of them have taken Shruby to task the way his column today did. He certainly hasn’t been a consistent critic and Bush has been consistently bad. Really bad.

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