THE END OF GENIUS

THIS IS THE END, MY FRIEND [story] The lame duck Bush is cooked. How he crawled up into the pot and somehow lit the gas burner with the lid over his head will be discussed for a long time.  Bush who used to regularly feed on Democrats decided to feed on his base on the right.  Now Republicans will need to feed voters some dish that the President is not to their taste if Republicans want to get elected in 2006.  How did Bush end up cooking himself in a crockpot?  Blame his too quick hand on the political burner and this crackpot idea of Harriet Mix and Match Miers for the Supreme Court.

The question on so many minds on the right is: What in Bork's name was Bush thinking? [WaPo]

BUSH TAKES PRIDE in not thinking, in the feeling that his gut is always right.  Now the right sees  Bush does not hold them so dear in his heart.  What the right won't say is Bush has his head stuck not in the clouds.  Many feel it is wedged in tight somewhere lower below his gut and around to the back.

THE END OF GENIUS is upon us as well.  This episode reveals Rove who is Bush's Turd Blossom now plays less the blossom and more the turd.

MORE ON MIERS
THE QUESTION [Just One Minute]  But I have yet to see a satisfactory response to the cronyism question.  Ask any Republican this stale, obvious question - How would you have reacted if Bill Clinton had appointed his personal attorney to the Supreme Court?  How about Al Gore making such an appointment, or John Kerry?  How will righties react if Hillary attempts to appoint, over my placard-bearing dead body, her personal attorney?

THE HERETIK KNOWS the answer to this question.  Or at least Bush's answer to all questions about Miers.  She's fantastic, accomplished, exceptional, remarkable.  What's not so fantastic is that many don't find Miers accomplished.  Bush doesn't care.  What's not so exceptional is that Miers isn't either.  What is remarkable is the right has started to notice what others have earlier.  Bush doesn't care.

MORE TO WORRY ABOUT [Man Without Qualities] But having reviewed the increasingly personal, nasty and ill tempered criticism of Harriet Miers (including that of Charles Krauthammer, who ridiculed the nomination as "a joke" - and worse), I see another disaster in the making of quite a different kind: I see a likely intense alienation of a Supreme Court justice from the movement conservatives, thereby fostering drift by that justice away from conservative values generally.

Personal feelings matter. The liberals who so savagely and personally attacked Clarence Thomas did the conservative movement a great favor: They sealed off any reasonable chance that Justice Thomas might be led to views more like those of his critics through the back door of personal relationships. Those doors can accommodate much traffic. Justice Brennan, for example (whose credentials at the time of his appointment certainly did not tower over those of Ms. Miers) became one of the most influential people who ever served on that Court largely by the artifice of personal charm. Harry Blackmun had retreated from many conservative values through those back doors, once he was offered shelter on the other side from the increasingly personal and hostile critics of his Roe v. Wade decision. But Justice Thomas' critics made sure that he would never make that trip. Thank you, movement liberals, for making quite sure that Clarence Thomas was immune to personal charm of the Brennan variety from the first day he first put on those robes.

Is it really going to be a good thing for conservatives to have a new Supreme Court justice who feels that she only made her way onto the Court by opposing conservatives, and that the Democrats and liberals were really not all that bad?

THE HERETIK CONFESSES he too much enjoys watching the formerly confident Republicans who would skewer Democrats now waver as to what to do and how to cover for their leaders misplay.  Schadenfreude, thy name is Harriet.

AND WATCHING the likes of Tucker Carlson with Bork on MSNBC where Bork called Miers a disaster and Carlson called the White House Miers mensches "spinners" and "flaks," it occured to The Heretik that we are witnessing another Wizard of Oz moment with Bush.

WITH BUSH everyone cites the Oz moment of "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" who may or may not be Cheney.  With the meltdown on Miers now we have more a moment reminiscent of Margaret Hamilton at the time of The Wicked Witches demise when splashed by water.  I'm melting, melllllllllllllllllllllllllllting.

THE REAL PROBLEM FOR BUSH? [Pessimist/ The Left Coaster] Without total control of the mass media machine, little irritants like The Truth can seep inside closed Red State minds, corrupting the GOP concepts that we are all expected to understand in the manner directed.

Comments

[Kate]

Excellent post, Joe.

[Rob]

Second that motion.

Surprising how long paradigms take to shift, eh? When they finally do, you always marvel at how small a thing it took to push the wall over.

[Blogenfreude]

OHPLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASE ... we at Agitprop had pegged the tipping point as the moment the Dear Leader lost Michelle "Maldusa" Malkin ...