That is a indisputable argument. We will never know how the Senate would vote...in the past they have voted for poorly-qualified justices like Renquist and Warren...but Miers was not given a vote.
Limbaugh and Hannity get to decide today. Yeah!!!! for freedom and Yeah!!! for truth...I mean Fox News freedom and truth.
"Being the President's buddy is enough, IF the Senate says so. If the Senate says no, then it's not. That's what the Constitution says, and that's how it works.
That is a indisputable argument. We will never know how the Senate would vote...in the past they have voted for poorly-qualified justices like Renquist and Warren...but Miers was not given a vote."
Miers had no right to a vote.
If you delve further into your Constitution, you'll find right there in Article I that the houses of Congress have the power to set their own internal rules.
So, the big picture is: the President can propose, and the Senate can advise, and can consent or reject. The way the Senate goes about doing those things is in accordance with the internal rules that the Senate sets up for itself, just like the Constitution said.
And that's what the Senate did. It followed its internal rules, and did nosecounting and politicking, and various Senators ADVISED the President that he DIDN'T have the votes.
We will never know what the final vote count would have been, because before it came to that, Ms. Miers (and not Limbaugh, and not Hannity) withdrew her name from consideration. And that ended that.
Of course, out in the wider democracy, Limbaugh and Hannity had the full freedom to campaign against Miers (if you have your Constitution handy, you will find their right to do that enumerated in Amendment 1). They brought to bear as much political pressure as they could against those elected Senators. So did a number of other people. And the net result was that the Senators ADVISED the President that he didn't have the votes.
Nowhere along the way did anything happen that was not eminently constitutional.
Of course, had things been pressed to a debate and a vote, it would have been very, very difficult for Republican Senators to speak too strongly against the President's choice, or to vote against her. That's why it was politically imperative to nip her candidacy in the bud before it came to commitment time by the Senators.