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| Think at your own risk. |
| Thursday, October 06, 2005 |
| Hurricane Harriet |
...an ill wind is blowing over Capitol Hill...
The right is still howling over the nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court (could Bush's no-news speech today be an attempt to reset the dial/change the subject? If so, without something new to say, it won't work, any more than yesterday's blanket recitations of Ms. Miers' religious conversion nine years before she gave money to Al Gore did.) The outrage has wafted from the blogosphere , right wing radiosphere and magazinosphere (where some analysts were claiming it was confined) right on over to the mainlineosphere yesterday, as elected Republicans began blasting away at the White House choice.
Republican activists yesterday lashed out at President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, excoriating White House emissaries at two "off-the-record" gatherings of Washington conservatives.
"I can't stomach another 'trust me' from a Republican" in the Oval Office, Free Congress Foundation President Paul M. Weyrich told Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman at Mr. Weyrich's regular Wednesday conservative coalition luncheon. But now comes the other shoe to drop. If movement conservatives can't argue Ms. Miers out of the picture, might they be able to scandalize her off the stage? If so, you could see an unprecedented marriage of right and left-wing bloggers who's opposition research on Ms. Miers could theoretically force Mr. Bush to withdraw her (though most analysts highly doubt the no-doubt president will do that). Still, many on the right may think it's worth a try, and the ammunition comes straight from Texas. From left-wing blogger Ed Strong:
So you thought that Harriet Miers, George W. Bush’s new Supreme Court pick has no dirty linen? You were wrong.
One of Miers only qualifications for the high court -- as she hasn’t an ounce of judicial experience -- is that she was the head of Locke, Liddell & Sapp; a sleazy corporate law firm based in Dallas, Texas.
According to the InterNet Bankruptcy Library (IBL), Locke Liddell & Sapp paid $22 million in a suit alleging it aided a client in defrauding investors.
The Dallas-based firm agreed in April of 2000 to settle a suit stemming from its representation of Russell Erxleben, a former University of Texas football star whose foreign currency trading company, Austin Forex International, was a pyramid get-rich Ponzi scheme.
Erxleben later pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and securities-fraud charges. "It's a very simple legal proposition: a lawyer can't help people steal money," George, of George & Donaldson told reporters at the time. George’s firm had represented investors who lost close to $34 million in Erxleben's company.
All this was going on while Harriet Miers was co-managing partner of the law firm at the time. Miers denied that settling the suit indicted that they her firm was somehow complicated in Erxleben’s criminal activities.
“Obviously, we evaluated that this was the right time to settle and to resolve this matter and that it was in the best interest of the firm to do so," Miers said. And it doesn't stop there. Strong goes on to dredge up yet another skeleton the Bushies would just as soon shove back into a closet: his spotty National Guard service. Strong makes the link between the Texas Lottery Commission, when Miers was the head lass, and former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes, the guy who claimed he helped Dubya jump the line and get into the Guard (and out of the way of Vietnam). That can't be helpful, and this time, the FReepers won't be there to squash the rumors with Swift-boatery.
Which brings me to the central point: perhaps the biggest miscalculation on the part of the president, was nominating someone who was so unacceptable to his base, that he has effectively removed the cloak of protection sheathed around him since 9/11 by the hard right. The "movement" conservative base has shielded Mr. Bush from criticism on the bad intel regarding Iraq, on the Abu Ghraib and other torure scandals, on the deficit, the middle class economic squeeze, gas prices and most of all, on his service -- or lack thereof -- during the Vietnam war, and all the uncomfortable implications for a commander in chief. They did so, despite their severe doubts regarding his immigration strategy and lack of spending restraint, for one reason, and one reason only: the courts. It was all about the courts -- especially the Supreme Court -- and Bush's ironclad promise to move those courts firmly to the right. Ken Mehlman can make every argument this side of begging, and he can't change the fact that neither the Roberts nor the Miers nominations indicates such a clear, unarguable shift. If anything, it sounds like the Rehnquist court with a better looking, younger Rehnquist.
Now that the base gets that, and if they no longer are willing to protect their president; indeed if they themselves begin confronting previously unthinkable doubts about him out of rage over his abandoning them on such a crucial issue, Bush is toast.
ags: Harriet Miers, Supreme Court, Politics, SCOTUS, Law, News, Bush, Republicans |
posted by JReid @ 11:14 AM   |
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