Posted on 10/14/2005 6:47:23 PM PDT by quidnunc
I'm beginning to wonder why the political conservatives voted for Bush. I assumed at the time that it had something to do with believing that he would be able to pick better players for the Cabinet and the Court than his opponents (Al Gore and John Kerry, lest we forget.)
At least, that's what they claimed in the Novembers of 2000 and 2004. In this last election, as in no other, the Court was thought to be vitally important.
In religious right circles, at the grass roots level, there was high excitement that the nation might finally get some Justices in who would roll back the tides of misplaced internationalism, judicial invention, and Supreme legislation that have proven so vexing to those in the heartland trying to raise decent families in an unholy world. Because President Bush is a man of sincere faith, whereas John Kerry was clearly a man of pure opportunism and personal religious hypocrisy ("I believe life begins at conception" did not ring true from a pro-choice politician), prayerful people whose participation in politics is normally limited to election day came out in force to actually work for candidates. Phone banks were filled, neighborhoods were walked, parties were held, and registration drives were pursued by massive numbers of people otherwise uninterested in the process.
All this optimism was based not on who would be the likely nominees, but on who would be the one to pick such nominees — a man whose heart they trusted, George W. Bush.
-snip-
Now, don't get me wrong. Most Christian conservatives — like most Americans — don't know much about potential court nominees. They've heard the names of judges the Democrats filibustered, and that's about it. As was the case with John Roberts, most ordinary people on the religious right didn't know who she was, since who the White House Counsel is does not generally show up as a prayer concern to any but those immediately involved. What they knew about John Roberts was that the President admired him and he seemed to be a good man, a good father, a Constitutionalist instead of an activist, and the choice of the President for Chief Justice. The religious conservatives, with no particular knowledge of Roberts, immediately got on board. Why? Because they trusted the man who nominated him.
Although Roberts wasn't on the conservative intelligentsia's wish list, the usual gang of conservative pundits quickly found out enough to satisfy them that the non-selection of Edith Jones or Janice Rogers Brown or Michael Luttig hadn't shafted them. (Though Ann Coulter didn't like him, anyway.) Besides, the Democrats were acting like babies already. All the players were on the sides one expected; all was right with the world.
But Miers is a different situation altogether. Conservatives have occasionally wondered who this president really is. Spiritual conservatives wondered if he could be trusted to do the right thing in the face of long odds, or if he would prove to be merely a consummate politician playing the evangelical card to his political advantage. Economic conservatives have worried that he would some day risk conservative political gains for some deep and unknowable spiritual conviction.
Now we know.
Christian conservatives should no longer doubt this president's sincerity. He has made a selection based on a conviction that flies in the face of pragmatic politics, and he is not backing down. He is risking everything to bring in a nominee that he himself believes is the best available choice, despite the objections of politically-minded conservatives and the opposition of those he considers his allies.
The Miers nomination is the Category 5 hurricane that breaks open the levees of conservatism, exposing its deepest divide: that between those who are conservative primarily for intellectual reasons, and those whose conservatism is a habit of the heart. The president has declared his loyalty; he is, above and beyond his economic theories and his powerful defense of the free market, a True Believer.
These disagreements have arisen from time to time, in the divide between the social conservatives longing for more true believers in the Reagan White House and the political pragmatists urging them to be patient; in the rift between the George H.W. Bush New World Order acolytes and the cultural conservationists on Pat Robertson's team; in the tug of war between hard-line fiscal conservatives and open-handed compassionate conservatives willing to spend a little money to prod the resistant into participating in Bush's visionary "ownership society."
Between the two, there are differing definitions and applications of "trust." It might be said that both subscribe to Reagan's sage advice on the Soviet Union, "Trust, but verify," — but one group considers the trust primary, and the other tends to suspend trust in the hunt for verification.
-snip-
It is important to a purpose-driven Christian to seek a Biblical response to matters of culture, and to follow that response regardless of its pragmatic consequences. Despite the deaths of 45 million babies as a result of the Roe decision, they are called to forgive all those involved and to seek to change the situation through prayer and repentence, rather than anger and action. Where they have no knowledge, they seek advice from people they trust who do. Quite bluntly, they trust Dobson and Warren more than they do Limbaugh and Coulter. And because Dobson and Warren trust Bush on this, they are more inclined to do so.
-snip-
The conservative intelligentsia sees the President's membership in the social conservative club overshadowing their power to control the dissemination of conservative information, and they are having none of it. They can't accept the notion that the President of the United States might have access to better information concerning Court nominees than they have. They can't handle the idea that when he said "I will nominate candidates to the Supreme Court," he really meant "I" and not "my friends in the conservative think tanks." They can't stand it that, after all this time in the wilderness, they might still be "out of the loop" when it comes to the important questions of the presidency — especially when they find out that a doltish nobody like James Dobson actually had a seat in the "kitchen cabinet" this time around. It wasn't the judicial conservative elite invited to that conference call — it was the evangelicals. And that smarts.
The conservatives who are crying the loudest — and with a venom and a bitterness usually reserved for Ted Kennedy or illegal immigration — do more than anyone else to convince those who trust Dobson and Falwell and Robertson and D. James Kennedy and Marvin Olasky and Dick Cheney and President Bush that the president, leading with his heart, is right on this. There seems to be more than a little "it's not FAIR" in their whining and braying. Though they were in no way owed a consultation, the fact that they did not get one appears to have driven conservative think-tank mavens into paroxyms of rage.
Tsk, tsk. That's no kind of witness for the world.
-snip-
Rick Warren is fond of saying, "Remember: God is God, and you're not." The conservatives angry that the president actually had the nerve to exercise the authority they gave him to bring up a nominee that will do what they want her to do would do well to remember that President Bush is President, and they're not.
-snip-
lol....good point.
"I think that goes both ways. I've seen more bashing of those who choose to adopt the "wait and see" attitude here."
[shrug] My experience has been different. Mostly bashing of those for not "trusting Bush"
"I personally find it all rather sickening....."
Agreed. Wish could all agree on that and be more civil re this.
Thanks.
Thanks.
I took him at his word.
He didn't keep it.
Miers is no Scalia or Thomas.
Though I don't have access to Lexis/Nexis, Bush did lead people to believe that Scalia and Thomas were not only at the top of his list of model SCJs, they were the only ones he could relate to or was willing to use as examples of what he wanted.
Heh. Guess it depends which "side" of the postings you've been on.
I still have hope that the President and Rove are pulling off the best Redford/Newman "Sting" of all time.
Oh well, I can dream right?
Allow me to add you to my list of people who I'd like to see offer even a single reference to when Bush ever promised to appoint someone in the mold of Scalia or Thomas. Good luck.
Me two, but I'm leery - Bush has had several misteps lately. Just look at how horribly the Bush Team misread the base on this one?
"Allow me to add you to my list of people who I'd like to see offer even a single reference to when Bush ever promised to appoint someone in the mold of Scalia or Thomas. Good luck."
As several have already pointed out - he promised without naming them - unless he was being "Clintonesque" about it. Is that what you're saying? Depends of the definition of ____ ?
And you have conveniently forgotten that you were supposed to provide a source for Bush promising to appoint judges in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. Bush is responding to Russerts question "Which Supreme Court justice do you really respect?" when he mentions Scalia by name. But when Russert asks him what he looks for when considering a Supreme Court nominee, Bush clearly says, "I'd like to know are we compatible from a philosophical perspective on a wide range of issues. But the most important view I want to know is are you a strict constructionist, Mr. Jurist? Will you strictly interpret the Constitution or will you use your bench as a way to legislate? That's the kind of judges I've named in the state of Texas. On of the--I've got a record on this."
YOU DO NOT KNOW THAT. (guess u really r a ghost now - or is that bs too?) i.e. HM voted4 more dims than reps.
The alarmist, cannibals, extremist, subversives, and DUer's all need something to unite over...
how hi can u count? du u mean originalist or strict constructionalist?
my new sig.
Let me get this straight...I'm asking for an actual quote and you are accusing me of being "Clintonesque"? Let me clarify something for you...being Clintonesque is creating a false quote and attributing it to someone who never said it. Then when you are asked to provide an actual reference for that quote you respond with, "well what he probably meant to say here was..." If you are going to say the President broke a promise, you better damn well be able to provide evidence that he ever made the promise.
that's y the pres(W) is followin the constitution
We all know that politicians frequently lie and that all politicians lie at one time or another (as do everyone else, just not in a much of a public setting and on the record). Politicians also like to broadcast a message in coded terms, so they are harder to pin down in the future.
Bush has been a politician for a long time. If he didn't want us to have the impression that Scalia and Thomas were his model SCOTUS appointments, he could have easily named a slew of others. He didn't.
Now he comes along with a nominee who is not quite in the mold (Roberts) and a second one even less so. What are we supposed to think in comparing his actions to his implied intentions? What about the third and fourth appointments?
"breaks with his previous pattern " HOW DO YOU KNOW?
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