Perhaps-- or it could mean you are having a tough time getting past denial! :-)

The Dems and some Lefties seems to be happy with Miers, which I don't understand. Or maybe they are just bluffing?

I'm sitting on the fence till we learn more about her.

You may be right, Gerry. hee hee.

Hmmmm.

Frankly I'm very worried that Senator Reid suggested her to Bush. That really bothers me.

It's really rather strange isn't it? Democrats have gotten more out of Bush and the GOP than conservatives have ever gotten.

It's really starting to look like the best way to get your way with this administration, is to oppose it.

Am I the only one who thinks a blog named "Confirm Them" complaining about Bush's nominee is more than a little ironic?

dibs on "Maybe Confirm Them" and "Confirm them, Not!"

Oh, there's just no way that Reid "suggested Miers to Bush," as in, it can't possibly be that Bush was working so closely and confidentially (no doubt) with her all these years and then just, well, you know, only THOUGHT of her for the S.C. when Reid called him up during "Hollywood Squares" in the Senate Office Building.

Still, it makes for lovely quilting club chatter, I suppose:

...President Bush was working hard for many years and suddenly the phone rang in his private study adjacent to Harriet Miers' ready office, and it was Harry Reid, yelling out over the television broadcast that could be heard in the background, along with Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry yellin gout, "a ZERO, Whoopi, it's a ZERO" and Reid blurted out to Bush in bated breath, loud enough to be heard by Bush but not so loud as to wake the dozing Ted Kennedy on the floor before the blazing fire, "I had a dream last night, President Bush, and in that dream George Washington came to me and said that Mier should be the next Supreme Court Justice!" And Bush exclaimed over Barney's yelping, "Oh, so THAT'S where George was last night! Thank you, Harry Reid, I'd never have thought of her, so busy here in the White House these many past years, so silently, so under the radar, so forgotten and overlooked and unknown to me..."

Working 'closely and confidently' would matter more if I felt Bush wasn't a borderline conservative to begin with.

Frankly I'm very worried that Senator Reid suggested her to Bush. That really bothers me.

True, but that said, reports are now coming in that suggests she may even be more socially conservative that Roberts. So the question is - are the left wrong about her, or are the right wrong about her? Either way, I think the initial hysteria around her from conservatives may be a little premature. If she's a little to the right of O' Connor, I'll take it, and it looks like she is.

I agree (cutting through any tenuousness here, this issue) that Bush IS a borderline conservative but it seems that the presumption going is that no secured conservative would even be involved in government as a supposed public servant, and, that it is necessary to be a borderline conservative to simply get anything done, as impotently as anything actually is done lately in government.

The one thing all conservatives of all variations can share confidently is that we have a set of values that we all can rely on but that there are then tonal ranges of those values that we all argue about.

At least, these are the things I tell myself when I vote for Republicans as a conservative. Like Miers, I tried voting FOR A WHILE as a Democrat but I just could not live with the ballot cast, nor now even understand how I could take pursue that tangent. But it was pursued after and only after I was exasperated in my search for conservatives among Republicans and opted to vote as exasperated idealist.

This nomination by Bush really is him saying, "trust me" because otherwise, it doesn't make a lot of sense, other than he wants someone on the S.C. in Meirs who has the one and important value of perceiving the S.C. as not a legislative branch of government. It's a very important value, needless to say, but I'm still pondering Meir's personality otherwise.

I don't feel the outrage and offense here with Meirs as I read is the experience of many today and feel curiosity more than anything. One thing that her nomination WILL accomplish is a certain level of placidity by Democrats, and that could be a smart thing. Meirs is over sixty and isn't therefore likely to be a S.C. judge for too awfully long, so there is also that to consider. She's said to be a Christian and that goes a long way to my ability to have faith in her to do the right thing from the bench and not the wrong.

On the other hand, how she can not find Roe v. Wade a problem as a Christian is a problem in itself.

Hmmmm.

"She's said to be a Christian and that goes a long way to my ability to have faith in her to do the right thing from the bench and not the wrong."

Souter doesn't go to church?

"She's said to be a Christian and that goes a long way to my ability to have faith in her to do the right thing from the bench and not the wrong."

So you feel Supreme Court justices should be guided by their personal religious beliefs? What about when they tend to contradict the law?

You can add me to the positive comments. Some people showed their true colors. Conservatives don't jump to conclusions. The Harriet-Who? crowd should do their homework first, comment later

Ah, Mary Katherine - to say she got Dobson's nod might be overstating a bit. Compare it to the Focus statement when Roberts was nominated.

Hmmmmm.

"Conservatives don't jump to conclusions."

Considering that Kennedy, Souter, Stevens and O'Connor were all appointed by Republican presidents, a certain amount of jumping is probably warranted.

We'll see what happens. With all the angst, I've decide to create my own list of potential nominations

ed: Alistair Crowley went to church. I imagine he is still doing so in hell at this very moment: chained there is perpetuity to his very sticky seat forced to stare at a statue of the Virgin Mary for good measure. Satan is undoubtedly enjoying the experience.

...IN perpetuity...

Ed, nobody, but nobody is conservative enough for you. You've been wailing about Bush for quite a long time, all over the internet.

You want a more conservative president. We get that.

When you have Rush and Hannity practically saying "lets give this a chance and maybe it will work out" then you know the candidate has problems.

Word is that Souter has died and that Kennedy will be announcing the replacement any day now.

Krempasky, you're killin' my buzz here. hee hee.

Hmmmm.

"Ed, nobody, but nobody is conservative enough for you."

That's not exactly true. I don't demand that everyone conform to my view of conservatism. I don't demand that Republican politician's do everything my way.

However I do demand that the Republican party accomplish *something* that furthers at least one damn conservative issue. And so far that hasn't happened.

Look I don't like Miers because there is nothing that I can see that makes me believe she is a strict constitutionalist. I don't care if she's ok on gun rights. I personally love owning and shooting guns, but that's a single issue. I personally don't care about her position on abortion. That issue is a big thing for many people, but not so big with me. I don't care for abortion and I think it should be a state's rights sort of thing, but it isn't right now so there you go.

I'm not focused on any single issue. What I am focused on is someone who is going to be able to provide a recognizable constitutionalist viewpoint across all issues. Someone who is capable of more than just voting for herself and has both the scholarship and intellectual ability to convince other justices to her viewpoint.

In case it's escaped everyone's attention we still have a minority on the court. Even if Roberts *and* Miers turns out to be solid conservatives that vote in line with Scalia and Thomas, that's only four (4) out of nine (9) justices.

Unless Roberts and/or Miers is able to sway one of the other five, it's still totally useless. And I don't see Roberts having the experience to sawy anybody's judgement, chief justice or no, and Miers is certainly not going to convince anyone of anything.

She might personally vote the way I like, but so what? It's still a 5-4 court in the liberals favor.

That's one of the reasons why I'm not happy.

Couple this disasterous pick with the total abandonment of every other conservative issue and I'll repeat what I've written so many times.

Show me what the Bush and the GOP has done to further *any* conservative issue.

Hmmm.

Then there's the whole issue of being a conservative with ambitions of federal court or Supreme court nominations.

Why weren't any established conservatives picked for the Supreme Court? Because they were too conservative and the GOP wouldn't fight for them. Just like the GOP refused to fight for those conservatives nominated to the federal court.

The real lesson here is that the Democrats will fight for you if you're a liberal. The Republicans will NOT fight for you if you're a conservative.

Really now. If you're a conservative lawyer or law student what lessons are you to learn from the nomination of Roberts and Miers, and all those other very qualified conservatives that were passed over? Wouldn't you take from these examples that it is detrimental to your career, if you have designs on a federal judgeship, to be outwardly conservative? That you must hide your conservative viewpoint to have any chance?

Isn't one of the criticisms of academia from the Right that they apply an unreasonable litmus test that excludes conservatives? How is this any different except it's being done by Republicans?

Now people are assuming that, should the Democrats every regain power, that extreme liberals couldn't be appointed to federal judgeships. But there's no evidence to support that at all. The Republican party has gassed about all over the place that ideological litmus tests are not acceptable, yet they have shied away from actually putting that view to the test.

So when the Democrats regain power what's to stop them from appointing the most leftists candidates? What? Is the Republican party going to now state that ideological litmus tests are ok?

The end result is clear.

Conservatives need not apply.

I have to agree with ed. I think the GOP is moving farther and farther away from constituional-conservatism, if I can use that term. I also feel that Democrats are just as far away from liberal ideas. Honestly, I don't know what the Democrats stand for, I don't think they do either.
It seems like to me, both parties are only pushing their agenda for miximum power. There is no representation for the people in government today.
And goverment being ran like a tight ship business that is both fisically responsible and socially responsible, accountable, and stricter in it's interpretation of the constituion?? I can dream.

I've seen Harriet at a number of my secret liberal/communist cell meetings and weekly wine and brie parties. Her nomination is fine with me and my liberal friends!