Posted on 10/07/2005 9:10:28 AM PDT by Sabramerican
My "Dear George" Letter
Sorry, George, but you lost me at Harriet. When a reporter asked you Oct. 4 if Harriet Miers was the most qualified possible candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court and you answered, "Yes þ I picked the best person I could find" ‹ and you did it with a straight face ‹ that was it.
I'm done. Check, please! I'm outta here.
I am no longer a George W. Bush supporter. As a conservative, I have been bitch-slapped by this man for the last time. Those suffering from "Battered Conservative's Syndrome" will no doubt make excuses and find some reason to stay with this serial abuser of our principles, but not me. I have had enough.
I've had enough of defending a "conservative" president who has spent money faster and grown government bigger than any president since LBJ. I've had enough of a "conservative" who refuses to do anything to secure our borders, and whose only plan to stop illegal immigration is to hand out temporary worker permits to create even MORE future illegals.
And George, when you look me in the eye and throw me a good old-fashioned Bill Clinton "I did not have sex with that woman" line like Harriet Miers is the most qualified person in America for the Supreme Court þ buddy, you're on your own.
It's bad enough that she's hardly conservative and has no record of achievement. Mr. President, making an affirmative-action appointment of an unqualified crony to one of the highest offices of the land is wrong, no matter what your politics. It's not just a mistake. It is shameful. You should be ashamed of yourself.
The fact that you aren't is the reason you just lost me.
Again and again, watching you throw tax dollars around like a drunken teenager at a New Orleans strip joint, I've told myself, "Stick with George, because he gets the big ones right." And the biggest of the "big ones" has always been rescuing America from an out-of-control, activist Supreme Court. You promised me a Scalia. Instead, you're sticking me with a "sistah," a woman whose qualifications for the Supreme Court begin and end in her brassiere.
She's no Scalia. She's no Thomas. She's not even a Ginsburg or a Souter. She's a joke ‹ FEMA's Michael Brown in a skirt. In fact, that's an insult to Brown, who had at least some experience as a judge, if only at horse shows.
Your nomination of Harriet Miers is an insult to the court, to conservatives and to any American who cares about competence. She's an utterly unqualified crony who has never sat on the bench, never written on constitutional issues, never been involved in a single significant issue or overseen an important case. According to you, Mr. President, she's been your attorney off and on for 10 years, and you've never once discussed the issue of abortion and the Constitution!
Good grief, my mailman and I have had that conversation.
George, you have done more than merely betray your conservative supporters. You have embarrassed us. You have made incompetence and cronyism part of the conservative character. You kept CIA director George Tenet after the worst terrorist attack in American history occurred on his watch. You kept Michael "Best In Show" Brown in a job at FEMA he was never qualified to do. And now you're giving the Dallas Library Lady a seat on the highest court in the land and telling us, "Trust me, I know she's good"?
Sorry, no dice.
Trust you? You just went on TV and told me that Harriet Miers is the most qualified person in America to sit on the Supreme Court! C'mon George, even Harriet's MOM doesn't believe that.
And now we find out that, in addition to giving campaign checks to Al Gore, Miers chaired an American Bar Association panel that recommended legalization of gay adoption and American participation in the International Criminal Court ‹ both liberal positions that you oppose. So mediocre is the Miers pick that your supporters have already fallen back to the "Don't worry, we'll probably get another pick before Bush is gone" defense.
Mr. President, if you honestly believe that Harriet Miers is the most qualified candidate, then you wouldn't be qualified to be president.
But you don't believe it, and you know it. The question is "why?" You've got 55 Republicans in the Senate, you had a dozen well-qualified conservative candidates you could have chosen from, several of them women. Why pick an incompetent crony when you held all the cards?
I fear that, when all the layers are pulled away, we will find that your answer will be "because I wanted to." You knew it would leave conservatives disappointed and despondent; you know she's a second-rate nominee at best; but in your heart you are what I've always feared you were: a Bushie, a spoiled, rich-kid president's son who has spent your life doing what you wanted whenever you wanted and making sure everyone else knows it. The more people complained about cronyism, the more determined you were to shove one down our throats.
Well, Mr. President, you've certainly made that perfectly clear. You've told my fellow conservatives and me that you don't need us. That's fine, George, because we don't need you.
I'm done. I'm off the team. I have gone from a George Bush believer who reluctantly criticized you when necessary to an avowed critic who will support your positions when I can, but not your presidency.
Harriet Miers, "The best possible nominee?" That's like saying "George W. Bush, the best possible Republican president."
What a joke.
MIchael has always, refreshingly, worn his opinion on his sleeve.
In addition to being a champion against CAIR, he was nearly arrested at a pro-illegal-immigrant rally in Maryland, trying to get in with an "INS" T-shirt on. Michelle Malkin wrote him up quite favorably for that.
And most recently, he criticized Bill Bennett for his remarks about abortion and blacks; I thought his statements were spot-on but I know some here would not have agreed with him.
I probably agree with Michael only a little more than I disagree with him, but I have virtually NEVER been dissappointed in his opinions.
Even though in this case I strongly disagree with his factual basis AND his conclusion.
I'm not bashing conservatives; FGS, I am one; I'm just not of the "Set my hair on fire and run around the room" ilk.
Waaaaaa----effin waaaaaaaa! Another "he-didn't-pick-who-I-wanted" cry-baby....lol. He even used factual inaccuracies (ICC/gays, etc). He's lost sight of the war in his demands for a bloody battle. He needs to get over himself. When he's elected POTUS, he can pick who he wants. Oh wait...he'll NEVER be POTUS...shucky-darn.
Hold strong to your faith my brothers and sisters. Do not waiver, blink or give to those who are trying to divide us.
the tone was one of histrionic hissy fit and he lost my respect because of it. i sent a letter of support to WMAL on his behalf. like i said, he is entitled to his opinion and i myself was bitterly disappointed that W didn't pick one of my personal picks, but Lordy, the sturm and drang is way out of hand.
"many people are saying she's not enough of a lawyer, while I say we need people who are far less lawyerly."
RIGHT ON! I am from a family full of lawyers and the smartest person of all of us dropped out of college and started his own business. It's about time we got something other than the paper dolls they always put up.
isn't that the dang truth, you have a ton of nonlawyers on this board who fancy themselves constitutional scholars with all kinds of intellectual insights into constitutional law. and a goodly portion of them are screaming blue murder about this woman.
Not all of us, there's still a semblance of sanity laced throughout the threads on the subject.
The REAL panic will come from the LEFT when they find out how BUSH has once again outsmarted them, and they can't stop him.
I mostly agree with your statement, and would extend them as such:
If there was a democrat president today, we would be breathing a sigh of relief at a Miers nomination. Since the last woman, Ginsberg, got all but 3 votes in the senate.
She of course had those "qualifications" that Miers apparently lacks. But somehow Ginsberg manages, with all those prerequisites, qualifications, and judicial underpinnings that we all long for, gets almost EVERY important decision WRONG.
What definition of qualification leads to a jurist that can't properly interpret the constitution, can't respect separation of powers, can't understand the role of the judiciary, and frankly makes a fool of herself discussing the issues in public, especially if she is on stage with Scalia?
Because the republicans gave Ginsberg an overwhelming victory, will now vote DOWN someone who if proven in the senate hearings is exactly what we want, a strict constructionist, simply because with a republican president we should do better?
Let me make this clear. If two weeks ago, when this name surfaced, the conservatives would have jumped all over it with the arguments they are making now, it might have made a difference. Now that she is nominated, the only way it could POSSIBLY make a difference is if Bush decides the conservative base is more important than his pick.
But, if the conservative base is correct in their opposition, Bush picked her precisely to stick his finger in the eye of the base. So, you won't succeed if you are right, but might succeed if you are wrong.
That is just my evaluation. I'm not happy with Miers. I'd rather have somebody else. But I will wait for the hearings.
Michael Graham, fired radio host, in search of headlines (and a steady paycheck).
I agree. Many bashers say all they are doing is "questioning" but in the next breath will proclaim, "she's no where near qualifed and doesn't deserve to be on the Court!"
That doesn't sound like a "question" to me!
Not exactly the point I was trying to make. It was more like, I'd rather have syphillis than be dead.
Who exactly are you hoping to get rid of? Most of us would like to drop Stevens and Ginsburg, the two who are most likely for natural causes to leave. Presumably they're holding out for a Dem president -- if they can make it. No one here would miss Breyer or that gawdhelpus Souter. But I don't think either is waiting to leave until he can be replaced by a "giant," especially a conservative giant.
Thomas and Scalia will have no incentive to leave? Good!
Exactly what I said back in post 101. How hard can it be to interpret the constitution, if you are going to do it strictly? I am not saying Harriet is the best pick, but to think she is an incompetent know-nothing is plain wrong.
I found out that 30% of the Supreme Court Justices had no prior judicial experience.
Yet many elites on FR are saying judicial experience must be a requirement.
Go figure. I thought conservatives were the grass roots people.
You know, it isn't just this ONE thing. Bush has a list of things that have outraged true conservatives - Republican or not - and this is just the straw. The outrageous spending, the lack of veto of ANYTHING - even CFR - the eduction bill ala Ted Kennedy, medicare drug bill, support of less than conservative candidates for election/reelection, the PURPOSEFUL ignoring of our immigration laws, the nomination and retention of people like Norm Mineta, etc.
Perhaps my hopes were too high when I voted for George W. Bush. All I can say is that my disappointment at a great number of his actions/decisions is palpable.
Imazing how many people fail to get that point. Bush by nominating stealh (maybe good, maybe not so good) SC judges is telling the world that conservative judges, with a conservative record, will not ever be nominated to the SC by the GOP. Mean while Rats can nominate ACLU lawyers and the GOP will go along, but the GOP can only nominate judges with no conservative paper trail. This is complete BULL, nothing against Miers, not her fault, Bush is the problem and his problem is he is NOT conservative and does nothing to advance a conservative agenda, he is all talk and no action. Time and time and time again he put the knife into the backs of conservatives. The GOP can forget conservative support in 06 or 08, let see how the GOP likes it when conservatives do not work for GOP candidates and either vote third party or stay home. The GOP better get all those illegals registered by 06 cause they are going to need that vote.
Her nomination has done just that - divide us - the republican party that is. Is it idealogical conservatives on one side and neo-conservatives on the other? I'm still trying to find a pattern.
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