Why aren't conservatives reading George W.'s lips anymore? Julian Sanchez interprets.
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Comments to "New at Reason":
Warren | October 11, 2005, 4:59pm | #
Let's see…Humble foreign policy
Steel tariffs
Farm Bill
Weapons of mass destruction
Axis of Evil
TSA
Yellowcake
Troops needed for Iraq occupation "Way off the mark"
"$400 billion" prescription drug bill
Abu Ghraib
Guantanamo
Patriot Act
Raich v Ashcroft
FEMA
You know, we can trust him. We can trust him to be a fucking lowlife lying scumbag 100% of the time.
Don't sugarcoat it, Warren. Tell us how you feel. For the record, I agree with you. For me, Bush is a blend of intolerable types, the silver spoon fratboy used to his own way, and the self-important politician. Add in the messiah complex and the loyalty fetish, and you have a pretty awful combination.
I'll say what I've said in every thread about Miers: Whatever you may think about her, if you don't contact your Senate and urge him or her to take the same stance as you, then don't bother complaining about whatever happens.
Tom Crick | October 11, 2005, 5:26pm | #
But trust is what you fall back on in the absence of information.For most of the people most of the time, trust is how you tell whose information to believe. It's unreasonable, I know; but most of the people don't think critically most of the time.
It must be very confusing for new "conservatives" to hear the people they've trusted tell them that they shouldn't trust the President they've trusted.
In some ways, I'm reminded of when W's father lost touch with his supporters--me being one of them. I dropped him like a sack of cannolis when he broke his tax pledge, but much of the rest of the conservative movement didn't catch on until much later.
...Does anyone else remember when Bush Sr. called Baker off of foreign affairs to try to stop the ship from sinking? ...In the old man's case, the American people realized he was out of touch way before the second election. ...if it hadn't been for Perot exploiting the old man's disconnect, the he probably would have held on.
...Junior may not have caught on that he's out of touch yet. ...but he will. ...and when he does, just like many other incompetent managers, he'll try to insulate himself behind people he trusts.
Mike Laursen | October 11, 2005, 5:27pm | #
re: "Conservatives (and libertarians) have long had ample cause for powerful buyers' remorse about Bush."Hey, let's leave libertarians out of this. There may have been libertarians who voted for Bush the first time around, but I don't know any that voted for his re-election.
Well, at least any that would admit to it.
John | October 11, 2005, 5:29pm | #
I share many of the objections being voiced by conservatives over the Miers nomination, but part of me thinks that perhaps conservatives are acting a bit like liberals and taking themselves and the Court a bit too seriously. First, while from a purely meritorious point of view I am sympathetic to the idea of Miers not being an intellectual heavy weight, I can’t help but wonder what exactly does getting an intellectual heavy weight on the Court buy conservatives other than another hopefully more reliable vote. This idea that we could get someone to “make law and change pull the Court rightward” is palpably ridiculous. Do you really think that Janice Rogers Brown or Robert Bork or whoever is going to convince Anthony Kennedy that applying foreign law to U.S cases is a bad idea? Or convince Justice Ginsburg that perhaps McCain Feingold is an abuse of government power? Or somehow get the Ninth Circuit to start following Supreme Court precedent it doesn’t like? Have Conservatives really become so full of themselves and their ideas that they really believe such fantasies?Also, isn’t it interesting how every conservative pundit claims that it takes a real intellectual genius to really understand and interpret Constitutional Law, yet each of them seems to have no doubt exactly how every case should be decided and exactly what constitutes a “reliably conservative vote?” Which is it? Is conservative constitutional jurisprudence some kind of secret mojo handed down from Justice Holmes that can only be understood in a secret language spoken only by likes of Robert Bork and Richard Epstein or is it a pretty straightforward philosophy grasped by bright lawyers and non-lawyers alike? As a lawyer, I think that it is probably more the latter. These are hard issues to decide but not difficult to understand. It’s not as if liberal jurists are crazy. These are subtle issues open to lots of reasonable interpretation. The difference is not necessarily how brilliant you are. It is not like there is one correct answer available to only the brightest. The difference is what your values and priorities are. You don’t have to be a genius to write a good Supreme Court opinion and indeed, many a genius can and do write poor ones.
What do conservatives really want from a justice? The answer, I think if they would be honest with themselves is that they want the same thing liberals want, a justice who will vote their way. The rest of the qualifications are just nonsense “our guy is better than your guy” vanity. Look, no one ever thought of Clarence Thomas as being an intellectual heavyweight until he got on the Court and started voting the way they liked and then he became the model justice for the 21st Century. Anthony Kennedy in contrast was a much respected intellectual until he got on the court and proceeded to go off the reservation and now is the poster child for what not to appoint.
In truth, the enemy of a good Supreme Court Justice is not ignorance but vanity. What I think happened to Kennedy and O’Connor both is that they got on the Court and rather than viewing themselves as what they are, which is the caretakers of an almost sacred document, view themselves as trailblazers and policy makers there to “leave their mark” on the law. Once that kind of vanity sets in, they start doing things like introducing foreign legal precedents (in the case of Kennedy) or overruling whatever policy is not to their liking using whatever dubious and contradictory legal theory they can muster (in the case of O’Conner). In this sense, Conservatives would be a lot better off if they would stop focusing so much their attention on the Court and make it clear that Justices are caretakers and not the most important people in the world. It’s the liberals who live and die by the Court because they can’t win elections, not Conservatives. They would also do well to stop appointing people whose life goal has been to be a federal judge, even if they agree with their opinions and appoint Justices who have been successful in other careers and don’t view an appointment to the Supreme Court as an affirmation of their entire career and professional legacy. In that sense, Miers a successful lawyer and someone who seems to have done little or nothing in the way of angling for the job, might just be an ideal choice.
David | October 11, 2005, 5:30pm | #
Thoreau,What method do you recommend to convince a senator to do what I think? Bear in mind that I'm not "connected", so disappearing dead hookers won't be an option.:)
John | October 11, 2005, 5:37pm | #
David,Large amounts of campaign cash to their favorite PAC, college scholarships to their undeserving children and free "research and oversight" trips to destinations with good climates and five star hotels are always a good start.
thoreau | October 11, 2005, 5:38pm | #
David-You alone can't convinced them of anything if they aren't connected. But if they get enough phone calls one way or the other, they'll take that into account. Calling and adding your voice to the count isn't much, but it's easy enough to do. People who won't even do that much really shouldn't be complaining about what happens.
smacky | October 11, 2005, 5:39pm | #
Why aren't conservatives reading George W.'s lips anymore?Because he stopped reading?
Shem | October 11, 2005, 5:43pm | #
What's shocking here is not just the amount of internal dissent, but the vehemence with which it's being expressed.I don't see why. When you spend twenty years grooming pundits to approach disagreement on everything from the Supreme Court to the race for Dogcatcher as a massive threat to western civilization, should you really be surprised when the devil you've created decides it's expedient to turn on you? Republicans complaining about this sort of thing are like the people who train their dogs to be vicious killers, then act surprised when a loved one gets mauled.
Tom Crick | October 11, 2005, 6:04pm | #
Large amounts of campaign cash to their favorite PAC, college scholarships to their undeserving children and free "research and oversight" trips to destinations with good climates and five star hotels are always a good start.I suspect this discontent is from the bottom up. It's the people who sit in the pews every Sunday and write the checks that are so upset. ...The great thing about representative democracy is that elected representatives really do react when people get upset.
...Goin' against a big trend can getcha kicked off the gravy train.
jimmy | October 11, 2005, 6:57pm | #
libertarians may be pissed off at the items on warren's list, but not the conservatives of today. they LIKE that stuff. and conservatives' beef with miers seems to come down to the fear that she will not implement their wet dream of jailing abortionists and permanently stamping gays as second-class citizens...not her qualifications per se.of course it is an odd pick, but i guess i remain naively shocked at the level of pure nastiness thrown at ms miers by so many people, especially by fellow libertarians (including the disgusting lesbian-baiting thing). i for one would never want a position of public service in this country, if this is what comes with it.
i would like someone to explain in concrete terms why she will be such a horrible justice. she very well might be horrible, but i see nothing in her record that makes her any worse than the bunch we already have. i get the whole cronyism thing and the fact that she has not written 457 law review articles, but the court has been full of cronies and non-judges since its inception. as an atty i view much of modern constitutional law as a bunch of pedantic argument about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, so i don't care whether someone has spent twenty years writing articles about that sort of esoteric stuff anyway.
nmg | October 11, 2005, 7:12pm | #
"i would like someone to explain in concrete terms why she will be such a horrible justice. "It's bleedin obvious he oppointed her solely because he hopes she'll overturn Roe v. wade, and it's bleedin obvious she'll rule in favor of federal power when given the chance, especially in matters of "moralitY", being a born-again christian and all. Don't forget that JAMES DOBSON, the sniveling troll moralist has assured his followers that he had a personal conversation with Bush and felt reassured.
What the hell do you think bush said to him? "She'll stand up for individual liberty and strike down oppresive federal intrustions like the PATRIOT act".... I think not.
nmg
Lowdog | October 11, 2005, 7:14pm | #
Right on, Warren!I think she'll get in, and I'm not too sure whether she'll be a "bad" or a "good" justice in my eyes. Honestly, this talk about her not having any cred doesn't really bother me. I think I'd make a good justice, and I have very little law training. But I do know how to read things quite literally, and I think that would be an enormous improvement over some of the justices we've had over the years. Not saying that I should be a justice, just that I think I'd probably do an alright job, from a constitutionalist/libertarian perspective.
The crony factor does bother me, though, simply because I can't trust that smirking little fuck, Bush. If he wants her in, my alarm bells go off. Same with Roberts, but after hearing him talk and reading some things about him, I figured he wasn't that bad. And he had some credentials besides just being Bush's pal.
So right now I'm hoping she doesn't get confirmed, but the jury's out on that and I may change my mind. Although if Bush pulled his nomination and chose someone that I "liked" better, I would be happy about it.
Tom Crick | October 11, 2005, 7:42pm | #
...but i guess i remain naively shocked at the level of pure nastiness thrown at ms miers by so many people, especially by fellow libertarians (including the disgusting lesbian-baiting thing).I'm sorry, but what is lesbian baiting? ...who's doing it? ...and can you provide any links? ...with pictures preferably!
People who proclaim Supreme Court Constitutional law an easy matter of applying easy principles, and delcare those who rule differently stupid or corrupt, belong in the same circle of hell as those who look at a Jackson Pollack painting and say "Shoot, my four year old could do that."
Lowdog | October 11, 2005, 7:56pm | #
Nowhere did I say it was an easy matter or that anyone whose ruled "differently" was stupid or corrupt.Just wrong. :)
And I did admit that I don't necessarily think that I should be a chief justice.
So there.
Warren | October 11, 2005, 8:12pm | #
Yeah, the list isn't really about Miers. It's more about the surreality of someone who has been so monumentally Wrong about Absolutely Every Thing saying "trust me". I'm more surprised that he's been getting away with it for the past four years than I am over his rats bailing on him (why jump ship now?).As for the lady herself, the fact that she didn't nurse from the poison ivy-league tit and has not had her ass infested with bench-rot, are the finest qualifications of any nominee of my lifetime. I'd be her number one cheerleader, except for one niggling little misgiving. She's W's bitch. And that my friends, is grade A guarantee that she is totally corrupt and drunk on ambition and power.
When Roberts got the tap, I figured he was as good as could be hoped for. When he spoke for himself at his conformation, I got nauseous. Things look bleak, but there is a secret hope. Roberts has promised to honor president and there is a long standing president of justices not behaving like they're suppose to once they've been confirmed.
But all we know about Miers is that she's a Bush crony. It doesn't matter what she says at her hearings, I won't believer her. I already know enough to fear for the fate of republic.
coarsetad | October 11, 2005, 8:39pm | #
Here's what the perfect justice would say:"Before reading the constitution, I assumed the state had no rights, and the people had all the rights."
thoreau | October 11, 2005, 8:40pm | #
I think Warren is right. I have given it some thought and changed my opinions on some matters. I've said in previous posts that elite qualifications matter because most of a Supreme Court Justice's time is spent on very obscure and intricate matters (contracts, taxes, obscure statutes, jurisdictional matters, etc.).I still stand by that, but the perspective of somebody who spent her career in private practice could be a valuable addition to a court deliberating on such matters.
However, she is a crony. That was always the second prong of my objection, and I stand by that prong. Cronies have no place on the nation's highest court. Bring in another accomplished lawyer who's spent his or her career in the private sector and earned the respect of colleagues, and isn't a crony and I will be much more supportive.
joe | October 11, 2005, 8:52pm | #
John,"It’s the liberals who live and die by the Court because they can’t win elections, not Conservatives."
I see this self-congratulatory meme a lot from conservatives. The problem is, it's not supported by the facts.
The period of liberal court activism, roughly the 40s through the 70s, was also the period that liberals were cleaning up in elections across the country.
And it was through the 90s and the first half of the oughts, when liberalism was at its electoral low point, that liberals started to come out in favor of greater judicial modesty.
Rick Barton | October 11, 2005, 9:07pm | #
Julian:Conservatives (and libertarians) have long had ample cause for powerful buyers' remorse about Bush. A bloated Medicare bill, the No Child Left Behind Act, the president's runaway spending?all are markedly at odds with core conservative principles
Absolutely! And add to this the Patriot Act and the Iraq war. We should return these defective goods of an administration.
Fabius | October 11, 2005, 9:28pm | #
Josephus,Bad analogy. Fragonard or Boucher would have been a better choice.
Even monkeys can make convincing abstract paintings.
joe | October 11, 2005, 9:35pm | #
Yes, but they don't. It doesn't occur to them. It's seeing the problem and solving it that's the thing.Josephus. heh.
John (not the lawyer) | October 11, 2005, 9:59pm | #
joe,Funny you should mention Jackson Pollack. I've always seen his paintings as representing something of spontaneous order from chaos. His unique style of 'automonous' painting capturing the artistic essence of libertarian spirit writ large and bold (see in particular his masterwork 'Convergence' from 1952).
Or, as you say it yourself, "It's seeing the problem and solving it that's the thing."
In 'Convergence' I see it happening 300 million times simultaneously.
Are you certain you're not a repressed libertarian joe?
Steven Crane | October 11, 2005, 10:07pm | #
People who proclaim Supreme Court Constitutional law an easy matter of applying easy principles, and delcare those who rule differently stupid or corrupt, belong in the same circle of hell as those who look at a Jackson Pollack painting and say "Shoot, my four year old could do that."joe, the trouble with things like Jackson Pollock paintings IS that four-year olds can do them. So much of "avant-garde" art is emperor-has-no-clothes stuff. If you create a piece of visual art that is incomprehensible to the eye, and a product of random actions besides, all the program notes and explanations of it don't make it a good painting, or you a good painter. If they're clever, they MAY make you a good writer of program notes. Ditto in music, with things like "prepared piano" (a John Cage invention, where items are placed inside a piano at ludicrously specific points, for the purpose of making odd unpredictable sounds). If you can't predict what sound is going to come out of the piano, the -best- you're doing is making some sort of statement about the ephemeral nature of art existing in the moment, bluhbluhbluh.
joe | October 11, 2005, 10:10pm | #
Non-lawyer John,I care about outcomes, particularly for the less fortunate, way too much to be a doctrinaire libertarian. I think "libertarian sympathizer" sums it up best.
John | October 11, 2005, 10:11pm | #
Joe,You mean when back in the 1970s when the liberals were getting all of those popular policies like affimative action, school busing, banning all public forms of religous expression, court mandating public funding of every form of vile artistic expression and evicerating any effective means of enforcing law and order in American cities through the legislatures? It seems to me none of those policies were ever enacted by a elected legislatures, they were shoved down the country's throat by judges. A fact which played no small part in the downfall of the Democratic Party. Liberals haven't had one piece of significant legislation passed since Nixon strengthened the civil rights act and created the EEOC. The rest has been done in the courts. Thank about it. The last two Democratic Presidents, Carter and Clinton's major legislative achievments (Carter airline and energy deregulation and Clinton NAFTA and welfare reform) were anything but liberal. The liberal policies have all come through judicial fiat. That is why liberals will fight to the death over the courts, its been their only access to power for over thirty years now.
John (the IT guy) | October 11, 2005, 10:26pm | #
joe,Thanks for the response. I, too, care about outcomes. For everybody, as I hope you do too.
It is funny how art interpretation can oftnetimes reveal much more about the interpreter than the artist.
joe | October 11, 2005, 10:38pm | #
"banning all forms of public religious expression"Yeah, remember the good old days, when people in Mao suits patrolled America's streets, and beat anyone they saw wearing a crucifix?
If you were any more of bullshitter, John, you could hire yourself out to farmers.
FYI, I stopped reading there. The risk that I missed some important and insightful intellectual breakthrough is one I'll just have to live with.
John | October 11, 2005, 10:52pm | #
Joe,Could you be anymore narrowminded minded and dogmatic? Sometimes you are so easy to prod and make a fool of on here, its not even fun. I need to stop doing it, its becoming a guilty pleasure.
John | October 11, 2005, 10:53pm | #
Joe,Make that literal minded and humorless. But since you are a liberal, I guess you can't help it.
Ahh, Fragonard and Boucher; it's nice to see somebody name-checking artists I like that I think nobody has heard of! And on the same day I had my obsessions with Star Blazers (Yamato) and Robotech (Macross) validated! Today Reason made me feel a little less alone. :)
mtc | October 12, 2005, 12:20am | #
Thoreau 5:19-Ok, I emailed both my Senators and told them I object to Miers being confirmed.
If she now does get confirmed, I'll never vote or give a damn about politics again. ;)
Jennifer | October 12, 2005, 6:14am | #
Good one, Smacky! Ha!There may have been libertarians who voted for Bush the first time around, but I don't know any that voted for his re-election.
Reason had an article before the 2004 election asking various (presumably libertarian) people who they were voting for. Lots of Bush voters there, mainly mentioning his tax policy (though I seem to recall a few buffoons who thought he'd do a better job of "keeping us safe"). Screw civil liberties, screw foreign policy, screw our country's international standing--the only human right that matters is how much is left in your paycheck after the government takes its cut. Furthermore, short-term tax advantages are FAR more important than silly ol' things like paying down the national debt.
polt | October 12, 2005, 6:31am | #
Something some of you might find quite interesting -- James Dobson comments on his conversation with Karl Rove about Miers (link: http://www.family.org/welcome/press/a0038214.cfm)"But we also talked about something else, and I think this is the first time this has been disclosed. Some of the other candidates who had been on that short list, and that many conservatives are now upset about were highly qualified individuals that had been passed over. Well, what Karl told me is that some of those individuals took themselves off that list and they would not allow their names to be considered, because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter, that they didn’t want to subject themselves or the members of their families to it.
So, even today, many conservatives and many of ‘em friends of mine, are being interviewed on talk shows and national television programs. And they’re saying, “Why didn’t the President appoint so-and-so? He or she would have been great. They had a wonderful judicial record. They would have been the kind of person we’ve been hoping and working and praying for to be on the Court. Well, it very well may be that those individuals didn’t want to be appointed.
(...) So, Karl Rove shared some of that with me. He also made it clear that the President was looking for a certain kind of candidate, namely a woman to replace Justice O’Connor. And you can imagine what that did to the short list. That cut it…I haven’t looked at who I think might have been on that short list, because Karl didn’t tell me who was not willing to be considered.
But that many have cut it by 80 percent right there."
So guess joe is right on this: as to women and minorities the Democratic party's bench is a lot deeper than the Republicans'.
thoreau | October 12, 2005, 8:34am | #
polt-Isn't that sort of an admission that Miers was low on the list?
Jeff | October 12, 2005, 8:46am | #
The real question, which I assume history books will address in years to come, is what the hell in Bush's background of privileged elitism and elitist privilege made anyone trust his character? His self-professed love of Jay-sus? I guess that explains the religious right's drinking the CoolAid, but not the libertarians. It really was blind hope and faith I guess.For myself, I struggle to remember why I thought that this administration had the vision and competence to at least wage war with some level of effectiveness-- I suppose the resumes of Cheney and Powell, for the most part. Man, was I an idiot. But at least I never voted for the bastards. I can tell the grandkids that.
R C Dean | October 12, 2005, 10:18am | #
There may have been libertarians who voted for Bush the first time around, but I don't know any that voted for his re-election.I did. He was the least bad alternative.
On domestic issues, one is hard pressed to find an issue where John Kerry wasn't worse from a libertarian perspective. Even with civil liberties (about the only area of domestic policy where Democrats have a fighting chance to win me over) I don't recall Kerry making a big push about rolling back the Patriot Act and the drug war.
On foreign policy, well, I support the Bush strategy of draining the swamp in the Middle East before it gets even more virulent than it is now. National defense is a legitimate function of the state, and our current strategy of containment and forward defense is a legitimate strategy that seems to be working as well as can be expected by a reasonable person with some knowledge of history.
Akira MacKenzie | October 12, 2005, 11:30am | #
Jeff:For myself, I struggle to remember why I thought that this administration had the vision and competence to at least wage war with some level of effectiveness-- I suppose the resumes of Cheney and Powell, for the most part.
For the most part it largely has to do with the public perception that Republicans/conservatives are gung-ho, kick-ass, and tough on defense, while Democrats/liberals are all limp-wristed pacifists who will "negotiate" with our enemies ala Neville Chamberlain and sell us down the river to the commies... I mean, the moose-lims.
Of course, it's hardly a fair stereotype, but it still exists.
Probably the real reason for Miers being the nominee is that none of the more qualified female candidates considered were willing to put themselves or their families through the confirmation meatgrinder. This does seem plausible, although you would think at least one or two would have been willing to take the fight on for the principle. Easy to say if it is not your (or your family/friends) lives that are about to be trashed.
Dan | October 12, 2005, 11:41am | #
polt,What the fuck! If all good, strong, recognizably conservative, judges AND the president of the USA (who was RE-ELECTED to boot)aren't willing to engage in battle because the rats are nasty, we may as well fold up the Constitution now, because it isn't worth the paper it's written on.
It came about because a lot of wise and brave men shed blood and took political shots, and we're going to throw all this away because we may lose a battle?
Crushinator | October 12, 2005, 11:58am | #
I like the nomination of Miers. I do not care if she is confirmed or not. Her replacement would be another religious fanatic and sycophant. Her nomination shines a spotlight on Bush's flawed judgement and management style. We see clearly that his emphasis is not on pursuit of excellence but rather the pursuit of obedience. This nomination comes on the heels of the expose of Mike Brown as the incompetent crony in charge of FEMA. America is also starting to realize what lightweight bozos we have in Rumsfeld and Rice. And even the untouchable Laura Bush is making a fool of herself by claiming the Miers'opposition is rooted in sexism. The Miers confirmation process could prompt the average American to more closely scrutinize Bush's decisions. His cloak of infallibility and invincibility has been stripped away.I have to chuckle over the negative reaction of the conservatives. They have nothing to fear about Miers. She will give them everything they want. The conservatives wanted to use this nomination to prove that they have the power to shove anybody they want into the Supreme Court.
Akira MacKenzie | October 12, 2005, 12:05pm | #
polt:Probably the real reason for Miers being the nominee is that none of the more qualified female candidates...
They couldn't find anyone better to fill O'Connor's seat than the former chair of the Texas Lottery Commission?
I repeat... THE TEXAS LOTTERY COMMISSION.
It amazes me how far some conservatives are willing to go in order to make excuses for Bush no matter how badly he blunders things.
Kahn | October 13, 2005, 3:53am | #
Akira,I haven't seen anyone around here defending Bush's choice in Miers.
I think the assessement that Bush is really smart or incredibly stupid is going to be settled in the outcome of this appointment.
So was this a really smart move or a really stupid move? I know which way my vote goes.
If all good, strong, recognizably conservative, judges AND the president of the USA ... aren't willing to engage in battle because the rats are nasty...
Not sure I can agree with you here. At least if you go to battle you can die an honorable death. That isn't the case when you go before the Senate these days. I expect anyone who held their own honor sacred would run from the Senate floor as fast as they could.
Can you imagine subjecting yourself to interrogation from Ted Kennedy? Where's your self respect, boy?
When people like Ted Kennedy get implanted in the US Senate -- and the only real choices we get for president come down to Bush and Kerry -- you have to wonder how much sacred honor this country has left.
Politics knows not honor. This country is now old enough that politics has triumphed over honor, and all other such lofty notions.
Governments, like all versions of Windows, need rebooting every so often. Memory leaks and corruption, and all that stuff. I'm still waiting for someone to figure out how to do it without revolt and bloodshed.
Kahn | October 13, 2005, 4:06am | #
I have to chuckle over the negative reaction of the conservatives. They have nothing to fear about Miers.That may not be true. There is certainly no evidence. Somebody on another thread said that in Dallas, they see Miers as a squishy liberal on most everything but abortion.
I for one am not up in arms about Miers. I doubt anyone decent would get past the Senate anyway, so what's the difference? Bush has shrunken his stature a notch further.....
Which I see as a potential good. Suck some more of his republican backing away, and maybe it'll hamper his ability to do damage over the next four years. You know, like a republican congress and democratic president used to get us.
Cronyism? Hell, tell me something new about politics. This doesn't bother me either, it's just the nature of the beast.
OTOH, I can't argue with all the people who are up in arms about Bush nominating Miers. Nominating a nobody to the SCOTUS is pretty sad.