The Long, Hard Road To Crash & Burn

[Editor's note: This is "take #2". Take #1 was...well, "taken" at 2 AM PDT this morning when I hit the delete key by mistake and erased everything I'd painstakingly written over the previous two hours. Which speaks, I suppose, to the unwisdom of starting a long blog post after midnight - at least when your subconscious awakened you before 6 AM the previous morning for purposes that are none of anybody else's business other than to say that the latter made the former worth it - but just barely.

Note to Blogger IT geeks: an "undo" function in this word processing window would be highly appreciated.]

Hey, Harriet Miers has a paper trail! Who knew?

Well, okay, not much of one. Actually it reads more like letters to the editor of Good Housekeeping, Better Homes & Gardens, and maybe a touch of Redbook.

Peruse your way through them if you wish. What is far more pertinent to me is the common undercurrent that runs throughout, which David Frum encountered no difficulty in discerning:

A few key themes recur in these short essays: Miers' aversion to conflict, or even outspoken debate; her devotion to the ideal of "diversity"; and her commitment to the interests of the legal profession above all else.

It may not be the world's most vivid self-portrait, but it is a telling one. And those who imagine that it is the self-portrait of a woman who might be inclined to do anything as bold, as risky, as controversial, as dangerous as vote to overturn Roe v. Wade really ought to read these essays in full. After all: that's just about all the record there is.

Hmmm; doesn't sound much like Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas to me. And this is the stuff that Ed Gillespie extolled last Thursday as "an indication of the depth and seriousness of the would-be justice's thoughts"? If this is an accurate indication of Harriet Miers' intellect, it appears to be shallower than the kiddie pool at Munchkinland.

Kinda makes me wonder, especially after the ass-chewing Gillespie took from conservative activists last week, if he regrets not having quit while he was ahead after the John Roberts slam-dunk.

Another grasped Miers straw snapped over the weekend courtesy of the gents over at What Now?, who only needed a calendar to grasp that Harret Miers didn't have a blessed thing to do with "giving" us Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, Bill Pryor, and other stellar appellate court nominees:

Harriet Miers has held the position of Counsel to the President since February 3, 2005, when the previous occupant of that office, Alberto Gonzalez, was confirmed
by the Senate to be US Attorney General. Since that time, President Bush has made twelve nominations to the US Circuit Courts, all of them on February 14, 2005, eleven days after Ms. Miers became White House Counsel. Eleven of these nominees were originally nominated during Bush's first term but never received a vote in the Senate.

In other words, A-G Gonzales "gave" us those top-tier appellate court nominees, and as the WN? guys point out, 'tis unlikely that the Bushies would be touting that on his behalf were he the SCOTUS nominee.

Or maybe they would. It's difficult to tell just how their minds are working anymore, so erratic and misdirected has their spin become. Though when one remembers that the President didn't expend a fraction of the effort fighting the Democrats for his shafted appellate court picks as he is trying to shove Harriet Miers down conservatives' collective gullet, the big picture starts coming into dismaying focus.

Perhaps that explains why some on the center-right who were defending the Miers pick last week have now changed their tunes.

For example, John Fund:

I have changed my mind about Harriet Miers. Last Thursday, I wrote in OpinionJournal's Political Diary that "while skepticism of Ms. Miers is justified, the time is fast approaching when such expressions should be muted until the Senate hearings begin. At that point, Ms. Miers will finally be able to speak for herself."

But that was before I interviewed more than a dozen of her friends and colleagues along with political players in Texas. I came away convinced that questions about Ms. Miers should be raised now - and loudly - because she has spent her entire life avoiding giving a clear picture of herself. "She is unrevealing to the point that it's an obsession," says one of her close colleagues at her law firm. [emphasis added]

That's not so unusual in and of itself; it's the "obsession" part that is troubling, especially given from which side of the aisle - and perhaps also which president - she appears to have been struggling to conceal her views:

It is traditional for nominees to remain silent until their confirmation hearings. But previous nominees, while unable to speak for themselves, have been able to deploy an array of people to speak persuasively on their behalf. In this case, the White House spin team has been pathetic, dismissing much of the criticism of Ms. Miers as "elitism" or even echoing Democratic senators who view it as "sexist."

But it was Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who went so far as to paint Ms. Miers as virtually a tool of the man who has been her client for the past decade. "In Texas, we have two important values, courage and loyalty," he told a conference call of conservative leaders last Thursday. "If Harriet Miers didn't rule the way George W. Bush thought she would, he would see that as an act of betrayal and so would she."

That [wa]s an argument in her favor. It sounds more like a blood oath than a dignified nomination process aimed at finding the most qualified individual possible. [emphasis added]

If one wishes to put the devil horns on Ms. Miers, one could speculate that she's really a closet lib who has told George W. Bush everything he wanted to hear in order to manipulate him into lifting her to where she ultimately wanted to go - the Supreme Court. That's probably excessively harsh, but she didn't turn down the nomination, which a humble and realistic look at her minimal resume would seem to almost demand.

If one wishes to give Ms. Miers that benefit of the doubt, it still remains a fact that George Bush will leave office in January 2009, while if she lives the average U.S. life expectancy for women, she'll be atop Olympus for an additional fifteen years. That's an awfully long time in which to make new "friends" and establish new loyalties, and if Miers is as "conflict-averse" as her meager writings suggest, those friends and loyalties won't hail from the Scalia/Thomas philosophical neighborhood.

Such likelihoods have also brought around Polipundit as well:

Since her nomination was announced, I’ve said that Harriet Miers should be confirmed to the Supreme Court, despite her unexciting qualifications, because she’s a conservative. Information that has come out over the last week has caused me to believe she is not a conservative. So I’m changing my position: Harriet Miers should not be confirmed by the Senate.

Indeed, so thoroughly converted has he become that I could almost believe that he's been studying my posts of the past week. (Almost, that is...):

Politically, Miers’ entire career seems to be one of going along to get along. From her donations to Al Gore and Lloyd Bentsen, to her non-membership in the Federalist Society, she seems eager to fit in with the liberal-lawyer crowd. Miers says she didn’t join the FedSoc “or other ‘politically charged’ groups because they ’seem to color your view one way or another.’” Doesn’t the liberal ABA count? In the White House, Miers argued for every judicial nomination to be vetted by the ABA.

Miers just doesn’t seem to understand who the friends and enemies of modern conservatism are. Such ignorance is dangerous....

Harriet Miers is Alberto Gonzales in a dress. I would not support the confirmation of Gonzales; so why should I support the confirmation of Miers?

He also gets what hideously bad politics the Miers pick is:

Some will argue that defeating Miers in the Senate would be politically damaging to the GOP. But it would be worse for Miers to be confirmed and become another O’Connor. Miers’ confirmation would be terribly demoralizing to conservatives like me, who donate thousands of hard-earned dollars to Republican candidates every year. We did not help elect a Republican president, and 55 Republican senators, so that we could get another O’Connor on the Court. [emphasis added]

Worlds without end, halleluliah amen.

He even smacks the McCain Mutineers right between the eyes:

A coalition of, say 30 conservative Republican senators, and 21 liberal Democrat senators, could stop Miers from being confirmed. And so they should. Mushy moderates, like the Gang of 14, are the biggest supporters of this nomination; it’s about time that principled ideologues, on both sides of the aisle, asserted their supremacy.

So say we all.

And the White House's "pathetic" spinners may be laying the unintended groundwork for just that:

The White House has acknowledged that presidential adviser Karl Rove has been making calls seeking conservative support for Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, but it denied that Rove gave "backroom assurances” on Miers’ likely votes to secure that support.

The issue arose after syndicated radio host James Dobson, founder of the conservative advocacy group Focus on the Family, said he had spoken in confidence with Rove and that their conversation had persuaded him to support Miers.

"When you know some of the things that I know, that I probably shouldn’t know, you will understand why I have said – with fear and trepidation – that I believe Harriet Miers will be a good justice.” [emphasis added]

Man, oh man. You can just hear the groaning, wailing, and gnashing of teeth over in the West Wing over Dobson's loose lips from here. Whatever they told Dobson they probably confided in him as opposed to, say, Pat Robertson (who has also endorsed Miers) figuring that the Focus on the Family founder would have the sense God gave a doorknob to keep his mouth shut.

Thing is, I think Dobson does have that sense, which suggests that there perhaps might be some calculation behind his beans-spilling. After all, endorsements of Ms. Miers outside of GOP operatives have come almost exclusively from the evangelical community, which, quite frankly, is being used by the Bushies almost as egregiously as Pappy's administration did a decade and a half ago. Somehow I doubt that I'm the only "fundie" to take notice.

In any case, the perception of hypocrisy and double-dealing, which would be bad enough amongst Dubya's disaffected core supporters, could be even worse in the group of people that the White House has imperiously said are the only ones that matter (which, ultimately, they are, but it was still corrosively arrogant to say it): the U.S. Senate:

Dobson’s comments raised suspicion in both parties that Miers has disclosed how she might vote on sensitive issues such as abortion, gay marriage and school prayer, according to the Dallas Morning News.

"Even if she hasn’t, critics suspect that the president has some private knowledge regarding Miers’ views that he is not sharing with those who must vote for her confirmation,” the newspaper reported.

On ABC’s This Week, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said: "If there are backroom assurances, and if there are backroom deals, and if there is something which bears upon a precondition as to how a nominee is going to vote, I think that’s a matter that ought to be known by the Judiciary Committee and the American people.”

And Vermont Senator Pat Leahy, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said: "If anybody ... wants to be on the Supreme Court or any court and are going to get that appointment based on assurances of how he or she would vote, they’re not qualified to be on that court.”

Leahy and Specter both said they would be willing, if necessary, to summon Rove and Dobson to investigate the issue.

The Miers nomination is, at least so far, being so completely bungled by the Administration that it almost makes you wonder if, as I have already speculated, they're doing it deliberately in order to pave the way for Alberto Gonzeles to be nominated instead.

Last week I was pretty much resigned to Miers being confirmed. Now I'm not making any predictions. Indeed, several more weeks like this past one and her nomination may "crash and burn" before it ever reaches the Judiciary Committee. And if it hasn't (quite), salvaging it may be well beyond her modest (and compared with John Roberts' expert fencing, non-existent) capabilities.

We can only hope (and pray) so, and that the President recognizes an engraved second chance when he sees it.

UPDATE: Add Rich Lowry to the "Hell, no on Harriet" hordes:

The nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court is foundering, but President Bush is confident that she will be confirmed. Bush thus displays a touching faith in the power of hypocrisy, double standards, and contradictions to see his nominee through. The case for Miers is an unholy mess, an opportunistic collection of whatever rhetorical flotsam happens to be at hand.

"Abort mission," Mr. President. It's becoming better advice by the day.

UPDATE II: John Fund is warning of half a dozen "Oh, bleep!" stories on Miers that will keep the Dobson indiscretion in toe-cringing company down at Miersian HQ:

JF: Here's the problem. Because the White House has been so unfair to Harriet Miers and her supporters, because they haven't collected the information, they've sent you onto the beaches of Normandy without proper ammunition and armament. Because of that, we are going to see six or seven surprises come down the road the next few days, about Harriet Miers. Now all of them are sustainable individually. The problem is because the White House was completely unprepared for this, they're doing a disservice to you and her supporters...

HH: Want to give me an example of one, John?

JF: The Texas Lottery Commission, and all the various contracts that were allocated, how they were allocated, and Harriet Miers' role in them.

HH: And what's that going to tell us about her?

JF: The story will be coming out this week, and it's going to involve possible interference by the governor's office with the operations of the Lottery Commission. I'm not saying Harriet Miers was involved. I'm simply saying these are stories that are going to come out, that need answers, and frankly, the White House hasn't done the homework.

"Speedy" is warming up in the bullpen, mark my words....

ONE MORE UPDATE: "Dave" offers this forecast on AmSpec blog:

The holiday weekend didn't cool the nomination storm. It's only grown. Now more and more clear headed conservatives (a category which doesn't include Pat Buchanan or George Will) are calling for Miers' defeat in the Senate. Do the math. Half of the GOP caucus is doubtful, the Washington Times reported yesterday. And while the abortion lobby is holding fire, as soon as Miers clams up the Angry Left will pressure Senate Democrats not to confirm. Desirable or not, the rejection of Harriet Miers appears more likely by the day. As James Taranto wrote yesterday, "Anyone still think she's a shoo-in?" [emphasis added]

And then this devastating postscript:

The White House's best hope for Miers may be indictments from Patrick Fitzgerald, which could distract the press and the left long in enough to slip her in.

Ouch....