{"id":5666,"date":"2005-10-28T10:24:48","date_gmt":"2005-10-28T14:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5666"},"modified":"2005-10-28T10:24:48","modified_gmt":"2005-10-28T14:24:48","slug":"bush-has-only-himself-to-blame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-has-only-himself-to-blame\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush has only himself to blame"},"content":{"rendered":"

One question about Harriet Miers that’s never been clear is how, exactly, she got nominated in the first place. With a White House filled with successful political operatives, who thought this was a good idea? The Washington Post noted today<\/a> that one person was instrumental.<\/p>\n

President Bush bypassed his own selection process to pick Miers, his onetime personal lawyer and White House counsel since February. […]<\/p>\n

As Bush thought about the next opening he would have to fill, he focused increasingly on Miers…. It was a back-channel process. Since Miers was in charge of the selection apparatus, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. instructed Miers’s deputy, William Kelley, to secretly vet her. She was not told she was a candidate until two weeks before her nomination, and no one had done a thorough search of her background to turn up past writings and speeches that would later become public.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bush repeatedly defended Miers in the week after her nomination by saying, “She’s my pick.” Apparently, he meant that quite literally. Left to his own devices, the president believed a mediocre lawyer with no record or accomplishments was the most qualified person in the entire country for the Supreme Court. It’s worth taking a moment to consider what that tells us about the president.<\/p>\n

Six years ago, Americans seemed to realize that George W. Bush was a simple man with neither intellectual curiosity nor expertise in any area of public policy. Voters were assured, however, there was no cause for concern — he’d be surrounded by capable and experienced advisors. But in the case of a high court vacancy, Bush ignored advice, relied on his so-called “instincts,” and made the call.<\/p>\n

In this sense, this fiasco is a helpful reminder, in case there was any doubt, of just how few clothes the emperor really has.
\n
\nIn the LA Times today, Jonathan Chait notes<\/a> that Rove played almost no role at all in the Miers debacle, which only helps to reemphasize the president’s dependence on his “architect,” despite efforts by the right to downplay the significance of their relationship.<\/p>\n

The reason conservatives have been so invested in downplaying Rove’s influence, of course, is that the notion of an all-powerful advisor speaks poorly of the president. One book-turned-documentary labeled Rove “Bush’s Brain.” If Rove is Bush’s brain, then Bush doesn’t have much of a brain of his own, and Republicans don’t like that idea one bit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Republicans don’t have to like it, but that won’t change the truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One question about Harriet Miers that’s never been clear is how, exactly, she got nominated in the first place. With a White House filled with successful political operatives, who thought this was a good idea? The Washington Post noted today that one person was instrumental. President Bush bypassed his own selection process to pick 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-5666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5666","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=5666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}