My Take On Miers

After reading about Harriet Miers and her history over the last two weeks, this is my take on her:

She is no intellectual heavy weight. That is for sure. But she is no Gomer Pile either. She is smart, articulate, and ambitious. I don't think is an ideologue of any stripe. But at the same time, I don't think she is independently minded.

Harriet Miers, while being president of this and that over the course of her career, she is easily swayed by the ideas of others and likes to impress people with flattery and loyalty.

I think that if she ends up being liberal, conservative or another swing voter purely will be dependant on who she is most impressed by on the bench. If she adopts Scalia as her mentor, she will be a staunch conservative. If she falls for Souter or Breyer she will be more liberal (I think we can rule out Ginsbrug as a mentor).

It is too bad that Miers would be replacing O'Connor and that they would have no time on the bench together. I think Miers would have taken O'Connor as her role model if they had served together.

I think the whole idea of trying to find out who she is is rather pointless because I think who she will be will be determined much by who she is surrounded by.

'Atta boy Champ

Wow. The Champ got knocked down in the last round, but then came back swinging and scored a KO over Richard Cohen. Only one day after loosing the Bill O'Reilly award for Excellence in Dumb Ass Reporting, Bill has regained his title.

From the October 13 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: Look, again, it's notification, not approval. So you -- if you're a girl, you can still go ahead and have the abortion, and I'm sure Planned Parenthood would be encouraging you because Planned Parenthood gets paid for every abortion that they're involved with. I don't like Planned Parenthood.

It is amazing how someone could be so wrong about something, but be so confident that they are right. Most Planned Parenthood patients receive reduced rates for services because Planned Parenthood uses a sliding scale to assess fees. That means, for the majority of abortions performed, they lose money. Abortion is not a "cash cow" as Bill so erroneously believes.

And the Bill O'Reilly Award for Dumb Ass Reporting... The Envelope Please

I have Dumb Ass reporting award so many times to Bill O'Reilly, that it should be justly named the Bill O'Reilly Award for Excellence in Dumb Ass Reporting (kind of like the America's cup).

But this week, it doesn't go to good ol' Bill. Sorry Bill, but you have actually been out Dumb Assed this week. But buck up, Champ. I am sure you will regain the title soon. Everyone knows you will always be the biggest Dumb Ass when it comes to the all around competition.

This week it goes to Richard Cohen of the Washington Post for his Op-Ed "Let This Leak Go." In his column, Mr. Cohen asks Patrick Fitzgerald, the lead prosecutor in the Valerie Plame outing, to leave town. He claims that outing CIA agents is no big deal and is just politics as usual.

Never mind that it is actually a crime to out a CIA agent. Never mind that outing CIA agents hurts our national security. Never mind that outing CIA agents could get people killed.

What really gets my goat on this Op-Ed is that Mr. Cohen just thinks the revenge politics involved is Washington politics as usual, and wants the investigation to go away so we can get back to more politics as usual.

Mr. Cohen fails to see that what is wrong here is that this is politics as usual and it should not be. He fails to see that this should not be acceptable behavior by either side of the political isle. He fails to see that this politics as usual is what is really hurting this country.

If anyone is to leave Washington Mr. Cohen, I hope that it is you. The last thing we need is more politics as usual.

Tom DeLay - Jury Pool Tampering

There is something to be said about humility and prudence. Lack of them can often get you into greater trouble than you were originally in. Tom DeLay has neither and may find himself in a heap load more of trouble with his new swift boat attack ads on Ronnie Earle, the Texas prosecutor who has charged DeLay with several criminal counts.

Republicans have bought air time in Austin and on Fox News Network to run swift boat ads, attacking Earle. Say what you may about the motivations of Ronnie Earle. After all, it was the grand jury who indicted DeLay, not Earle. But DeLay is showing utter contempt for the judicial system. Running ads, attacking the prosecutor could and should be considered jury pool tampering which is a very serious offense.

We already know that DeLay has no respect for judges... or for that matter, the law. But to actively attempt to tamper the jury pool is beyond contempt for the constitution. Giving media interviews is one thing. But to run ads. It just shows you that he considers himself above the laws the rest of us have to live by.

At least Frist has some class.

Conservatives launch TV assault on Earle

Update: Now I know that Republicans are just plain nuts

Free Enterprise Fund spokesman Todd Schorle said the ad campaign may be expanded to other markets around the country.

"We feel that Ronnie Earle wants to obstruct the free-market agenda and he's using liberals to bring the free-market agenda to a halt in Congress," he said.

Oh, god. That statement was so painfull, I think it gave me an anyurism... Seriously, this is a communist coup? No wonder a plurality of Americans want the next congress to be controlled by Democrats. Republicans have completely lost it.

Swift Boat Veterans for a New Supreme Court Nomination.

This nomination has turned into a complete absurdity. If the Supreme Court seat wasn't such an important position, I would be rolling on the ground laughing while simultaneously banging my head against the wall (it can be done... trust me).

The religious right is up in arms over their own presidents pick because she hasn't guaranteed them she would overturn Roe v Wade and burn homosexuals at the steak. The intellectual right is up in arms because she writes memos like a Nancy Drew novel and looks at Bushie like he is a member of NSYNC. Bush, caught in the head lights as usual, can't seem to get his act together while Karl Rove is distracted by staring down the barrel of obstruction of justice charges. Bush, not more than 2 months after saying religion is hands off when Roberts was nominated, can't stop talking about how much Harriet Miers loves Jesus. Ironically, he is touting the fact he wants to place a person on the highest bench in the land with her only credentials being that she is a born again Christian whilst fighting theocracy oversees.

I am taking odds on how long it is before someone on the right starts swift boating poor old Harriet. I can see the TV ads now:

(Fade in from black)

Miers used to be a Catholic. (Shows picture of Pope Benedict)

Then she worshipped at Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches. (Shows picture of gay Episcopal bishop wearing a feather boa)

Now, she is a born again evangelical Christian at Valley View Church. (Shows picture of Alan Keyes)

Mr. President, Harriet Miers is a flip-flopper (shows picture of John Kerry)

How long before her fickle mind grows bored with her newest faith? How long before she converts to Islam, Mr. President? Are you going to trust the fate of this nation for a woman who will exchange her black robes for a blue burke and gives Osama Bin Laden oral sex in front of the Washington Monument?

You know what else Muslims do, Mr Presdient? They eat babies on Easter, our most holy day. They also raise aliens who will eat our children as they recite the pledge of allegiance in our schools.

How many times does she have to change her religion, Mr. President, before you know she just can't be trusted?

Withdraw this nomination of this burke-wearing, baby eating, alien raising, Bin Laden blowing, Muslim woman before she destroys America. (Shows picture of Bin Laden with a big ol' grin)

Enough is enough Mr. President. (Fade to black)

***************

I'm tom DeLay and I approved this message.

Jerry Kilgore - Swift Boats Virginia

I found this at swing state project on the governors campaign in Virginia between Jerry Kilgore (R) and Tim Kaine (D). As usual, the Republicans are out swift boating again.

Absolutely despicable.

That's the only way to describe the new attack ads Jerry Kilgore is running against Tim Kaine in Virginia. Set against a black back-drop, the father of a man whose son and daughter-in-law were murdered, speaks passionately about how Tim Kaine "voluntarily" defended the murderer. Forget the fact that Tim Kaine was court-appointed, forget about the fact that the two were apparently murdered in a drug deal gone bad, these type of ads represent the worst of our political process.

I went to Kilgore's web site and watched the video. It absolutely pissed me off and spoke volumes to me about what type of man Kilgore is. The ad attacks Tim Kaine for doing exactly what he should have done - represent his court appointed client to the absolute best of his ability. It attacks Kaine for doing exactly what every single American has a constitutional right to have.

Now, if Kilgore attacked Kaine for being a sloppy lawyer, that would have been one thing. But Kilgore is attacking Kaine for upholding the cannons of legal ethics and the constitution. He is attacking Kaine for doing a good job. If anything, Kaine shown that he can put personal feelings aside to uphold our constitution.

If Kilgore doesn't believe that accused criminals have a right to legal counsel, he has no business being the governor. Hell, he has no business being a dog catcher.

We interrupt Our Regular Political Commentary...

For a little football. As I have always said... I love my mother. I love my father. But there is nothing more I love than Penn State football.

ESPN Gets Huge Ratings for Penn State

BRISTOL, Conn. - ESPN's pregame show before Penn State's upset of Ohio State last Saturday night drew a record audience, and the game itself was the second-most watched of any regular season matchup on the cable network.

The Nittany Lions' 17-10 victory averaged 4,435,000 households and a 4.9 rating. Only the Florida State-Miami game on Oct. 8, 1994 drew a bigger audience.

Lets go Lions!

Bill Frist's Blind Trust Wasn't So Blind

Another hit to Bill Frist's ethics problems was disclosed yesterday. His blind trust that he created in order to avoid conflicts of interest while serving in the Senate was not so blind. While Frist had his blind trust, he was also buying stock outside of the trust. While this is not illegal, it is against Senate ethics rules because it creates a conflict of interest when voting on bills that could affect those stocks. This won't help GOP ethics woes.

Frist Accumulated Stock Outside Trusts
By LARRY MARGASAK and JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON - Over a period of four years, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist accumulated stock in a family founded hospital chain that produced tens of thousands of dollars in income — all outside the blind trusts he created to avoid a conflict of interest, documents show.

The stock was held in a family partnership largely controlled by Frist's brother, Thomas, who founded HCA Inc. along with the senator's late father.

Frist, R-Tenn., has long maintained that he could vote on health care legislation and still own HCA stock because he placed his shares in Senate-approved blind trusts.

However, ethics experts say a partnership arrangement shown in documents obtained by The Associated Press raises serious doubts about whether the senator truly avoided a conflict.

While there have been no allegations of impropriety in Frist's having shares outside the voluntary blind trusts, federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating Frist's sale of HCA stock from his blind trusts.
(Full Story)

Plame Investigation

From an article today in National Journal, it looks like obstruction of justice charges against Scooter Libby will be at least one of the charges brought in the CIA leak investigation. In four interviews, two to the FBI and two to the grand jury, he did not disclose an earlier phone conversation he had with Judy Miller about Joe Wilson and his wife. That, coupled with the possibility that he or his attorney actively encouraged Miller not to testify is a pretty easy case of obstruction. If Libby is truly innocent of the CIA leak, this was a very, very boneheaded move.

National Journal has a pretty good write up on the current developments.

Libby Did Not Tell Grand Jury About Key Conversation

By Murray Waas, special to National Journal
Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2005

In two appearances before the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative's name, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, did not disclose a crucial conversation that he had with New York Times reporter Judith Miller in June 2003 about the operative, Valerie Plame, according to sources with firsthand knowledge of his sworn testimony.

Libby also did not disclose the June 23 conversation when he was twice interviewed by FBI agents working on the Plame leak investigation, the sources said.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald apparently learned about the June 23 conversation for the first time just days ago, after attorneys for Miller and The New York Times informed prosecutors that Miller had discovered a set of notes on the conversation.

Miller had spent 85 days in jail for contempt of court for refusing to testify before the grand jury about her conversations with Libby and other Bush administration officials regarding Plame. She was released from jail after she agreed to cooperate with Fitzgerald's investigation. Miller testified before the grand jury on September 30, and attorneys familiar with the matter said that she agreed to be questioned further by Fitzgerald today.

Meanwhile, in recent days Fitzgerald has also expressed significant interest in whether Libby may have sought to discourage Miller-either directly or indirectly through her attorney-from testifying before the grand jury, or cooperating in other ways with the criminal probe, according to attorneys familiar with Miller's discussions with prosecutors.

During two interviews with FBI agents and in two subsequent grand jury appearances, Libby discussed at length a July 8, 2003, conversation about Plame that he and Miller had at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C., as well as a July 12 telephone conversation with Miller on the same subject four days later.
(Full Story)

Ohio GOP Corruption Case

The inquiry into the coins for cash case in Ohio is continuing. It looks like that there was indeed money laundered from the Workers Comp fund managed by Republican fundraiser, Tom Noe, into GOP campaign coffers of state and federal candidates, including President Bush.

COLUMBUS — Tom Noe often transferred tens of thousands of dollars from the Ohio rare-coin funds he managed to his personal business before bankrolling Republican candidates and causes with contributions and loans.

A Blade examination of the accounting records from Mr. NoeÂ’s $50 million rare-coin venture shows a pattern of large sums of money moving from the coin funds to his personal business, Vintage Coins and Collectibles, in the days and weeks before the coin dealer and his wife, Bernadette, made contributions to Republican candidates ranging from President Bush to U.S. Sen. George Voinovich and Gov. Bob Taft down to Lucas County Auditor Larry Kaczala.

In related news, it looks like a reporter close to the Republican party knew about the dirty dealings prior to the 2004 election, but decided to sit on the story.

According to several knowledgeable sources, The Blade's chief political columnist, Fritz Wenzel, was told of potential campaign violations by Tom Noe, chair of the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign for Lucas County, as early as January 2004. But according to Blade editors, Wenzel never gave the paper the all-important tip in early 2004.

We are still waiting to find out how much was funneled into the Republican party, but either way, it has sunk the GOP Govenors career for good.

Harriet Miers - The Debacle

I was willing to give Harriet Miers the benefit of the doubt until I saw her perform in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But this nomination is turning into a complete and utter joke. You have both the right and left attacking her because of perceptions that cannot be dispelled. You have Karl Rove "leaking" her judicial philosophy to wingnut evangelicals. You have the president defending her on the sole basis that she is a "good Christian." Reading correspondence between Bush and Miers back in the '90s, she sounds like a star stuck teenager writing to her favorite teen idol. I feel sad for poor ol' Harriet. It can't be fun to be characterized like this, but the Bush administration was too arogant to think that this would not fly through confirmation. At this point, the only thing indignant about this nomination seems to be the nomination itself.

"I'm disappointed, depressed and demoralized." --William Kristol

"Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on "The West Wing," let alone to be a real one." --Ann Coulter

"The Miers pick was another administration misstep... Momentum was lost. The quarterback looked foolish." --Peggy Noonan

"Miers needs to be stopped! The Republican Party should be the party of the moral high card. It can't be with such blatant cronyism. SABOTAGE MIERS! SABOTAGE MIERS! SABOTAGE MIERS!" --Angry Conservative

"I think...[Bush] has probably risked his legacy. But more important, he has risked what some of us have fought for 40 years since I was with Richard Nixon." --Pat Buchanan

"If Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke..." --Charles Krauthammer)

"President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has performed the difficult task of dividing his most respectful supporters, among whom I count myself." --Scott at Powerline

"If this is President Bush's bright idea to buck up his sagging popularity--among conservatives as well as the nation at large--one wonders whom he would have picked in rosier times. Shudder." --Michelle Malkin

"I am done with President Bush: Harriet Miers? Are you freakin' kidding me?!" --Steve Dillard

H/T Kos

Harriet Miers and the Conservative Backlash

Several things have become apparent to me during this nomination process so far.

1) Religion is fair game for the right even though they have always said it is not

2) The president is too isolated from the real world.

3) Karl Rove will do anything, and I mean anything, to get what he wants

First, since Harriet Miers has no paper trail, the only thing that Bush can do to sell her to the fundi right is to tout her devotion to Christianity. This is a complete flip-flop from the Roberts nomination where they claimed a persons religious views are off limits in a judicial nomination. Now, with nothing else to sell her on, they have removed the last taboo from the nomination process, and in fact, made it their central selling piece. This is a huge political blunder on the part of the Bush machine. One, because religion should not be an element of anyone's nomination. Two, it opens the door that cannot be closed. By trying to sell Miers to the right on religious grounds, it opens up the left for questioning Miers on the same grounds without fear of being called on partisan grounds. Additionally, it precludes this president from ever being able to say that religion is off limits for any future nominations that may arise during his presidency.

Second, many believe that Bush nominated Miers due to fear of a fight with the Left. I completely disagree with this assertion. As best summed up in this piece "Be It Confidence or Hubris, Bush Nominates Boldly," I think Bush was overly confident in his support from the right, not cowed by the left. Because Bush likes to surround himself with sycophants, he does not get good advice. Miers nomination is a reflection on the type of person he takes advice from.

Third, James Dobson, the head of Focus on the Family, has reported that he has had assurances directly from Karl Rove weeks before Bush made the nomination public, that Harriet Miers would vote in accordance to how James Dobson would want. The fact that a political advisor would make this promises to a political interest group is not only scary on so many levels, but also quite an indictment on how this White House runs its affairs. This may also backfire for the Bush administration. Arlen Specter is threatening to call both Dobson and Rove before the judiciary committee to testify about what was said and what promises were made. The fact that Rove is "leaking" judicial positions to a prominent special interest group not only taints the White House and its history of other leaks, but it taints Harriet Miers herself. If Harriet Miers has already disclosed how she would vote to either Bush or Rove on any specific issue, not only opens up Miers to the same questioning on the floor of the senate, but also go against the entire philosophy of separation of powers.

The White House has painted itself in to a tiny corner on this nomination. I don't think it has time to wait for the floor to dry and may very well end up pulling the nomination opposed to enduring the mess that this is sure to become.