Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the Supreme Court today. It is amazing that Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post last week the exact scenario that President Bush used make the change. I believe that it was the Washington Post that recommended to President Carter to boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1980 in protest over the invasion of Afghanistan.
The question is who will be next. I doubt that President Bush will make an announcement before next week for fear of being accused of "wagging the dog" because on the impending indictments of Rove and Libby.
I suspect that the conservatives are not going to get the candidate that they want. Bush ran as a moderate in 2000; as a "compassionate (read: prodigal) conservative in the spirit of bi-partisanship after the antagonistic Clinton years.
In 2004 he had to take a hard right to get the Evangelical Christians to vote. In 2000 they largely sat on their hands, as they usually do (they still voted in a lower percentage than either Catholics or mainstream Protestants. However, he really hasn't done much to advance their agenda, especially compared to the neo-cons.
A case can also be made that the Republicans do not want to have Roe v Wade reversed. Right now they can run as "pro-life" (who isn't?) candidates, currying favor again with the Evangelical crowd, while not having to worry about the 70% of Americans who support a woman's right to choose.
I predict that President Bush is going to name someone who is perfectly acceptable to those outstanding Senator, Arlen Spector and Pat Leahy.
1 comment:
Looks like a fight. I can't imagine that Alito ("Scalito") will be acceptable to any of the red state senators.
Hang onto your hats!
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