Waiting for the other shoe
October 27th, 2005 by MikeI have been maintaining for quite a while that Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court might have been a politically brilliant move. What if President Bush threw her in to the fire to get people talking about qualifications and cronyism, knowing that she would withdraw and that he could then have a free pass to appoint an associate justice like Judge Luttig or Judge McConnell?
With Democrats having burned their political capital on arguments over qualifications, they could be silenced by the nomination of an appellate judge with overwhelming credentials (but with a judicial philosophy that is antagonistic to everything Democrats believe in - well almost everything).
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October 27th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
true — but, as it turns out, Dems didn’t really have to argue very much about qualifications. i like this theory, except the problem is that: Ex ante, to get Dems to oppose her, you need to make her anti-abortion qualifications clear; but if you do that, you increase support from the right. it’s hard to piss off both sides. if your goal is to appoint McConnell, you run a risk that you sell Miers too hard and end up with Miers. as it stands, you might end up bring right, with the qualification that Dems only renounced Miers *after* she was booted (see eg some senators talking today).
i’ve never seen Chris Matthews (msnbc, Harball) as revved up as he was today. the combo of Miers and possible indictments — two pretty big political events — have turned him into a kid on christmas day. it’s pretty funny to watch.