Harry Reid released a statement this morning that touches on the political reality behind Harriet Miers’ withdrawal.<\/p>\n
“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.” […]<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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<\/i> choice.<\/p>\n
Immediately after Justice O’Connor announced her retirement, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said<\/a>, “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<\/a>, “For President Bush, social conservatives and the senators they helped elect, the moment of truth has arrived.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Now, Bush gets a second shot. So does his base.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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, […]<\/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-5655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5655","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=5655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}