HOLY HARRIET MIERS

HOLY HARRIET MIERS! Will the quiet piety of  Harriet Miers now brought out in public be the reason her Supreme Court nomination doesn't have a prayer? [story]  Is it possible to be religious in the "right" way for those on the left to give a nominee a chance. Can privately held religious views be held in some kind of purgatory as a judged decides matters that send some to legal heaven and damns other to a more lowly level?

"I know she is pro-life," said Hecht, one of the most conservative judges in Texas. "She thinks that after conception, it's not a balancing act -- or if it is, it's a balancing of two equal lives."

Hecht and other confidants of Miers all pledge that if the Senate confirms her nomination to the Supreme Court, her judicial values will be guided by the law and the Constitution. But they say her personal values have been shaped by her abiding faith in Jesus, and by her membership in the massive red-brick Valley View Christian Church, where she was baptized as an adult, served on the missions committee and taught religious classes.

WHO TAKES SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR'S place on the Supreme Court will tilt the balance on matters of life and death, of when life begins, and how life ends.  That justice will also settle matters mainstream Americans face in the current of the times.  The woman Miers who has made little splash outside legal circles, who is within George Bush's inner circle, now is buffeted by waves from all distant seas.  Should we have expected anything else?

HERETIK POSTS ON HARRIET MIERS [Mier's Brief Disaster] [The Bowtie Speaks] [Miers's Brief Disaster] [The Circle Starring  Harriet Miers] [Brilliance] [Bush Gone Wild]

RECOMMENDED READING
SOUTER, OR KERIK? [The Decembrist] The fascinating thing about the Miers nomination at this point is the cosmic uncertainty of its next direction. The Roberts nomination was as painfully predictable as his own lifelong preparation for it; the only question was whether more than half or fewer of the Senate Democrats would vote against him. (In the end, about half did.) On this one, assumptions range from confident predictions of 100-0 confirmation, since Democrats find risking it all on the unknown behind Curtain #3 far wiser than all the other options they've seen, and Republicans will fall in line because, well, because Republicans fall in line; to predictions that the nomination will be withdrawn.

THE HERETIK DECLARED yesterday this nomination will be withdrawn for any number of "personal reasons," most of which will have more to due with Bush than with Miers.

TALKING BASEBALL [Professor Bainbridge] The transcript of my interview yesterday on the Hugh Hewitt show is now up at Radioblogger. By analogy to that great Congressional tradition, I want to use this post to revise and extend my remarks. In particular, I want to pick up on the baseball analogy. (In the course of doing so, I may also be able to at least indirectly answer some of the questions Beldar posed to me the other day.)

The Supreme Court is the big league. Those nine old men and women have arrogated to themselves not only the powers historically exercised by jurists in the Anglo-American legal tradition but also, through the interpretation of Constitutional ink blots, the sole right to decide a host of political, social, and cultural issues that in every other democratic society are resolved legislatively via political processes. For better or worse, and I think it is much the worse, the Supreme Court has become and will remain a critical ideological battleground. A President cannot squander the opportunity to reshape history when the rare chance to make a lifetime appointment to the Court comes around.

Accordingly, and unabashedly, I wanted George Bush to hit a home run; i.e., a young, committed movement conservative possessing one of the greatest legal minds of his/her generation. Based on everything George Bush had said about appointing judges, going back to the 2000 Presidential campaign, I expected Bush to hit a home run or, at least, go down swinging for the fences.

What I got was a single. Or maybe a double. But no home run.

THE HERETIK THINKS Bush may strike out with this one, but a bench coach will have to tell him it is time for a pinch hitter.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? [Spin Dentist/ The All Spin Zone] What is an ALBINO? Well, you know a RINO is a Republican In Name Only, and the readers here could list them, right? Olympia Snowe, her fellow Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, etc. But what's an ALBINO.

Anyone who Loves Bush In Name Only.  Like Paul over there on Powerline

WHAT'S IN A NUMBER? [Mystery Pollster] This morning brings a new Gallup/CNN/USAToday poll conducted Monday and Tuesday evenings (10/3-4) with reaction to the Harriet Miers nomination.   Both the USAToday and CNN stories emphasize that Americans are less enthusiastic about Miers than they were of John Roberts Forty-four percent (44%) rate her an excellent or good choice, 41% rate her only fair or poor.  By comparison, 51% rated Roberts excellent or good just after his nomination, 34% only fair or poor.

THE HERETIK SAYS any way you name it, any way you count it, the Boy Genius and the Boy President look schooled on this nomination.  Numbers like this don't go up, the name calling will get worse.

IT JUST GOT WORSE [Daily Pepper] A Delicious Dish for the Right
Bats Left, Throws Right has a typically brilliant take on the whining of the Right Hand: As for the Right, well, this is your boy. Jesus put him in the Oval Office at such a critical time, right? Support Our President, You Effing Traitors, wasn't that the way it went? So, put it between two pieces of bread and eat it.

MORE TO FOLLOW

 

Comments

[Neil Shakespeare]

HOLY HARRIET! Damn your hide, Heretik! Why didn't I think of that?!! Hey, i finally got a link for you. You probably already know about this blog, but it's...POSTMAN PATEL, a UK blog apparently named after a cartoon character who delivers the mail to "LARDVILLE". Link is: http://postmanpatel.blogspot.com/. This guy has a knack of laying things out clearly (especially for a dunce like me who has a hard time following). He's got a great post which clearly sets out the links on the George, Harriet, Barnes (that guy who got George his Guard post) and Gtech (the company who runs the Texas lottery) SCANDALE! Another one on George's private army, DynTech. HOLY HARRIET INDEED! GREAT IMAGE!

[cruelanimal]

I was watching "Whose Line Is It Anyway" the other night, and the cast began playing the euphemism game. Ryan Stiles said, "I gotta go choke the nun...if you know what I mean."

I now understand the context of his remark.

That -- and John Lennon's "Mother Superior jump the gun..."

Thanks for sharing another great image.