George Judas W. Bush

Oh my, could it be that Bush Jr. just did what Bush Sr. did when he picked David Souter for the Supreme Court? He betrayed his political base of religious fanatics. They are PISSED! Betrayed again, this time by the son, whom, unlike the father, they tremendously trusted. From Richard Viguerie, a hard-core conservative at the heart of both Bush's elections:

"Liberals have successfully cowed President Bush by scaring him off from nominating a known conservative, strict constructionist to the Court, leaving conservatives fearful of which direction the Court will go."

"With their lack of strong, identifiable records, President Bush's choices for Supreme Court nominees seem designed more to avoid a fight with the extreme Left than to appeal to his conservative base," lamented Viguerie.

Remembering and still dismayed about how his father, President George H. W. Bush (the 41st), lied to conservatives and American voters by saying he was a conservative and expressly stating he would not raise taxes, conservatives fear President George W. Bush (the 43rd) has done the same by failing to nominate well-known conservative, strict constructionists to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"President Bush has presided over the largest growth in government since Lyndon Johnson, and now he appears willing to lose all credibility with conservative voters by failing to fulfill his campaign vow to nominate an openly Scalia- or Thomas-like justice," Viguerie concluded.

Conservatives are also exceedingly disappointed in the Republican Leadership in Congress as well. Conservatives will now begin to seriously consider why they should continue to give their support -money, labor, and votes- to Republican politicians who take their conservative base for granted by continually lying to them.

Remember, without the religious right, the GOP is bust.

It looks like Bush's choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court pleases his core voters even less than it does Democrats. It's understandable, after all, they were expecting another Scalia or Thomas, like a Luttig. Instead, they got someone whom they don't know, and who might therefore not be as staunch a conservative as they had hoped.

Now, that's their (and the GOP's) problem. But what should Democrats do with her? Should we oppose her like the hard-core conservatives might end up doing, or should we embrace her and hope for the best, that is, that she indeed is another Souter? She clearly is nothing but the latest Bush lackey getting her payback, but we might really strike gold here if she turns out to be another Souter.

In any case, Bush's choice might actually be golden already for Democrats on a political level. From Daily Kos:

More immediately, this is the sort of pick that can have real-world repercussions in 2006, with a demoralized Republican Right refusing to do the heavy lifting needed to stem big losses. That Bush went this route rather than throwing his base the red meat they craved is nothing less than a sign of weakness. For whatever reason, Rove and Co. decided they weren't in position to wage a filibuster fight with Democrats on a Supreme Court justice and instead sold out their base.

But my early sense is that this is already a victory -- both politically and judicially -- for Democrats. In fact, it should be great fun watching conservatives go after Bush. He may actually break that 39-40 floor in the polls, given he's just pissed off the very people who have propped up his failed presidency.

Miers is a big question mark, especially for the right. See, we know she's a conservative, but we also know she gave money to Al Gore's campaign and to the DNC in the past. We also just discovered she supported gay civil rights when she was running for office in Texas (although she didn't support a repeal of the sodomy laws that the Supreme Court struck down recently -- which suggests that she might have voted against such a ruling if she had been on the court.) From SFGate.com:

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers went on record favoring equal civil rights for gays when she ran for Dallas city council, and she said the city had a responsibility to pay for AIDS education and patient services.

But Miers opposed repeal of the Texas sodomy statute - a law later overturned by the court on which she will sit if confirmed - in a survey she filled out for a gay-rights group during her successful 1989 campaign.

The survey by the Lesbian/Gay Coalition of Dallas provides a hint of Miers' thinking on homosexual rights issues that could come before the court. Although she came to a coalition meeting to answer questions during the campaign, she said at the time that she was not seeking its endorsement.

The Supreme Court struck down the prohibition on consensual homosexual sex in 2003 on a 6-3 vote. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whom Miers is nominated to replace, voted with the majority.

Very hard to read. She backed gay civil rights (and even adoption,) and increasing AIDS funding, in Texas, in the '80s, but not the repeal of sodomy laws. Very hard to read indeed.

What scares me about this whole thing is not that Miers might get confirmed. It's that this might be a trap. The Democrats (together with the religious right and some Republicans, who can't afford to lose their face with the religious right,) reject her on the grounds that she isn't qualified; Bush nominates a Luttig; the religious right is ecstatic and ready to do whatever necessary to confirm him; the Democrats oppose him too and are painted as obstructionists; they filibuster him; Frist invokes the nuclear option; Luttig is confirmed and we lose the Supreme Court AND the right to filibuster judicial nominees forever (especially for the next 3 years that Bush is still in office.) A hellish scenario to say the least.

So what do we do with Miers?