{"id":5533,"date":"2005-10-14T11:21:05","date_gmt":"2005-10-14T15:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5533"},"modified":"2005-10-14T11:21:05","modified_gmt":"2005-10-14T15:21:05","slug":"a-closer-look-at-how-miers-divides-the-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/a-closer-look-at-how-miers-divides-the-right\/","title":{"rendered":"A closer look at how Miers divides the right"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg reported<\/a> today that former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) believes the party’s schism over the Harriet Miers nomination threatens the Republicans’ control of Congress. “This will be the demise of the majority, sadly enough,” Simpson said.<\/p>\n

Overdramatic? It’s probably a little too soon to say, but National Review’s Byron York offers a terrific behind-the-scenes look<\/a> today at the extent to which the right is fighting amongst itself over what to do about Harriet Miers. (brought to my attention by my friend Eugene<\/a>)<\/p>\n

There are any number of right-wing activist groups, but when it comes to helping stack the federal courts with conservative judges, there are, in effect, a Big Three: the Judicial Confirmation Network, Progress for America, and the Committee for Justice. Each had been working diligently in preparation for Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, but when it comes to Miers, there are key divisions.<\/p>\n

* The Judicial Confirmation Network<\/b>, at first, backed Miers for one reason: she was Bush’s choice. The Network, however, slowly backpedaled. A key financial supporter for the group decided Miers’ nomination was a mistake, the Network agreed, and the group — which the White House had been recommending as a source on Miers — retreated. As York explained, “members of the Network’s staff, not at all eager to support Miers, were, in fact, relieved.”<\/p>\n

* The Committee for Justice<\/b>, which came into existence for the sole purpose of helping Bush’s nominees, has grudgingly endorsed Miers, but York’s sources say it has been “a half-hearted, unenthusiastic affair.” For that matter, the Committee had about a dozen heavyweight conservative lawyers ready to hit the airwaves to defend Bush’s choice. Once Miers was announced, only a handful expressed interest in helping.<\/p>\n

* Progress for America<\/b>, the most outwardly partisan of the three, has also formally backed Miers, but like the Committee for Justice, is having “difficulties” lining up speakers to defend the nomination.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most importantly, the three have started to look askance at one another.
\n<\/p>\n

[T]here is no doubt that the Miers nomination has sewn discord and discontent among the groups that are nominally in favor of her confirmation. <\/p>\n

The groups hold a daily strategy conference call which, in the last ten days, has at times become contentious. “We’ve all had some fairly nasty exchanges,” says one person familiar with the calls. In such an environment, name-calling is not terribly unusual. For example, one conservative said of Progress for America, “They are a bunch of political hacks and they do what the White House wants. You could nominate Humpty Dumpty for the Supreme Court, and they’d be out arguing for Humpty Dumpty.” <\/p>\n

That’s not the kind of thing one hears in a well organized, unified movement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Remember all that talk about Bush being a “uniter, not a divider”? Nah, me neither.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg reported today that former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) believes the party’s schism over the Harriet Miers nomination threatens the Republicans’ control of Congress. “This will be the demise of the majority, sadly enough,” Simpson said. Overdramatic? It’s probably a little too soon to say, but National Review’s Byron York offers a terrific behind-the-scenes look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}