Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

WASHINGTON, July 5 - The White House and the Senate Republican leadership are ushing back against pressure from some of their conservative allies about the coming Supreme Court nomination, urging them to stop attacking Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales as a potential nominee and to tone down their talk of a culture war.

In a series of conference calls on Tuesday and over the last several days, Republican Senate aides encouraged conservative groups to avoid emphasizing the searing cultural issues that social conservatives see at the heart of the court fight, subjects like abortion, public support for religion and same-sex marriage, participants said.
Instead, these participants, who insisted on anonymity to avoid exclusion from future calls, said the aides - including Barbara Ledeen of the Senate Republican Conference and Eric Ueland, chief of staff to Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader - emphasized themes that had been tested in polls, including a need for a fair and dignified confirmation process.

Mr. Ueland acknowledged that he and others had been working almost since the vacancy occurred last Friday with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation to persuade conservative activists to steer clear of divisive language.

"Every contact we have with these folks is 'stay on message, stay on purpose,' " Mr. Ueland said. "The extremism of language, if there is to be any, should be demonstrably on the other side. The hysteria and the foaming at the mouth ought to come from the left."

In other calls, emissaries from the office of Harriet Miers, the White House counsel, are urging conservatives to stop discussing individual nominees, especially Mr. Gonzales, whose views on abortion and affirmative action are viewed with wariness by some conservatives. Steve Schmidt, a White House spokesman working on the confirmation, joined some calls, participants said. In an interview Tuesday in USA Today, President Bush said, "Al Gonzales is a great friend of mine. I'm the kind of person, when a friend gets attacked, I don't like it."

The disagreement underscored the balancing act confronting Republican leaders seeking to rally passionate social conservatives behind a nominee while casting the candidate as moderate and middle of the road. "The only ones who could make somebody sound extreme," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative group, "are some of the president's allies talking in an inappropriate way and themselves sounding extreme, which then gets tagged to the nominees."

BUSH TELLS CONSERVATIVES TO "SHUSH" DURING COURT FIGHT!
In a slightly disturbing interview in USA TODAY, President Bush tells everyone to "tone down" the rhetoric. That's funny, that's what the Democrats are saying too. The President, in fact, needs conservatives to be mobilized, passionate, and strong in their suppor tof his nominee--toning it down never helps the GOP. (see, e.g., the
fights over Bolton, Estrada, and Bork.)

Posted by Brian_BaldwinOn News/Activism 07/05/2005 9:37:54 PM PDT · 34 replies · 685+ views

Tone what down, Mr. Bush? Who are you talking to? To conservatives? I think he is.
And I think Laura Ingraham, thinks he is, too.

And, proud of God Knows What, he slighted the conservatives who are suppose to sit around and watch their hair turn white as year after year after year after year [sic]betrayal, and now having given so much to put the Republicans and the Bush family BACK in power, who believed the oath Bush gave to church leaders, to conservative leaders, in back door meetings, when lots of money exchanged hands, and money from common people hard earned, and who told the common people all over this nation that he will fight to put a conservative on the bench, and now this from Mr. Peepers he tells us to “tone it down”?

Laura Ingraham told Bush tonight, no YOU Bush, you tone it down. Don’t hush us. You hush. You listen. The House, The Senate, The White House, years and years in the making, and now it’s all yours, conservatives who ground down for you, and when it is time, you tell us to tone it down? Squander another 20 years? Oh, I see. Really. Well, maybe you tone it down Mr. President, or perhaps as some are now calling you Mr. Peepers. Or should I be more respectful? You tone it down when you talk to conservatives about this vital issue, this nomination to the Court. You better
listen. If you told us a lie, you are going to really see who can make hell regarding “Bush Lied”, and it won’t be coming from the Left who are going to make you eat your own words.