This isn’t really a blog fight, but Kos and Armando are not seeing eye to eye on the Miers withdrawal. Says Kos:
It seems to me that Miers wasn’t done in from a lack of conservative cred as the wingers want to believe. Bush was convinced she was like him and would’ve fought for her all the way through. She was done in from simple incompetence. Her responses to committee questions betrayed a complete lack of understanding of constitutional law. Her meager writings were incoherent. She was unable to articulate competence in meetings with senators.
Give Miers the same set of facts but with Judge Roberts’ obvious competence on legal issues, and she gets confirmed. She wasn’t done in because the crazies flipped. She was done in because she simply wasn’t competent to sit on the High Court and it was so painfully obvious.
Armando replies:
Below kos posits that Miers’ big problem was her lack of competence. I disagree with that. I believe that Miers’ problem was her lack of Wingnut credentials, especially on being anti-choice and anti-Roe. And the last straw was her 1993 speech becoming known.
Pretty clearly I agree with Kos, but if all Armando is saying is that the FINAL straw was her 1993 speech, I can still agree with that to some extent. However, the vast majority of people who opposed Miers did so well in advance of any knowledge of her 1993 speech, and did so because she was simply unqualified, unprepared, and not fit for the job. I think everyone thought she would vote against Roe, so the social cons could be mollified temporarily.
The 1993 speech may have tipped the scales for some, but the bulk of the opposition (some 70% of bloggers who weighed in at NZ Bear’s prior to the uncovering of the ’93 speech were opposed to her) was for a number of reasons similar to what I have stated- whether it be her inability to pay her dues to the Bar, her inability to get questions answered appropriately, her poor performance in Senate meetings, and so on.
And one last thing- she couldn’t even get her revised questionnaire in on time last night. She simply was not the right person for the job.
gorillagogo
John
I don’t think any one side is right in this food fight. I think too many groups opposed Miers, period.
oscar wilde
It would appear that she is not the only person who isn’t right for the job.
Jack Roy
Not to bring it too close to home, but who was it who was just today disputing your supposition that it was her incompetence that doomed her? Some blogger lamenting that as everyone else seemed to care only about the 1993 speech, “I am the one with the bizarre worldview” that competence matters?
Just sayin’.
Steve
You’re projecting, John. Conservatives were all over the map on this one. Some supported her because she would overturn Roe, regardless of what her judicial philosophy might turn out to be. Some opposed her because they weren’t convinced she would overturn Roe. Some supported her because they trusted the President to nominate someone with an originalist judicial philosophy. Some opposed her because they weren’t convinced she had an originalist judicial philosophy.
There are a lot of people out there who want a nominee who is openly and unabashedly against Roe, and they won’t settle for anything less. That doesn’t mean everyone who opposed the nomination fell into this category, but it’s an important issue.
You might have seen that Dobson flip-flopped today by saying, based on the 1993 speech, he no longer feels he could have supported the nomination and he’s glad she withdrew. That’s pretty good evidence that Armando was right. Of course, you can’t say that any one reason was the motivator for every single person, but you can try and identify what you see as the main cause.
Would conservatives have supported a known moderate if they were brilliant and had an outstanding resume? Many of them would not; that’s not what they voted for in 2004. Would conservatives have supported a mediocre nominee if there was solid evidence that they would produce conservative results? Not all, of course, but I feel safe in opining that there would have been more enthusiasm for the latter nominee than the former.
The key is not the reason why some people opposed her all along. The key is what made people like Dobson switch from supporters to opponents, and the answer is obviously the 1993 speech. She was too squishy on abortion to pass the right-wing litmus test that the right wing always denies having.
Mike S
Polling report showed the country divided on her. But even worse was that 50% were disapointed with the fact that he nominated her while 40% were pleased.
oscar wilde
As an outsider looking in,with no partisan views whatsoever, it does strike me rather plainly, an incompetent man nominated an incompetent woman.
At the end of the day, that is the top and bottom it
oscar wilde
typo.
top and bottom of it
Mr Furious
I think that kos, you and I are on the same page. Though Armondo is correct that he difference-maker WAS the speech that came out this week. I don’t think the far right was exactly enthused with her, and that did it for them. The combination of that speech casting doubt on her conservative bonafides with the overwhelming display of mediocrity to downright incompetence over the last week or two just resluted in a buffet of choices to offer cover to those who would oppose her, but would otherwise not buck the President.
Bob Davis
She simply was not the right person for the job.
But she is the right person to go back to heading up the search committee for the next attempt at an appointee.
Kimmitt
The dynamic would have been different if Bush had nominated an unqualified wingnut crony. Not for Cole, but for the Republican Party as a whole.
pleonastic piranha
i agree with steve; conservatives were all over the map as to why they were opposed to her; it seems silly to me to try and shoehorn them all under the umbrella of one reason for the opposition.
she couldn’t even get her revised questionnaire in on time last night
in her defense: since she undoubtedly knew she was going to withdraw today, handing in the questionnaire would have been moot. had i known about it, i would have suspected that she was going to withdraw today.
Steve S
The fact remains that when you were complaining about her potential incompetence, you were called a sexist by Laura Bush.
It wasn’t until Miers lost the support of the Whackadoodle wing that she withdrew. As I pointed out earlier, on Wednesday was the day that even Dobson came out opposed to her.
there is no coincidence here.
Mike
Who cares why she withdrew or for what reasons. She’s gone and that is good for the country. If Pres Bush is smart, he will wait a few weeks to nominate a true conservative so that the public can forget about what was said in the whole Meirs mess. The public and media have short memories, so there is no reason why the we cannot demand a fair hearing and an up or down vote on the President’s conservative nominee. The country needs this to correct the court’s past mistakes in the last thirty years.