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Miers Updates

Ken AshfordOctober 3, 2005Bush & Co., Supreme CourtLeave a Comment

* The mainstream media ~~has~~ had the story line: This Reuters article was originally titled "Bush Pick For High Court Outrages Conservatives". It’s been watered down a little (conservatives are now just "wary").

* Powerline speculates a deal with Dems:

Check out the NARAL and PFAW web sites. Nothing but bland press releases adopting a wait-and-see attitude.

What did happen within 30 minutes of Bush’s announcement was a press release by Harry Reid that included the statement, "I like Harriet Miers." It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that Bush’s nomination of Miers reflects some kind of deal with the Senate Democrats. Such as, the Dems gave Bush a list of candidates they would deem "acceptable" (pending Judiciary Committee hearings, of course), and Bush chose the best candidate he could off that list.

Is that what happened? I don’t know, but the theory seems to fit the facts.

* Toothfairy Patt Morrison echoes my thoughts:

GEORGIE AND THE TOOTH FAIRY

So that’s how it works in the Bush White House —

Harriet Miers is in charge of finding the very best person to fill Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme Court – and who does she find? Harriet Miers!

Dick Cheney is tasked with searching the length and breadth of America for the best person to be candidate Bush’s running mate – and lo and behold, who does he suss out like a prize truffle but … Dick Cheney?

Joe Allbaugh, Bush’s 2000 election national campaign director, goes hunting for someone to replace him as head of the downgraded FEMA – and who does he turn up but the next-best thing to himself, his old pal and sock-puppet clone Michael Brown? If it’s good enough for Allbaugh, it’s good enough for Bush, and ‘’Brownie’’ – surname ‘’Nosie’’ – is anointed.

In the closed system that is Planet Bush, someone is ‘’a good man’’ because the “good man’’ assures Bush that he is.

It’s a child’s circular logic, and it would be just as harmless if it were confined to the Tooth Fairy. Alas for the rest of us, Bush believes in the Truth Fairy. [And why shouldn’t he? He lost an election, and the Truth Fairy still left the White House under his pillow.]

The Bush administration decides what it wants to be true – and then cuts away everything that doesn’t fit, or that gets in the way of its conclusions.

***

Creationism is true because we want it to be, Social Security needs changing because it serves our interests to make people believe it does, and global warming isn’t real because we don’t like the people who say it is. Besides, how can there be global warming if we still have to wear sweaters sometimes? Huh? Answer me that, Mister Smarty-Pants Scientist! Because I’m the president,and you’re not, that’s why.

* More Mier’s fun: her weblog

* What Kevin Drum says:

My favorite Miers quote so far. This one is from an anonymous lawyer who is "a conservative Christian and worked with Harriet Miers in Texas":

Harriet worships the president and has called him the smartest man she’s known. She’s a pretty good lawyer….This president can be bamboozled by anyone he feels close to. If a person fawns on him enough, is loyal, works 25 hours a day and says you’re the smartest man I ever met, all of a sudden you’re right for the Supreme Court.

Sounds about right. Maybe we’re all just overanalyzing this thing….

* At least we know where she stands on the Barney/horseshoe matter. This is from her post at the Ask The White House website:

Alex, from Fargo, North Dakota writes: Could you explain how Barney plays horseshoes?

Harriet Miers: The President throws the horseshoes to Barney, and Barney runs after them. Metal horseshoes are too heavy for Barney to lift, so he doesn’t carry them around. Instead he moves them around with his nose. He has figured out pretty quickly how to get under the horseshoe enough to flip it over. As you know, the President loves horsing around with Barney.

* Former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote something not flattering about Meirs, and then deleted it (Guess what? You can’t backpedal on the Internet).

* Worth thinking about:

[H]ere’s what Democrats and liberals should do straightaway: Embrace her. Welcome her. And, most of all, applaud the president’s moderation and reasonableness.

If this sounds like heresy, consider the upside: It will drive the right-wing fringe and Christian conservatives crazy. They will be even more livid than they are already because, despite the blessing of two Court openings, they didn’t get the Luttig-Owens-Brown certifiable conservative who they believe their votes and political activities during the past decade earned them.

***

The midterms are still 13 months away, and much can change. But a key component of both of those mid-year catastrophes for the party in the White House was a dormant base.

Yeah, but then she’ll be on the court, right?

* On the other hand, according to a law review article she wrote as a student in 1969, she seems to quote favorably for small bits of judicial activism (here’s the quote):

"[An earlier Texas court] reasoned that the common law should rule unless changed by the legislature and that the question of the ‘new tort’ was embedded in serious policy considerations which should be determined only by the legislature. However, courts have both changed common law where it became obsolete and have ruled in decisions involving vital policy questions with great success."

* Jonah Goldberg, at The Corner:

The Miers pick comes along at precisely the wrong moment. Bush is saying "trust me" at exactly the time when conservatives want to be reassured they can trust him. The last thing he needs right now is to dip into his house credit one more time.

Bush has a history of running against the wind of his strongest critics, which is one of the things I love about the guy. For example, people said Bush was too unilateral and hostile to the international community, so he appointed John Bolton. But, either by accident or design, this time around he seems bent on countering a different kind of criticism. He’s been getting beaten — somewhat unfairly — for his alleged cronyism of late. This appointment seems like the Bolton approach; "Oh yeah, you think I’m into cronyism? Well here’s my former personal lawyer from Texas!"

But there’s a key difference. Hosility to the international community and "unilateralism" (code for protecting America’s interests first) are principles Bush wins respect by defending. Cronyism is not a principle, or at least one not easily defended.

* Uh, oh. Conservatives won’t like this. Miers supports gay adoption and the formation of an International Criminal Court.

On Harriet Miers

Ken AshfordOctober 3, 2005Supreme CourtLeave a Comment

I really don’t get it. Did Bush learn nothing from the Mike Brown/FEMA flap?

I’m sure Harriet Miers is a nice person. But what is it with this administration appointing people to high positions just because they are nice people — people that you would want to have a beer with? Or, in Ms. Miers case, tea?

This is the highest court in the land. Her vote could be the swing on many important legal and social issues. Is she the best qualified? Is she even the best qualified woman? Is she even the best qualified conservative woman?

There’s something very disturbing about the way Bush selects people. I’m sure he "trusts" her, but the problem is . . . most people (especially right now) don’t trust Bush’s decision-making skills!!

Part of me wonders if this isn’t some part of a larger plan:

(1) Bush nominates a "stealth" justice. Someone who has almost no paper trial. And, being a former White House counsel, don’t expect to see too much paper coming from the White House for the Judiciary Committee to mull (thank you, attorney-client privilege).

(2) She has no judicial experience. Not that I, personally, find this to be a problem — Rehnquist, Byron White, and many others had no judicial experience before being appointed to the Supreme Court. But it doesn’t sit well in the wake of former Arabian horse judge Michael Brown’s embarrassing tenure as FEMA Director. My problem is that she seems to lack some actual courtroom experience. I mean, as she even been in the Supreme Court??

(3) It reaks of cronyism. She’s a Bushbot from way back.

(4) The foregoing will cause consternation among Democrats, and not a few Republicans. She gets rejected.

(5) "Fine", says Bush. And then he nominates Priscilla Owens, or some other horrible arch-conservative judicial activist — someone with a clear (ultra-conservative) paper trial, unquestionable experience, and not susceptible to cronyism charges. And the fight from the Dems will have been spent on defeating Miers.

UPDATE: I’m not the only one thinking this. Nope.

Anyway, it seems nobody is particularly happy about her for many of the same reasons. Many on the right are outright upset. Reactions below the fold.

The Iron-What’s-Her-Face and Tom Delay

Ken AshfordOctober 3, 2005Congress, Crime, RepublicansLeave a Comment

Mmmm. This is an interesting turn of events:

A DOCUMENT linking Margaret Thatcher to a US corruption probe is so explosive civil servants have been asked to ensure it remains "sealed".

The 79-year-old former Premier is said to have met Congressman Tom DeLay in Britain while he was on a suspected favours-for-freebies scam.

In return for his free holiday, DeLay – who resigned as Republican leader of Congress last week after being accused of laundering political funds – allegedly backed legislation favourable to lobby groups.

Disclosing that US authorities were seeking aid from UK counterparts, a secret Home Office briefing says: "One visit to the UK involved a meeting with Mrs Margaret Thatcher.

Plame Update

Ken AshfordOctober 3, 2005PlamegateLeave a Comment

I haven’t forgotten about this — but I’m not digging in the dirt about it either. Judith Miller revealed that her source was Scooter Libby — no surprise there. But the real speculation is on what special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is cooking up. I’ll let Kevin Drum speak:

In the Washington Post today, Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus provide some additional speculation. They suggest that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may be trying to put together a conspiracy case, not an espionage case:

Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.

….One source briefed on Miller’s account of conversations with Libby said it is doubtful her testimony would on its own lead to charges against any government officials. But, the source said, her account could establish a piece of a web of actions taken by officials that had an underlying criminal purpose.

Conspiracy cases are viewed by criminal prosecutors as simpler to bring than more straightforward criminal charges, but also trickier to sell to juries. "That would arguably be a close call for a prosecutor, but it could be tried," a veteran Washington criminal attorney with longtime experience in national security cases said yesterday.

Conspiracy. Hmmm. Lot of that going around in Republican circles these days. And George Stephanopoulos said this morning that "a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions."

Bush and Cheney indicted for conspiracy? Don’t count on it. But it is nice to dream.

The Next Conspiracy Theory

Ken AshfordOctober 3, 2005Health Care, War on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Remember that anti-war protest last weekend in Washington, D.C.? You know, the one on the weekend of September 24-25 where hundreds of thousands marched on the Mall?

Well, that wasn’t the only thing appearing in D.C. that weekend:

Biohazard sensors showed the presence of small amounts of potentially dangerous tularemia bacteria in the Mall area last weekend as huge crowds assembled there, but health officials said they believed the levels were too low to be a threat.

Health authorities in the Washington area were notified yesterday that the bacteria were found in and near the area between the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, where crowds gathered Saturday for an antiwar rally and a book festival.

Yikes.

Tularemia is a biological weapon. Double yikes:

Francisella tularensis has long been considered a potentialbiological weapon. It was one of a number of agents studiedat Japanese germ warfare research units operating in Manchuriabetween 1932 and 1945; it was also examined for military purposesin the West. A former Soviet Union biological weapons scientist,Ken Alibeck, has suggested that tularemia outbreaks affectingtens of thousands of Soviet and German soldiers on the easternEuropean front during World War II may have been the resultof intentional use. Following the war, there were continuingmilitary studies of tularemia. In the 1950s and 1960s, the USmilitary developed weapons that would disseminate F tularensisaerosols; …[b]y the late1960s, F tularensis was one of several biological weapons stockpiledby the US military.

In 1969, a World Health Organization expert committee estimatedthat an aerosol dispersal of 50 kg of virulent F tularensisover a metropolitan area with 5 million inhabitants would resultin 250 000 incapacitating casualties, including 19 000deaths. Illness would be expected to persist for several weeksand disease relapses to occur during the ensuing weeks or months.

Want more conspiracy theory? Guess where Bush was that weekend? In a military base in Colorado.

Still not sold? Okay, how about this. Guess what was going on in Washington D.C. only three days before the anti-war protests in which tularemia was floating around?

Today, somewhere in the DC metropolitan area, the military is conducting a highly classified Granite Shadow "demonstration."

Granite Shadow is yet another new Top Secret and compartmented operation related to the military’s extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control.

A spokesman at the Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region (JFHQ-NCR) confirmed the existence of Granite Shadow to me yesterday, but all he would say is that Granite Shadow is the unclassified name for a classified plan.

Have fun, conspiracy theorists!

No More Illusions

Ken AshfordOctober 3, 2005IraqLeave a Comment

The U.S. lost the Iraq War.

What is not in dispute is that at the most basic level—of neighborhoods and communities—the tissue of Iraqi society is already rupturing. It’s not just Shia who are displacing themselves to be among their own kind, though they are the main victims of the Sunni-led insurgents. Many Sunnis, terrified of death squads and Shia-dominated police who look the other way, are fleeing Shia areas even if they don’t support the insurgency. Dozens of Sunni families left Basra in the past year, fearing attacks from Shiite militias that dominate that southern city. "For a Sunni family like mine that was swimming in a lagoon of Shiites, it was almost impossible to continue living in Basra," said one refugee, Abu Mishal. Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the National Assembly, concurs: "We never had this even under Saddam … This is very dangerous."

Good News

Ken AshfordOctober 3, 2005Red Sox & Other SportsLeave a Comment

Sad News

Ken AshfordOctober 3, 2005Popular CultureLeave a Comment

August Wilson, who chronicled the African-American experience in the 20th century in a series of plays that will stand as a landmark in the history of black culture, of American literature and of Broadway theater, died yesterday at a hospital in Seattle. He was 60 and lived in Seattle.

The cause was liver cancer, said his assistant, Dena Levitin. Mr. Wilson’s cancer was diagnosed in the summer, and his illness was made public last month.

"Radio Golf," the last of the 10 plays that constitute Mr. Wilson’s majestic theatrical cycle, opened at the Yale Repertory Theater last spring and has subsequently been produced in Los Angeles. It was the concluding chapter in a spellbinding story that began more than two decades ago, when Mr. Wilson’s play "Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom" had its debut at the same theater, in 1984, and announced the arrival of a major talent, fully matured.

Read the full story.

Light Blogging

Ken AshfordOctober 1, 2005Health CareLeave a Comment

Been under the weather lately, and busy with work and rehearsal, but I thought I would jump in with this terrifying bit of news:

‘We Are in Real Trouble’

A health expert warns of the increasingly real possibility of an avian flu pandemic and what we can do prepare

Since its discovery in the late 1990s, the avian flu virus, or H5N1, has infected at least 100 people, more than half of whom have died. But public health officials around the world are warning that the casualty numbers could be much higher if the virus becomes more easily transmittable between humans. On Thursday, Dr. David Nabarro, an executive at the World Health Organization and newly appointed United Nations coordinator for avian and human influenza, stoked fears even more when he warned that a flu pandemic could strike at any time, killing five million to 150 million people. On Friday, the World Health Organization backed away from the high end of those estimates, but concurred that millions could die in a pandemic.

Scared yet? How about this?

A global influenza pandemic is imminent and will kill up to 150 million people, the UN official in charge of coordinating the worldwide response to an outbreak has warned.

David Nabarro, one of the most senior public health experts at the World Health Organisation, said outbreaks of bird flu, which have killed at least 65 people in Asia, could mutate into a form transmittable between people.

"The consequences in terms of human life when the pandemic does start are going to be extraordinary and very damaging," he said.

In Stark Contrast To The Post Immediately Below

Ken AshfordSeptember 29, 2005Breaking News, Supreme CourtLeave a Comment

Robert Confirmed as new Chief Justice

Constance Baker Motley, 1921-2005

Ken AshfordSeptember 29, 2005Courts/LawLeave a Comment

From the NY Times:

Constance Baker Motley, a civil rights lawyer who fought nearly every important civil rights case for two decades and then became the first black woman to serve as a federal judge, died yesterday at NYU Downtown Hospital in Manhattan. She was 84.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said Isolde Motley, her daughter-in-law.

Judge Motley was the first black woman to serve in the New York State Senate, as well as the first woman to be Manhattan borough president, a position that guaranteed her a voice in running the entire city under an earlier system of local government called the Board of Estimate.

Judge Motley was at the center of the firestorm that raged through the South in the two decades after World War II, as blacks and their white allies pressed to end the segregation that had gripped the region since Reconstruction. She visited the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in jail, sang freedom songs in churches that had been bombed, and spent a night under armed guard with Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader who was later murdered.

But her métier was in the quieter, painstaking preparation and presentation of lawsuits that paved the way to fuller societal participation by blacks. She dressed elegantly, spoke in a low, lilting voice and, in case after case, earned a reputation as the chief courtroom tactician of the civil rights movement.

Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama and other staunch segregationists yielded, kicking and screaming, to the verdicts of courts ruling against racial segregation. These huge victories were led by the N.A.A.C.P.’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, led by Thurgood Marshall, for which Judge Motley, Jack Greenberg, Robert Carter and a handful of other underpaid, overworked lawyers labored.

In particular, she directed the legal campaign that resulted in the admission of James H. Meredith to the University of Mississippi in 1962. She argued 10 cases before the United States Supreme Court and won nine of them.

Judge Motley won cases that ended segregation in Memphis restaurants and at whites-only lunch counters in Birmingham, Ala. She fought for King’s right to march in Albany, Ga. She played an important role in representing blacks seeking admission to the Universities of Florida, Georgia Alabama and Mississippi and Clemson College in South Carolina.

I gave an oral argument before her once, and I saw her lecture several times. One hell of an interesting lady.

Pardon Me

Ken AshfordSeptember 29, 2005Bush & Co., CrimeLeave a Comment

Here are 14 people that Bush pardoned yesterday — the day when Delay got indicted. They include 4 drug dealers.

Probably not the best timing.

Speaking of crime, Bill Bennett posed an interesting solution:

But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.

Wanker.

Freedom Haters Succeed In Yanking Plans For Freedom Museum

Ken AshfordSeptember 29, 2005War on Terrorism/Torture1 Comment

The hysterical moonbats won one:

Governor George Pataki said today he will direct development officials to drop plans for a museum of freedom at the World Trade Center site, saying it has stirred “too much opposition, too much controversy.”

The International Freedom Center would have been put in a cultural center adjacent to a memorial for the Sept. 11 victims, and was part of the master plan for redeveloping the devastated 16-acre site of the nation’s worst terrorist attack.

In the last several months, some victims’ families, groups of firefighters and police officers and public officials said the center, which would feature historical exhibits expressing the worldwide struggle for freedom, would detract from the Sept. 11 themes and provide a possible forum for anti-U.S. messages.

“Today there remains too much opposition, too much controversy, over the programming of the IFC and we must move forward with our first priority, the creation of an inspiring memorial to pay tribute to our lost loved ones and tell their stories to the world,” Pataki said in a prepared statement.

“I am directing the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. to work with the IFC to explore other locations for the center,” the governor said.

The rightosphere objected to the International Freedom Center, seeing it as unrelated to the events of 9/11. Ironically, the rightosphere thinks the liberation of Iraq is related to the events of 9/11. So, go figure.

Delay Indicted

Ken AshfordSeptember 28, 2005Breaking News, Congress, RepublicansLeave a Comment

This just in…

WASHINGTON – A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post.

DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay’s national political committee.

"I have notified the speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County district attorney today," DeLay said.

Not a good day to be a Republican leader.