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October 27, 2005
Et tu Brutus? Malkin? Coulter?
Well, about an hour and a half ago the news broke that Harriet Miers has withdrawn her name from consideration for the SCOTUS. Many are going to play this as a loss for the President, I don't really see it that way. Primarily I see this for a loss for the Democrats, they had the opportunity to support her nomination and gain themselves a Reagan (Ronald) on the court rather than another Scalia or Thomas. A Democrat turned Republican, someone who once was firmly in their camp and now has drifted away from the far left hijackers of the party of Jackson. Now the Democrats will find themselves faced with an extreme far right candidate, and one that the Republicans will rally behind and force the "Gang of 14" to come on board with.
The Democrats will most probably now be forced to mount a filibuster attack on the next nominee, it's a fight they will lose, and lose bad.
As for my compatriots on the right? You've done a disservice to the President and our own party, but the damage can be easily undone. You wanted to start a fight and now we'll have this unnecessary battle. Personally, I think our battle could have been better fought with Miers than "another" Harvard super-lawyer. Instead of this battle being fought in the vernacular of the common man, we'll now be fighting it in the legal-ese reserved mainly for highbrow esoteric discussions found only in law schools. The general population will become quickly disinterested in such legal blather and when they lose interest, so goes the value of the debate.
So to the right? Ok, you've got your battle coming, it's a battle we didn't need to fight and will probably hamper other battles we could have fought over Social Security or IRS reform. But you got it, so start getting your ducks in a row.
To the left? You screwed up. Now you're going to have to fight and fight hard to retain your filibuster. Most probably we'll take it away from you and then hand you a severe loss on the eve of the 2006 election season.
To the President? No sweat. You tried to be a uniter and give a little to both sides, but neither wanted it. So forget about playing to the left, concentrate on the right and the center. Use the opportunity as you wish to put on the person you want, you're not hampered by the perceived necessity to put a woman up, or even a minority at all. You can put a far right white male if you want and no one can say a thing about it. Let the Republicans do the heavy lifting for you now, and move on to other things. If you wanted, you could even throw up Alberto Gonzales and watch the Democrats finally melt down completely.
What's obvious now is that the far right nor the far left wants any of this uniter BS, so why even play the game. If the far left and far right have resigned themselves to the fact that the only choices now are leading to a quantuum shift on the court? So be it. Let's put up a far right uber-lawyer, then let Stevens retire and do it again.
Probably the worst thing about all this is our lose of the concept of a "fair up or down vote", it's forever lost now as both sides have given up on the concept. The Senate has lost their real advisory power and it's gone over to the pundits and media hounds. Oh well, in the end, that will play to the President's advantage.
--Jason
Posted by JasonColeman at October 27, 2005 9:29 AM
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