More Bush Nonsense

That was the subject line of a post over on the Corner the other day. And it wasn't about Harriet Miers, either (don't worry, we'll return to that subject soon enough):

The Associated Press reports, “Minority businesses to get preference in Katrina bids.” Given the huge tab, wouldn’t this be the one time when we could just award the contract to the lowest bidder?

Good question. And yet another one for which the White House can't, or won't, offer up a good answer.

I like Scott McClellan. Not that I've ever met the man, so that's not a personal accolade, strictly speaking, and I don't know what fetish is displayed by the President's apparent preference for premature male pattern baldness in his spokespeople, but he comes across as what a White House press secretary should be: polite, professional, a mouthpiece rather than a filter - and, since this is a Republican administration, patience that would make Job himself look short-tempered.

This is precisely why I don't envy him his job these days.

Case in point (via Bench Memos):

In a series of heated exchanges with reporters at his daily news briefing that seemed to reflect the White House's frustration with the difficulties the nomination has encountered, Mr. McClellan said there had been too much focus by journalists on "side issues like religion" and not enough attention on "her record and her qualifications."

"Heated exchanges"? A "series of them"? From Scott McClellan? The Times might just as well run a story claiming that the Sphinx has developed a Dubya-like smirk. I've heard and seen past exchanges between McClellan and reporters where, had I been in his place, I would have been screaming at the jackal pack, but which he took perfectly in stride, without even altering his bland, milquetoast monotone. How bad must this Miers debacle be if the Man of Smile has become hair-trigger grumpy?

Note also his complaint that the press has focused too much on "side issues like religion" and not enough on Miers' "record and qualifications." Two problems with that: it was the President himself who played up her religious convictions as a substitute for her missing judicial philosophy; and [drumroll] SHE DOESN'T HAVE ANY RECORD OR QUALIFICATIONS, at least none that merit a Supreme Court appointment. [Bleep]-[bleep], that's why Bush pushed her faith in the first place.

Frankly, I couldn't do McClellan's job. Not about this. I'd be going out to these daily press briefings and lying like a rug, well, daily. And given how many White House staffers are themselves opposed to the Miers pick (see below), I'd be willing to bet that McClellan is among their number. I guess he's got mouths to feed, and it must be a heady experience to work, in Pat Buchanan's old phrase, "close to the Western summit," but can it really be worth it to knowingly make yourself sound like a cretin day in and day out?

How about to work in a White House that may have done this in order to scoot the President's "girl" to the front of the line?

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alice Batchelder was reportedly on the Administration’s short list for a Supreme Court vacancy at some point. According to FNC’s Brit Hume, she was struck from the list because of a record of “judicial activism.”...

Those familiar with Batchelder’s record were surprised at the charge...

If the White House was the source of this charge (and other unflattering and even more spurious notions floated about Batchelder in recent weeks), it is very troubling. As Alt observes, smearing qualified candidates for the Court is no way for this Administration to win back the trust and loyalty of the conservative base. [emphasis added]

Not just smearing constitutionalist judges, but doing so on behalf of a cipher crony with charges of "activism" in which she herself is far more likely to engage once on the High Court.

Guess we can take Batchelder off the replacement list. Even if the Bushies apologized profusely, I wouldn't give them the time of day if I were her.

How could such a thing happen? How did Bush the Son morph into Bush the Father so suddenly? Or was the whole plan all along to avoid a "read my lips" moment until after re-election, after which Dubya would be free to be as RINO as he wanted to be?

There's a strong case to be made for that. Because it's difficult to fathom how a White House that had been an exemplar of professional excellence could become this incompetent, this quickly:

The vetting of Harriet Miers leaves questions that demand answers, not more spin or allegations that critics are "sexist" or "elitist." It was so botched and riddled with conflicts of interest that it demands at a minimum an internal White House investigation to ensure it won't happen again....

The Miers pick had its origin in the selection of John Roberts last July. Ms. Miers was praised for her role in selecting him and the wildly positive reaction. At that point, a senior White House official told the Washington Post that William K. Kelley, the deputy White House counsel who had been appointed to his post only the month before, stepped in. The Post reported that Mr. Kelley "suggested to [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card that Miers ought to be considered for the next seat that opened."...

Even though several highly regarded female lawyers were on Mr. Bush's short list, President Bush and Mr. Card discussed the idea of adding Ms. Miers. Mr. Card was enthusiastic about the idea. The New York Times reported that he "then directed Ms. Miers' deputy . . . to vet her behind her back."

For about two weeks, Mr. Kelley conducted a vetting he has described to friends as thorough. It wasn't. A former Justice Department official calls it "barely adequate for a nominee to a federal appeals court." One Texas lawyer called by the White House was struck by the fact "that the people who were calling about someone from Texas and serving a Texas president knew so little about Texas." (Mr. Kelley didn't return [John Fund's] telephone calls.) [emphasis added]

Oh, don't worry, the, yes I'm going to say it, corruption was even worse:

Regardless of whether or not the vetting process was complete, it presented impossible conflicts of interest. Consider the position that Mr. Bush and Mr. Card put Mr. Kelley in. He would be a leading candidate to become White House counsel if Ms. Miers was promoted. He had an interest in not going against his earlier recommendation of her for the Supreme Court, or in angering President Bush, Ms. Miers's close friend. As journalist Jonathan Larsen has pointed out he also might not have wanted to "bring to light negative information that could torpedo her nomination, keeping her in the very job where she would be best positioned to punish Kelley were she to discover his role in vetting her." [emphases added]

In short, Kelly was deliberately put in the position where he couldn't possibly vet Harriet Miers objectively. The only possible explanation for that is that the President didn't want to see any reasons why he shouldn't reward her brownnosing loyalty with a Supreme Court seat like it was some sort of glorified gold watch.

But don't just take my word for it:

Mr. Lubet, the Northwestern professor, says "all the built-in incentives" of the vetting process were perverse. "In business you make an effort to have disinterested directors who know all the material facts to resolve conflicts of interest," he told me. "In the Miers pick, the White House was sowing its own minefield."

"It was a disaster waiting to happen," says G. Calvin Mackenzie, a professor at Colby College in Maine who specializes in presidential appointments. "You are evaluating a close friend of the president, under pressure to keep it secret even internally and thus limiting the outside advice you get."

And if this expert analysis isn't good enough for you, try that of the Attorney-General and the Vice President:

Indeed, even internal advice was shunned. Mr. Card is said to have shouted down objections to Ms. Miers at staff meetings. A senator attending the White House swearing-in of John Roberts four days before the Miers selection was announced was struck by how depressed White House staffers were during discussion of the next nominee. He says their reaction to him could have been characterized as, "Oh brother, you have no idea what's coming."

A last minute effort was made to block the choice of Ms. Miers, including the offices of Vice President Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. It fell on deaf ears. [my emphases]

So much for the left-wing caracatures of Big Time being the man behind the green curtain pulling Dubya's strings. Now I almost wish it were true.

Gerard Baker over the Times of London doesn't use my "RINO as he wants to be" line, but what he does say about this is dismayingly equivalent:

[T]he Trouble with Harriet is much larger than any of this. It is not just that she is so obviously unfit to hold the office of associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, though she is certainly that. It is the simple, depressing lack of seriousness demonstrated by the White House in coming up with such a candidate, the sheer cramped and occluded smallness of the thinking that now seems to characterise the Bush Administration’s approach to governing.

It is, in a word, nonsense.

And what a sad presidential legacy that would be.