Pep Rallies Aside, Miers Looking Defeated
AP is reporting that Sen. Chuck Schumer has said that Harriet Miers lacks the votes to even get out of the Judiciary Committee.
"If you held the vote today, she would not get a majority either in the Judiciary Committee or the floor," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York. On the 18-member GOP-controlled committee, "there are one or two who said they'd support her as of now."Sen. Arlen Specter, Judiciary Chairman, countered with the pathetically weak notion that people are waiting for the hearings, and not with a substantial stand of support and assertion that the votes would even be there at all. This nomination is in serious trouble, boys and girls.
Further, questions have been raised stemming from Miers' meeting with Sen. Dianne Feinstein regarding whether or not Miers would even voluntarily recuse herself from any matters that touched directly on work she had done for the Preznit as his counsel.
A second committee Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, said she needs to hear more evidence that Miers can rule independently of the president, including administration decisions involving executive power, the fight against terrorism and the role of international law.Well, we've been saying this for quite a while, but it is worth saying again: how can the Senate justify installing a ringer on the Supreme Court, absent substantial constitutional scholarship qualifications and other highly regarded intellectual scholarship on the rule of law?
"I asked her whether she would recuse herself. She wouldn't answer that question. For me, that has to be yes," Feinstein said. "I think because so little is known about her views, she has an obligation to discuss those views fully." She appeared with Specter on CBS' "Face the Nation."
Hell, that whole President's accountant for the head of the Federal Reserve isn't looking so implausible any more, is it?
I have to say, it is something of an accomplishment to make both the left and the right so uncomfortable with your nominee that they are united in dancing around the words "not qualified."
Brownback, a Judiciary Committee member, cited concerns he had about Miers' views on affirmative action following reports that she supported diversity and numerical set-asides when she was president of the State Bar of Texas.When you've made both Dianne Feinstein and Sam Brownback edgy, you are seriously tanking.
"I do think we're going to have to see more information - not attorney-client privilege type information, but more information of the work product that she was involved with at the White House that was not of a legal nature but that's of a policy nature," Brownback told "Fox News Sunday."
Coming on the heels of yesterday's Washington Times GOP tell-all on Miers, you have to think that a withdrawal is being seriously considered. Even for a stubborn, petulant, my-way-or-the-highway kind of guy like Dubya, the handwriting on the political wall has to start becoming legible. (If Rove weren't otherwise engaged this weekend, maybe he could take a moment to read it to him.)
The question is: how much longer will the Preznit make his friend and personal attorney suffer through this fiasco before he gives her leave to do the honorable thing and step aside? Will it be his ego over what reputation and dignity she can salvage at this point?
Guess we'll see.
posted by ReddHedd @ 10/23/2005 08:33:00 AM
<< Home