Bush picks aide for Supreme Court

[deep]

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, which has withheld its endorsement of Miers, responded in a statement that he had "a concern that Miss Miers was helping to legitimize the drive of homosexual organizations for power and influence over our public policies." He predicted that Miers would be closely questioned on the topic in her Senate hearings.

 

[deep]

So this evangelical Christian woman has never been married?

Is she a 60-year-old virgin?

or

a fornicator?

 

[A_Wanderer]

Will it matter?

 

[Irvine511]

So this evangelical Christian woman has never been married?

Is she a 60-year-old virgin?

or

a fornicator?

is it fornication if there's no penetration?

 

[Irvine511]

remember The Federalist Papers?

To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.

It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entire branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.

do you think Bush remembers The Federalist Papers? do you think he's read them? do you think he views the presidency as anything other than his own vanity project?

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

this is amusing

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1012055miers1.html

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110007415

"It might, however, have been part of another discussion. On Oct. 3, the day the Miers nomination was announced, Mr. Dobson and other religious conservatives held a conference call to discuss the nomination. One of the people on the call took extensive notes, which I have obtained. According to the notes, two of Ms. Miers's close friends--both sitting judges--said during the call that she would vote to overturn Roe."..

"Mr. Dobson says he was surprised the next day to learn that Justice Hecht and Judge Kinkeade were joining the Arlington Group call. He was asked to introduce the two of them, which he considered awkward given that he had never spoken with Justice Hecht and only once to Judge Kinkeade. According to the notes of the call, Mr. Dobson introduced them by saying, "Karl Rove suggested that we talk with these gentlemen because they can confirm specific reasons why Harriet Miers might be a better candidate than some of us think."

What followed, according to the notes, was a free-wheeling discussion about many topics, including same-sex marriage. Justice Hecht said he had never discussed that issue with Ms. Miers. Then an unidentified voice asked the two men, "Based on your personal knowledge of her, if she had the opportunity, do you believe she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?"

"Absolutely," said Judge Kinkeade.

"I agree with that," said Justice Hecht. "I concur."

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/16/MNGJHF96591.DTL

"Washington -- The year Harriet Miers began work as a senior presidential aide in the White House, the city of Dallas slapped three liens in three months on a property she controls in a low-income minority Dallas neighborhood, records show.

The city placed the liens in 2001 to force her to reimburse it for clearing the vacant lot of tall grass, weeds and debris after Miers failed to have the work done herself, as required by city law, and after she did not respond to city notices to maintain the property.

It was not the first time the city had to take action. Records show that since Miers assumed power of attorney for her ailing mother in 1995, the city has issued seven other liens on vacant lots that Miers controls in the same neighborhood around Tipton Park.

All 10 liens, totaling less than $2,000, have been paid, a city spokesman said.

But the failure of Miers, a former Dallas City Council member, to comply with city law, and her slow response in reimbursing the city, run counter to her image as a meticulous, detail-oriented attorney who is always well prepared."

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

She told Sen. Chuck Schumer that when it came to some of the legal issues he wanted to discuss, she needed to "'sort of bone up on this a little more"....

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/18/miers/


After their meeting, Schumer said she "offered very, very little" information on her judicial philosophy and declined to answer questions about her views on cases involving the right to privacy and her work inside the White House.

"I didn't learn answers to so many important questions," he said.

But Schumer said Miers "disavowed completely" a published report that two of her friends in Texas had privately assured conservative leaders that she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

"She said, 'No, nobody knows my views on Roe v. Wade,'" Schumer said. "She said, 'No one can speak for me on Roe v. Wade.'"

 

[deep]

Insiders see hint of Miers pullout

By Ralph Z. Hallow and Charles Hurt

Published October 22, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The White House has begun making contingency plans for the withdrawal of Harriet Miers as President Bush's choice to fill a seat on the Supreme Court, conservative sources said yesterday.
"White House senior staff are starting to ask outside people, saying, 'We're not discussing pulling out her nomination, but if we were to, do you have any advice as to how we should do it?' " a conservative Republican with ties to the White House told The Washington Times.
The White House denied making such calls.
"Absolutely not true," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.
But the conservative political consultant said that he had received such a query from Sara Taylor, director of the Office of White House Political Affairs.
Miss Taylor denied making any such calls.
A second Republican, who is the leader of a conservative interest group and has ties to the White House, confirmed that calls are being made to a select group of conservative activists who are not employed by the government.
"The political people in the White House are very worried about how she will do in the hearings," the second conservative leader said. "I think they have finally awakened."
.

 

[deep]

Trent Lott says
"I can not get excited about Harriet Miers."

do we need a little Viagra here
and a see-through blouse at the hearings?

 

[VertigoGal]

Is it just me, or does this woman look a lot like emporer Palpatine? Very first thing I noticed when I saw her.

 

[deep]

the smile?

 

[deep]

"We're continuing to move forward on the confirmation process," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said at his daily press briefing.

LaRue of Concerned Women said that reports about Miers' speeches, which were among documents provided to the Judiciary Committee last week, were the final straw that led the group to openly oppose her nomination. She pointed in particular to a 1993 address by Miers to Executive Women of Dallas, a nonprofit organization of professional women and those in upper management.

According to a transcript of her remarks, Miers expressed the view that women should be allowed to make their own decisions about abortion — a sharp departure from her stance in 1989, when as a candidate for the Dallas City Council, she pledged to work against Roe vs. Wade and promote a state measure outlawing abortion.

In the speech, Miers said that "abortion clinic protesters have become synonymous with terrorists" and that the courts were being "besieged" by cases challenging a woman's right to choose abortion.

"The ongoing debate continues surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual woman's right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion," Miers told the group.

She added: "The underlying theme in most of these cases is the insistence of more self-determination. And the more I think about these issues, the more self-determination makes the most sense. Legislating religion or morality we gave up on a long time ago."

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, another large Christian advocacy group that has declined to endorse or oppose Miers, called her language "very disturbing."

"Miss Miers' words are a close paraphrase of the infamous Roe vs. Wade decision," Perkins said in a message to supporters. "Her use of terms like 'criminalize abortion' to characterize the pro-life position and 'guarantee freedom' to describe the pro-choice position should have sounded alarms in the White House during the vetting process."