Fred Barnes: Rebuilding (On the Miers Withdrawl and New Nominee)

The Weekly Standard ^ | October 27, 2005 | Fred Barnes

[saveliberty]

All I was suggesting is that it's a tough thing to build consensus. Consensus doesn't obviate dissent or the right thereto.

[saveliberty]

I think that he can still love his country and want to protect his family. Again, his nomination would be fabulous if he made it through.

It is a big sacrifice to ask and to do so for the second time.

[saveliberty]

:-) I knew that I was good for something! LOL!

[Huck]

I'd like to know why they trotted out an unqualified stealth candidate, and then attempted to assure everyone she's pro-life, and even that appears now to be untrue. Were they lying to us? If so, why?

[patent]

>>>>This is all hypothetical, obviously, and I doubt if GWB will go there...but...that said, Abbott is a completely different caliber of nominee than whats her name. He is very qualified, very smart, very politically savvy, very telegenic. And he's never worked for Bush. So yeah he's a Texan, but it's not like he has tied his destiny to Bush. I think if the D's did the crony thing, it would fall flat.

I don't know. I think it would carry some weight with the general public. Keep in mind the mentality of these folks. In some minds, all Texan's are a bit different than the rest of us and all of them know each other.

Anyway, I don't think the whole Crony thing would be all that hard, there must have been some contacts they could exploit. Would it be powerful? No, but better than only having Roe v. Wade to fight on.

patent

[Gator113]

Being a very spiteful man, if I were Bush, having been gutted by my own party, I would assign Traitor Kerry to come up with a nominee.

Then if Rove and Libby were indicted and considering that more than half of the citizens of this "once" great Country are now against the War, I would call ALL of our Troops home.

I would wait until I could give Rove and Libby a Presidential Pardon and then I would walk out to the Rose Garden and tell the American people that........... they can all KMA while they fight the terrorists in their own streets. Then, I would go fishing.............

[America_Right]

Ok, tinfoil hat time...

Think about this. What if this was the plan all along?

President Bush has been losing support from the conservative base for a long time. The border issue has pushed a lot of us away from the Republican party (I no longer give any money to them), and they needed a way to get us back into the fold.

Now, the Prez pulls this crap with nominating a woman for SCOTUS who has no real qualifications for the job other than being his friend and having a vagina. Oh, and let's not forget all of her liberal speeches and writings, not to mention the fact that she gave money to Gore and Clinton. The conservative base is now totally put off, and wants nothing more to do with this administration, or perhaps even the Republican party.

The conservatives stew for a while. We do everything we can to get the nomination to be pulled, but to no avail for almost an entire month.

Suddenly, out of the blue, the Prez starts talking tough about illegal immigration. Wow! None of us expected that! But, there it was. He finally came out against illegals. Sure, we won't believe it until we see some action that doesn't involve amnesty, but at least he said something. Days later, the nomintaion of Harriet Meirs is withdrawn. Suddenly, we are pulling together. The Bush bashing has stopped. The conservatives are happy and are ready to work with our party again.

Absolutely masterful. By the '06 elections, we will all be solidly behind the Republicans again. I, for one, am very happy to now have a party I can get behind.

Just an opinion, as I am not one of the tinfoil hat crowd. But, this certainly smacks of a conspiracy to get us conservatives back to the Republican party where we belong.

[Mulch]

So you can develop my whole position on illegal immigration on just one comment? Hmm. And you claim that it is I who is misrepresenting. Well, please tell me then sir, what is my stance exactly? I would love to hear your "version" of my stance. I know one thing for sure, your version will have the word "racist" at least once.

[xzins]

How will this affect the Supreme Court? Chances are the successor to O'Conner will now be the real thing, a justice with unequivocally conservative leanings who tilts the ideological balance of the court to the right. Whether Miers would have had the same impact we'll never know.

If Fred means the next nominee, then he could be right.

If he means the "successor to O'Connor," then he's in a dream world. Rinos will not permit a real conservative on the court. JMHO.

[robertpaulsen]

Who's your pick, Fred? Or are you just going to wait and criticize?

[gop_gene]

I read that Alito was narrowly passed over for Miers. Perhaps it will be him.

If that was the case that's a shame. Alito blows Miers out of the water but would have been discriminated against only because he was born an XY instead of an XX.

[Concerned]

TALL_TEXAN WROTE: "I'll once again make my darkhorse pitch for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott"

USPATRIETTE RESPONDED: "That would be AWESOME. Can't say I expect it, though."

I had been thinking TX Senator Cornyn would be a good choice, but I ABSOLUTELY LOVE TX AG Greg Abbott!!! Abbott WOULD be literally AWESOME as a Justice on the SCOTUS!!!

[CitizenUSA]

saveliberty wrote: "All I was suggesting is that it's a tough thing to build consensus."

Oh, I agree. Once consensus is reached, the leadership should certainly have an obligation to fight for our agreed-upon goals.

[Tall_Texan]

On the contrary, Abbott isn't really close to the Bushes and certainly hasn't been handed jobs like head of the Lottery Commission thanks to the Bushes. Anybody from Texas is going to be suspicious to the liberals, so what? Last I checked, Texas was still in the Union, just like California and New York.

I guess Miers has significantly lowered the bar as to who's eligible. I'd say Abbott is far more qualified than Miers.

[Condor51]

Whether Miers would have had the same impact we'll never know.

This is just a hunch mind you, but if Miers had been confirmed, I think we might have had the first SCOTUS Bowling Team in U.S. history.

Okay, okay. I know that was bad, I'll stop.

[ However, I had heard rumors that Souter throws a mean 'back up' ball. ]
Okay, now I'm done :-)

[Diddle E. Squat]

Well that's all you gave me to go on. You severely edited his quote (which gave it a very different meaning) and then said " Looks like Fred still doesn't get it when it comes to illegal immigration."

Some may conclude that if what you quoted was all he said, but the full quote will lead many to a very different conclusion.

So the rest of rant becomes a straw man.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Well that's all you gave me to go on. You severely edited his quote (which gave it a very different meaning) and then said " Looks like Fred still doesn't get it when it comes to illegal immigration."

Some may conclude that if what you quoted was all he said, but the full quote will lead many to a very different conclusion.

So the rest of your rant becomes a straw man.

[KMAJ2]

[[Oh, I agree. Once consensus is reached, the leadership should certainly have an obligation to fight for our agreed-upon goals.]]

The problem is defining consensus and assessing the damage that was done by all the vitriol that was spewed. Hard core conservatives like to claim 'they got Bush elected'. Reality is that no ONE group alone got him elected. Not hard core conservatives, not Christian conservatives, not pragmatic conservatives, not moderates and not neo-conservatives. If anyone of these groups had not provided the votes their blocs delivered, Bush would not be president. If, during this battle, any segment has been alienated, the damage could be irreparable. I came across this exchange on polipundit:

---

“Like many have posted above, I believe NOW is the time to rally the Republican Party and all other Conservatives by nominating someone we can rally around!”

Sorry…I am not in a mood to rally at the moment. I thought my party meant it when they cried for years that EVERY nominee deserves an up or down vote. What I learned over the past several weeks is that for the most part we are hypocrites and I want NOTHING to do with that way of thinking.
I remain firm behind the President as I have been all along. I have no time nor inclination to to stand around those who have been so nasty in their judgement of HM. Color me disillusioned, disappointed, and utterly discouraged. I will not be doing any rallying any time soon. You guys may have won the battle but when it comes time to work hard in 2006 and 2008 you lost. you can count me out along with many of us ‘conservatives” in So Cal. I know I am far from being alone in my position, sadly.
Good luck to you all in the next SCOTUS war. I am sitting it out.

---

If this type of emotional reaction cannot be assuaged, conservatives, as a whole, will be the big losers in 2006 and 2008. I do not concur with the above reaction, but I do understand the feelings behind it. The healing has to come not only from Bush to those conservatives who felt ignored, but from those conservatives towards others who did not agree with them. As much as we complain about 'RINOs', we are still not at a point where we don't need them. It is those RINOs that give us control in Congress.

I have seen some comments about focusing on defeating RINOs. Though I agree we should seek more conservative representation, to focus on defeating RINOs, instead of democrats, is self-defeating. That does not mean we should ignore trying to get RINOs replaced with more conservative representatives, but we cannot take our primary focus off defeating democrats. It makes no logical sense to defeat a RINO, who could win a statewide or district race, in a primary with a conservative who will lose a statewide or district race to a democrat.

As you can see, I fall into the category of pragmatic, big picture or reality based conservative. I share almost all the goals of hard core conservatives, but I am not an ideologue. I try to assess the political landscape rather than act like a bull in a china shop.

[hershey]

Excellent piece.

[BigSkyFreeper]

He'll also have Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist with him enthusiastically--and prepared to impose the "nuclear option" to shut off a Democratic filibuster if necessary.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will be working with him enthusiastically. It's McRino and his dopey backroom dealing with the devil that Bush and Frist need to be wary of.