3 October 2005 - 1:51pm
Fools rush in [updated]
It hasn't taken long for the big blog boys on the right and left to sound off on Harriet Miers. Not surprisingly, Markos and John Aravosis are already salivating. Apparently a Bush insider is just dandy for them. They seem to think this is a huge GOP blunder. Markos goes so far as to claim that Miers is a moderate -- though how he would figure that, given that she has virtually no paper trail, who knows?
Here's another take:
Karl Rove is no fool, and perhaps John and Markos and gloating Dems are falling for a feint. What happens if there's enough suspicion and resistance on both sides of the aisle so that she cannot win an up or down vote?
After all, while Miers has some questionable episodes in her partisan past, it's also clear that she's not quite the right's cup of tea.
Remember, we're entering an election season, and the radicals need political cover, and Miers is not it. They push back, and Bush then is "forced" to name a radical wingnut like Owens or Brown or some crazy outsider like Dobson himself (don't laugh ... well, okay, laugh), and the GOP goes into the election reinvigorated with hot excitement in its base, and renewed energy to push back the fiscal conservatives who would spoil the party and end the pig-outs at the taxpayer trough.
In other words, Miers is the attenuated virus to stimulate the white corpuscles in the right wing body, thus strengthening the body against infection. Miers could be rejected and a verifiable wingnut will be called in to unite the right.
Meanwhile, such developments would further alienate the Democratic Party-über-alles folks from progressive voters, who already are rather mistrustful of aspiring flacks, perhaps for good reason. In other words, it could be that Miers was nominated to be rejected by a bipartisan bloc, leading to reactions that will strengthen the Republicans while pitting the Democrat appeasers against their progressive voter base.
Too crazy? Too Machiavellian for Karl Rove? Come on, be honest now.
[Update: Lindsay notes that the set-up theory has been posed elsewhere by Tom Goldstein and Rick Hansen Hasen. Interesting....]
Look at how already, mere hours out of the starting blocks, the Dems are already once again at odds with their progressive base. Reid has come out endorsing Miers, which has won him few friends. And no doubt if Miers is rejected, Kos and company will jump back onto the game of blaming us progressives for our "pet issues," which does nothing but bring Karl Rove joy.
And the Dems in '06 will be in total disarray.
Then again, this gambit may not exist at all. Or she may be confirmed anyway. But that's hardly cause for gloating on the left. Sterling Newberry offers caution:
All it takes to get the left to roll over is a well coordinated right wing campaign that Mier is unacceptable to the right. The right did the same thing with Roberts - screamed that he wasn't acceptable. This is part of the strategy people - have the right scream so that the muddled middle has to think that she is one of them.
When "US v Rove" comes before the court, you'll see what this really means - Bush is lawyering up the court, appointing two long time conservative hacks to the bench to block anything that might lead back to him.
(As a sidebar attraction, Ana Marie opts to chase the obviously pertinent question of whether Miers once fought Gang of 14 poster-child Priscilla Owen over a man. Anyway....)
For a good run-down on links around the blogozoid, including the unhappy wingnuts who'll assist in the potential Rove gambit I posit above, go see The Heretik.
media girl also blogs at other places.
Similar entries
store
Buy stuff here.
Comments
Hey I followed your link from Pandagon. I'm a first time poster. Just a note, it was the Scalia nomination that followed the Bork under Reagan. Thomas was Bush I. And very unqualified in my opinion.
The Miers nomination will pass in my opinion. If karl rove is planning a tactical defeat to over-exstend the enemy, I think he is underestimating the republican troops valour for Dear Leader. I can think about so many times that the right's blogs have whinned over bush's lack of real conservatism. Honestly, how many have bolted? Where has the great exodus to the libertarian party been? Where was a Judge Roy Moore splinter canadicy in 2004? To be far, how many progressives have bolted for the Greens, or Canada for that matter?
Miers honestly feels like Bush shooting from the hip. Delay is under double indictment, Frist and Rove are under investigation. He had to admit fault and that he was wrong in the wake of the Katrina disaster. It is reported that he is back to drinking. Iraq is just idleing as the neo-cons realize that their dreams of Iraqi bases will be dashed by a new constitutional provision that will require 2/3 of the parliment to authorize the presence of foreign troops. This stinks of despiration to change the subject, like so many white house manuvers of late. Bush has been defeating himself since the election. From touching the third rail, to scaring the senior shittless from the Schavio incident to having the media literaly turn on him after he let thousands suffer in one of Americas few world reaching centers of culture.
This nomination doesn't comeacross as a Rove at his best Masterstroke, like say the swift-boat or Homeland security job protection. If it is his work, I can see it no more than another Teri Schavio. Miers will pass. And if she doesn't, to what gain. Dear Leader looks more vaunerble. If he actually nominates a true fire breating, puppy eating winger, The winger will be filibustered, making Bush look all the more impotent.
Should we oppose this canidate? I honestly can't say. She is probably the mildest they come from the Bush camp. I honestly asy I have premonitions that this will backfire on Bush. She'll take the wrong side on an issue. She'll have had an abortion in the 70s. She'll have been a registered Democrate at one time.
Bush will still be President for 3 more years. He will get to pick the replacement. He cannot be bullied into compromise. He will dig in his feet the harder he is fought. We are in the minority. All we can really do is keep trying to trip up Bushco so that they start to fall in 2006. Realisticly, I cannot see this fall complete untill 2008. It going to be a long 3 years. Time to dig in, take stock, and look to see if we can change Bush's life ring into an anvil. >:)
Tha is not urging capitulation. That is arguing a tactical defeat to over-exstend our opponent for 2006. Get on TV can make the word Miers equate to "Moderate" in the ears of Jane and Joe American. In short give the republican base other priorities than voting come November of 2006. (Say diddling themselves to rapture porn.)
You say that progressives are the base of the Dems. I disagree. Union Labor and your "Democrates-uber-alles" members are. Who have the progressives elected in the last 10 years? I can name several Democrates that the Union and partisan Democrates have elected, from Clintion to Debbie Stanbenow. most recently, in the Hackett election it was the partisan Democrates who brought out the money and resources to change a 80-20 repub zone into one that went 51-49 Dem. We have inertia working against us. But fighting smarter can change it. I am almost ready to say, confirm Miers while gushing how moderate she is, and toss Bush the anvil.
If you think I am wrong on this, my mind is open, and I invite counter argument. My mind is not made up. But I want to fight, and my copy of "The Art of War" on my bookshelf has drilled it into my head to never attack a superior force head-on.
I remember this nation before the Right Wing ran it.
The nation has been drifting ever to the right and that these nominees could be called "moderates" says something about how far the nation has drifted.
If we really did have a centrist, the Right Wing would go wild in protest. Clinton was pretty much a Republican, so our idea of moderate is certainly skewed.
The rhetoric is that these nominees are preserving the Constitution.
I am not sure that the "Art of War" is all that it is cracked up to be. Was in not Mao who said, "war is diplomacy with bullets?" What is happening in this nation when people of so few qualifications are trundled out - but then again, look at the man at the top.
I really do think there is timeless wisdom in The Art of War. It translated very well to the view of life I had established in late elememtary school, that life was a series of debates (could call them battles, I guess, but since there was always physical fighting on the playground, I saw it as mental battles, ie, debates) What Sun Tzu said about picking your battle ground make perfect sense to me, because I was already doing it, calling it "Defining the Debate" as in setting the accepted parameters, because I realized if I could get the person whom I was debating to call "up" "down", I had already won.
Sun Tzu talked about how you must hold your ground, because each mile you marched your army, your enemy would be dogging you, killing 10% of your army per mile. Real life example, John Kerry's pandering different positions to different groups. You can't get away with that in the modern media age. It with his bungling of the Swift Boat Vets, cost him the election in my opinion.
I think the Art of War holds true because on a fundamental level, life is conflict. From the time humans were having to beat off leopards with clubs to today, where I had to assure my job security by verbally fencing with someone who I would politely call "A Backstabing Troll." We are currently in conflict with this evil element who wants to rape the rest of America, with a smile, and call it the "ownership society" I think it would be very short sided to ignore the wisdom of the past, even if it came from a less enlightened time.
About what Mao said, I would have to agree with it in reality. War is a tool of the state to use in places where diplomacy fails. As a tool it is often abused, but before you dismiss this thought as evil militantism, I ask you to consider the following battles. Japan in 1941 was convinced that America was going to enter WW2 on the side of the british. (probably true, Roosevelt was already sending arms conducting a peacetime draft) Japan reasoned that it couldn't stop america from a conflicting it militarily, so the thought that if they smashed america's navy the loss of power in the pacific would stop America from eventually having to fight Japan. Big mistake on their part.
A more recent example is that in the late 1990s, a group of younger conservative off shoots had an idea of American supremecy through out the world, heading off emerging superpowers like India and China. This philosphy, which any objective observer would call Neo-Imperialism, called for amoung other things, taking control of the world's primary energy supply, the Middle-East oil reserves. When they realized that they could never accomplish this goal diplomatically the resolved to bide their time, wait until they could come into power, then have an excuse to follow their mad ambitions. I don't think I need to name this conlfict, which we are still embroiled in.
War is ultimately a tool of the State. An awful, evil tool. But a tool we can never afford to get rid of, because the world is just too dangerous. I cannot look at world war 2 as a purer evil act (merely as a nessicary evil) Because, if we had not stop them, greater evil would have continued. The Holocaust's victims would have numbered in the 100's of millions. There would have been more atrocities like The Rape of Nanking. If we haddn't been there Stalin would have literally exterminated the German people in his eventual triumph over Hitler.
If Bill Clinton haddn't started bombing Serbia, it would still have a murderous tyrant, helbent on exterminating what ever people he can scapegoat this year. If George Bush 1 hadn't contained Saddam Hussain, we would be looking at three way war between Iraq, Isreal and Iran. War is evil, with a terrible human cost, but sometimes it just must be done. "Let me leave more good in this world than evil" Just to clarify, I think the current Iraq war is totally wrong, that it is going to eventually bleed America dry.
But I wouldn't put too much faith in single quotes from people. Look at the body of their work. Mao was an evil mass murdering son of a bitch who will never know rest. My german teacher kept a collection of odd quotes, his favorite being said by Adolf Hitler; "Nothing can truely last unless it is built in love" As I said; view the body of their life's work, not a single instance.
After Bork we got Kennedy. NOT Scalia. Scalia was already a Justice. And definitely not Thomas, mediagirl.
This is such an important point. Why do people keep getting it wrong. Kennedy - remember him, wrote the Lawrence opinion? The Bork opposition was a victory.
I had it wrong and had come across the correct info not long after writing this. I should have corrected it. Mea culpa. Thanks for the note on this.
I don't consider Borking Bork a mistake. On the contrary.
Besides, I'm now of the opinion that Miers really IS the intended nominee, and the cheering from the left is a big mistake.
Checking wikipedia, I see I was wrong and you were right.
Reading the article further, I do not see parralels between the cases. For Kennedy, we had a Dem majority in the senate to oppose Bork, the executioner from Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre. Then Reagan's next pick withdrew over allegations of potsmoking. Unlike Bush II Reagan could be forced to compromise.
We've never had a Progressive candidate, so you really don't know what we're capable of, now do you?
Doesn't it bother anyone that these judges aren't qualified? 2 years for Roberts? NO judicial experience for Miers? You don't think this a bit odd?
Keep in mind, the Supreme Court hears Articles of Impeachment. I say a deal has already been made.
Support the Women's Autonomy and Sexual Sovereignty Movements
Honestly, why haven't we seen progressive canidates? I mean how many Democratic Precint captancies lie vacant? It is not hard to get one. it is often a matter of getting all of your friends and family to vote for you, and standing outside of your polling station meeting and greeting. I know this for the fact that one of my friends tried the meet and greet alone. She lost by 3 votes (10-7) against this lady who had been precinct captain since Vietnam.
If the "progressives" were to organize a big effort into this, and make an effort of packing the county democrate party meetings (where agenda's are set) they could in effect take control of the base. Instead of a conservative "trickle down" that the progs' seem to be taking, why don't they take a liberal "preculate up" approach. If they seized control of the Precinct captancies, then any canidate who wished to campaign in their precinct has to go through the progressive, forcing the canidate to take more progressive stances. Seizing control of the county level meetings is how the Xian Collition made abortion the big wedge issue that has worked so well for them. Why haven't we seen any of this yet?
Not critising you personally, but, I want to see a plan to succeed before I throw in with the progressives. Show me the plan and I am in. I am just not going to join another Green party and loose everything by not being willing to loose some.
As to your question about supporting unqualified judges, I really have to ask are we going to get anything better? Bush holds the laddle for the soup. Bush cannot be reasoned with. If you try to argue with him, he digs in his heels and gets spitefull. To reason with Bush, you have to grab him by the nipple and the balls, and start twisting, preferably shouting in his face. I cannot honestly see us ever getting a good compromise canidate under bush.
Out of Idle curiosity who would you pick as a compromise canidate between republicans and Democrates? Just out of Idle curiosity.
And It is the Senate who hear the Articles of Impeachment, not the court. The chief justice presides over the hearings but he doesn't have the power to overturn them. And, honestly I cannot see Bush ever getting impeached, unless his wee-wee is caught in Jeff Gannon's ha-ha.
...to throw in with progressives, then you're not a progressive. Progressive politics is not about power but about what the role of government should be, what real moral values are about. Too bad there's more money in selling out. That's why you don't see too much true progressivism in politics or in the kerfuffle industry surrounding politics.
I do hold progressive values. I just want to see as many of them implimented as possible. I see taking the progressive track will right now get none implimented. I see some getting implimented in taking partisan Democrate route. So I see it as a choice between getting to see some of my values implimented, or none - with the risk of a theocracy being implimented by my enemies to boot.
I see that avoiding the progressive track since Reagan was elected has cost the Democrats Congress and the Presidency. And even now, with the GOP fucking up so obviously, the Dems are not picking up. Why? Because they don't stand for anything. They won't speak for progressive values. And I fear that until they actually do find backbone, they will continue to lose.
Now that the right-wing has totally imploded over the nomination, you still think Markos and I are wrong about sitting back and enjoying the show? You might want to look at the top story on CNN.com :-) No one said Miers was a great nominee. We lost the election, we're not going to get an acceptable nominee, so get over it. But if the best we can get is helping foster a civil war in the Republican party, I'm in. [/snark]
"You lost the election, so get over it!"
But that doesn't gain much traction with me. However, I do think that I was wrong about Miers being a red herring. I think she's the real deal wingnut, a born again pro-torture born again anti-choice zealot with BushCo ties and experience that includes Bush v. Gore. Why you think this is a win is beyond me. Really.
I know you broke the story about Miers' having filled our a survey that said she supported equal rights for gays, but don't kid yourself. This is as much a loss for gays as for women. There going to go after reproductive rights first, but they aren't going to stop there. Look at that horrid bill that Indiana is considering. It's designed to keep lesbians from being able to have kids. Wisconsin has already outlawed parthenogenesis, and they can't even do that yet. This is going to get ugly, and it's going to affect you. The only thing they hate more than abortion and extramarital sex is gay sex. They gaslighted you guys with Roberts and Miers, and you caved way too soon.
I don't even believe that the Republican party is upset - that's all a smokescreen to lull us into a false sense of security. Fascism is here now, there's nothing to celebrate.
Support the Women's Autonomy and Sexual Sovereignty Movements