Bush Withdraws Miers: The Extreme Right Gets Its Scalp
Don't believe the bullshit that Miers withdrew herself or that she was withdrawn because of a fight over documents. Harry Reid preapproved Miers thereby giving up any basis on which to lead a filibuster. Miers only needed Republican votes to get through and she just couldn't get them.
The charge against her was lead by a joint effort of the religious right that has a litmus test which requires constitutional interpretation begin with the Bible and those who believe in some phony original intent doctrine that perversely misreads the Constitution narrowly in its protections of individual freedom but broadly in favor of corporate freedom.
BTW - I heard Sen. Brownback state that one person on his list of proposed nominees is "Priscilla Owens." I don't know who that is, but whoever she is, I'm sure she can't be worse than Priscilla Owen.
The charge against her was lead by a joint effort of the religious right that has a litmus test which requires constitutional interpretation begin with the Bible and those who believe in some phony original intent doctrine that perversely misreads the Constitution narrowly in its protections of individual freedom but broadly in favor of corporate freedom.
BTW - I heard Sen. Brownback state that one person on his list of proposed nominees is "Priscilla Owens." I don't know who that is, but whoever she is, I'm sure she can't be worse than Priscilla Owen.
posted by Macswain at
9:32 AM
8 Comments:
Even as he's going down (hopefully), Rove's fingerpints are all over this one.
Prediction: another nominee within 48 hrs of indictments.
By
Macswain, at 1:13 PM
Just out from the National Journal: Vice President Cheney and Scooter Libby, "overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."
Among the materials withheld "were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq... The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney's office -- and Libby in particular -- pushed to be included in Powell's speech."
Rolly
By
Anonymous, at 1:49 PM
A staffer for a member on the Senate Judiciary Committee explains:
"This withdrawal and renomination is the ace in the whole for Republicans to combat the CIA leak scandal. President Bush met with Republican leaders last week to test the waters for withdrawal, and then laid the groundwork with the 'red line' for disclosing documents. The President is going back to his base, and next week (likely the beginning), most Senators on the Judiciary Committee, including Schumer, Graham, Specter, Kennedy, Durbin, and Brownback, expect him to nominate a proven conservative justice... Democrats are scrambling to come up with a strategy to keep the focus on the indictments, while also stopping a far-right nominee. Word is that Karl Rove is in fact behind this well-timed stunt to overcome the indictment story."
Rolly aka Bearshaft
By
Anonymous, at 1:50 PM
Owens is much much worse, I know, I met her at a dinner last week. She's a mouth-breather.
Seriously, I'm not going to rewrite my take, just go read commentsfromleftfield.com
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Kyle E. Moore, at 2:12 PM
The REAL Macswain is here. The comment above unnder my name, I believe, was probably posted by webhub, whom I'm assuming forgot to remove my password from when I allowed him to guest post.
jandrew,
There is a lot of evidence that the framers at the Constitutional Convention did not want their intent to govern constitutional intepretation. No stenographers were used and no records of the debates exist. In fact, it appears there was an agreement not to retain pivate notes. While Madison's notes were released some 50 years later, and after his death, that appears to be in contravention of the agreement.
An excellent book on this issue is Leonard Levy's much-heralded Original Intent and the Framer's Constitution. I did this short but exacting post attacking Originalism back in June.
Here's the link to Mr. M's latest on the current Supreme Court opening. It's a good, well-thought read; though I'd dispute whether a "moderate" is a possibility for Bush's next pick. Bush'll feed the base and the Dems will filibuster.
Finally, it appears that bearshaft is Rolly. Ha! What is Rolly supposed to be some deranged alter ego?
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Macswain, at 3:00 PM
Thanks M. I'm with you, I too think the conservative to filibuster move is the more likely, but one can't discount the moderate. As for the 48 hours... Not impossible. Even on the most innocent take of this whole disaster, everyone's known this nomination has gone South fast, and so, it's possible that BushCo had told Miers to hold off on her withdrawl until after they've had a chance to dive through their short list again.
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Kyle E. Moore, at 3:12 PM
When I was into studying constitutional interpretation, I read some pieces on originalism by a guy named Raoul Berger (I think he was from Harvard) and some of Bork's writings from the early Eighties.
I've been planning to read Scalia's book for a few years now &, when I heard about Breyer's book, thought it would be a good endeavor to read them back to back.
So far, however, I've used my evenings for playing with my two sons. Scala & Breyer have some tough competition in the Macswain home.
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Macswain, at 4:11 PM
jandrew,
Scalia's twist, as I understand it, is what Krauthammer called originalism plus precedent. You are right though; in operation, its a good vehicle for result-oriented jurisprudence.
By
Macswain, at 5:08 PM
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