Libs, Dems: What should we do about Miers?

[Bill Murphy]

You're assuming a recount woulda gave Gore the win. IIRC, the NY friggin Times(not Fox News) did a recount, once all the hubbub died down. W+ ~542.

Plus, the Florida legislature was Repub controlled and eventually woulda appointed the Electors they wanted anyway(I'm not sure how the various Fed & State laws & Const's woulda applied, but that's where it woulda ended up. Mere fact Gore didn't want recounts in EVERY county assured that).

Oh, and the Gov of FL is Repub, too. And W's brother. QED.

We aren't even talking about it still if: Gore hadn't run the worst POTUS campaign in history; AND 30K Jews in FL had taken the time to check their confusingly laid out ballots and made sure they were voting for Gore instead of Pat "Hitler had great political courage" Buchanan.

All that said, the SCOTUS shoulda let the damn thing play out. Never shoulda got involved. The country woulda, somehow, survived a few months of President Hastert. Imagine if 9/11 happens on his watch, tho. [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

Scalia doesn't even try to defend his vote on BvG, and Rehnquist & Sandy as supposed states rights/Federalists would never comment at all. Hell, Chief even made it clear in the opinion that in no way was it a, ahem, 'precedential' [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] ruling!

Nobody's perfect, and on the off chance something happens again, Roberts'll bat it right back to the State(s).

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Democrats should do all they can to confirm Miers. She may overturn Roe v. Wade

[/ QUOTE ]I sure hope she does. It would be the greatest thing to happen to Democrats this century. Unfortunately, I think Bush saw the implications I'm seeing, and nominated someone who would uphold Roe V Wade.

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Not that I disagree with the political implications, but I don't think this is something we should hope for. I mean, if Republicans reinstated Jim Crow laws, that would be even better for the Democrats, right? But we shouldn't allow bad things to happen to the country for the sake of political gain.

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And then, every Dem should vote against her. She's not qualified, it's pure cronyism, and if there's one thing she will do if confirmed, it will be to vote against abortion rights at every opportunity. God only knows how she'll vote on any other issue.(NOTE: I'm not necessarily pro or anti Roe, I'm just advising Dems here)

When you start playing these "least bad/most confirmable/identity politics" type games you wind up w/things like Gore's 2000 campaign & Kerry's entire candidacy, including the very thought of him as the candidate to begin with.

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I think this is correct. A major problem for the Democrats is that they give the appearance of playing politics with everything. I voted for Kerry, but jesus, it was annoying to listen to him. If he could have given a straight answer to hard questions and actually believed in anything, he would have won in a walk. (Ask him if he would have invaded Iraq given the information Bush had in 2003, and his answer: "You bet I might have.")

Miers is not simply not qualified to be a Supreme Court justice and would not be independent from Bush, and we should vote against her on those grounds. IANACS (I am not a constitutional scholar), but I do not believe this warrants a filibuster. In any case, Dems can probably find enough discontent Republicans to win a confirmation vote.

[adios]

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I think this is correct. A major problem for the Democrats is that they give the appearance of playing politics with everything.

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Basically they do.

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I voted for Kerry, but jesus, it was annoying to listen to him. If he could have given a straight answer to hard questions and actually believed in anything, he would have won in a walk. (Ask him if he would have invaded Iraq given the information Bush had in 2003, and his answer: "You bet I might have.")

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Soooooooooo true. Excellent analysis IMO.

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Miers is not simply not qualified to be a Supreme Court justice and would not be independent from Bush, and we should vote against her on those grounds. IANACS (I am not a constitutional scholar), but I do not believe this warrants a filibuster. In any case, Dems can probably find enough discontent Republicans to win a confirmation vote.

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Clearly the Miers nomination is in biiiiiigggggggggg trouble. Dubya's alienated his base and that's not a good thing for him. Interesting in that it seems that the Republicans are standing on a matter of principle here which is that Miers qualifications make her a lousy choice irregardless of how she views Roe v. Wade. I readily admit though that if Bush nominates a highly qualified candidate who supports Roe v. Wade, the din of protest from Republicans would be overwhelming. It would be interesting to see if the Republicans in the Senate would support such a candidate. They have in the past more or less (Ginsburg is one example).

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A major problem for the Democrats is that they give the appearance of playing politics with everything.

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Good point. After all, you don't see Republicans playing politics with 9/11, homeland security alerts, and supreme court nominations, do you?

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[Autocratic]

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A major problem for the Democrats is that they give the appearance of playing politics with everything.

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Good point. After all, you don't see Republicans playing politics with 9/11, homeland security alerts, and supreme court nominations, do you?

[img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Clearly both sides play politics. They CONSTANTLY play politics. If you really know the game, and read up on political tactics and talking points, it becomes pretty clear that playing politics is the norm, and straight-shooting and sticking to your guns are basically anomalies.

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Good point. After all, you don't see Republicans playing politics with 9/11, homeland security alerts, and supreme court nominations, do you?

[/ QUOTE ] Yeah, but somehow they get away with it much better. The standard script goes:
1. Republicans do something evil
2. Democrats point out that it's evil
3. Republicans say Democrats are just playing politics, while the GOP is trying to defend America.
4. Democrats lose.

Kerry in particular was terrible at this game. The problem wasn't so much that he played politics (as both sides obviously do), it was that he was comically transparent when he did it. It was obvious that he would say whatever he had to say to offend as few people as possible.

A Democratic vote for Miers would be similarly spineless. "We don't like her and she's not qualified, but we think there's a chance she might turn out well for us, plus we're afraid to give Bush another chance to pick someone better" doesn't impress anyone.

[WillMagic]

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But we shouldn't allow bad things to happen to the country for the sake of political gain.

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...then clearly you should reject Miers. Wouldn't you say that an unqualified justice being appointed to the highest court in the land is a bad thing?

Will

[BCPVP]

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Yes. It's disgraceful that the Florida Supreme Court had the audacity to rule that ballots cast should actually be counted.

How dare the Florida Supreme Court interfere with a rigged election by insisting on actually counting ballots. Outrageous.

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You do realize that SCOTUS ruled 7-2 that the way the Florida Supreme Court had decided to count the votes was unconstitutional, right? The split was over the remedy. So you would have a better foundation to argue from based on that.

Are you also aware that several studies were done that showed that Bush would have won the recount requested by Gore anyway? If anything, you should be mad at Gore's legal team for arguing for the wrong procdedure

[zipo]

>>You're assuming a recount woulda gave Gore the win. <<

I assume no such thing.

The issue is not who would have won or lost had those Florida votes been counted.

The issue is that the US Supreme court majority (a bare majority of 5-4) used convoluted, twisted, and tortured logic to actually cease the counting of votes.

There was absolutely no reason to stop counting of those votes, unless it was because the majority feared the outcome of counting those votes.

If the Supreme Court had concerns about procedural matters, they could have sequestered the results of the vote count, and made a reasoned decision later.

In their decision, the court majority explicitly stated that their decision in this matter was not to be used as a precedent in future cases.

When the full picture is looked at objectively, this was arguably the greatest travesty of justice in the 20th century, and equivalent in historical terms to the beginning of the fall of the Roman Republic.