Category: Old Dish

Just when the conservative coalition was already fracturing – over Iraq, spending, immigration, Katrina – you’d think that Bush would pick a solid base-favorite for SCOTUS. That was my assumption: something to rev up the troops, divide the country into a classic culture-war left-right battle, etc. But I was wrong. For Bush, it’s all about his own power and his own decisions and his own cronies. I’m reminded of Clinton in his second term. When Bush says that his government does not practise “torture,” he is doing exactly the same as Clinton did when he said he did not have “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky. It all depends on what the meaning of “torture” or “sexual relations” is. Ditto with Miers. The only reason I can think of for Bush to rattle his base in this fashion is the same reason Clinton decided to push his luck with a blow-job in the Oval Office: “Because I could.” He picked Miers because he could. If he wasn’t allowed to get his favorite crony, Gonzales, he was going to go one better. This is not to say we shouldn’t give the Miers nomination a thorough and fair look. Unlike many of the Cornerites, I’m not sure yet whether she’d make a decent Justice. But, boy, does this pick remind us of who GWB is: about as arrogant a person as anyone who has ever held his office. Now the base knows how the rest of us have felt for close to five years. He had one accountability moment. He doesn’t expect another.

“Another reason for Bush not to pick … Gonzales or Miers is this: One of the Democratic talking points that is getting some traction is the Crony Talking Point — the idea that this presidency is made up of friends and friends of friends who all do business together and whose qualifications matter less than their connections to GWB. Since nobody on earth aside from Bush would actually consider Gonzales or Miers a suitable Supreme Court nominee, the appointment of either would smack precisely of the cronyism with which he is (in my view) being unfairly tarred. Bush would be giving his critics some very serious ammunition to use against him at a time when he can’t afford to do such a thing.” – John Podhoretz, National Review, September 29. “Nobody on earth” would consider Miers a suitable SCOTUS pick! Does that include every Republican senator, John?

Here’s WaPo’s June profile of Harriet Miers. She is, of course, married in a meaningful sense: to the Bush clan. Her qualification is primarily personal proximity to the president:

Formerly Bush’s personal lawyer in Texas, Miers came with him to the White House in 2001 as staff secretary, the person who screens all the documents that cross the president’s desk. She was promoted to deputy chief of staff before Bush named her counsel after his reelection in November.

Cronyism, anyone?

THANK GOD: The “Exodus Ministries” reference in Harriet Miers’ resume, which caused me to splutter my coffee over my laptop this morning, is not an ex-gay group. According to the Human Rights Campaign,

During the announcement, President Bush referenced Miers’ affiliation with Exodus Ministry. This is not the so called ‘ex-gay’ group, but is ‘a non-denominational Christian organization established to assist ex-offenders and their families become productive members of society by meeting both their spiritual and physical needs.’

Phew. My apologies for the sudden panic and hastily revised post.

Here’s an excerpt from the president’s announcement on Harriet Miers. Among the charities that Harriet Miers has worked for are the following:

[T]he Young Women’s Christian Association, Childcare Dallas, Goodwill Industries, Exodus Ministries, Meals on Wheels and the Legal Aid Society.

Stop right there. Exodus Ministries? Does he mean this or this? We need to know.

There’s a groan of disappointment. Frum, who touted her back in July, now says the following:

I worked with Harriet Miers. She’s a lovely person: intelligent, honest, capable, loyal, discreet, dedicated … I could pile on the praise all morning. But nobody would describe her as one of the outstanding lawyers in the United States. And there is no reason at all to believe either that she is a legal conservative or – and more importantly – that she has the spine and steel necessary to resist the pressures that constantly bend the American legal system toward the left.
I am not saying that she is not a legal conservative. I am not saying that she is not steely. I am saying only that there is no good reason to believe either of these things. Not even her closest associates on the job have no [sic] good reason to believe either of these things. In other words, we are being asked by this president to take this appointment purely on trust, without any independent reason to support it. And that is not a request conservatives can safely grant.

I think people under-estimate president Bush’s view of his own office. He believes he has had his one accountability moment in power: it was the last election. As we have seen from his refusal to acknowledge his own out-of-control spending or abrogation of settled American law against abusing military detainees, he really does believe he is above the usual sense of accountability. That’s why conservatives who think that it’s a smart thing to criticize him now, rather than before the election, are fooling themselves. This guy will do what he wants. If he wants to pick a close friend and flunky, whatever her virtues, as a Supreme Court Justice, passing over dozens of other brilliant legal minds and more experienced jurists more acceptable to his base, that’s what he’ll do. And that’s what he’s done. Even reflexive Bush-backer, Glenn Reynolds, is “underwhelmed.” That’s insta-speak for gob-smacked.

Well, a couple of us saw this one coming. Here’s David Frum last July and here’s my backing him up. From David’s post:

Miers was the first woman president of the Texas Bar Association, a co-managing partner of a 400-lawyer firm in Texas, a one-time Dallas city councilor, and by the by, the personal lawyer to one George W. Bush. She joined his staff as governor, served as staff secretary (Richard Darman’s old job) in the first administration, and now oversees the White House’s legal work. She is quiet, discreet, intensely loyal to Bush personally, and – though not ideologically conservative – nonetheless firmly pro-life. Plus she’s a woman. Double plus – she’d be a huge surprise, and the president loves springing surprises on Washington and those pundits who think they know it all.
There are minuses too of course, beginning with that same discretion that recommended Miers as counsel: Supreme Court justices are often expected to have achieved a certain public profile before their appointment, while Miers has gone out of her way to avoid it.
But if the nomination process bogs down – or if President Bush’s first choice of nominee should somehow stall or fail – then Miers might well be his back-up nominee. Scoff if you like. But if it happens, please remember that you read it here first.

My point back in July:

Another cold day in hell, but I think David Frum has a point on Harriet Miers. In my occasional interactions with the Bush brigade, I have discovered she is revered as well as feared. Not much of a paper trail; but hard as nails.

Think of her as a very capable indentured servant of the Bush family. She’ll do what they want. She’ll be a very, very tough nut to crack in the hearings. And I have no idea about her judicial philosophy. But I imagine that’s the point. When I described her as a flunky last July, a source close to Bush told me: “Don’t mess with Harriet.” I think they’ve found someone whose personal loyalty to Bush exceeds even Gonzales’. And in some ways, I see this very personal, very crony appointment to be a response to being told he couldn’t pick his main man, Alberto. Harriet is his main woman. I reserve judgment on her fitness to serve on the court.

The only difference between blogs and the NYT when it comes to corrections is not that MSM has a better accuracy record – or that blogs do. It’s that many blogs correct far more swiftly and honestly than the NYT. Here’s the blog post that brings together most bloggy response to the final, way-too-late Krugman capitulation. I still don’t understand why Krugman was not forced to write it in his own words in his own column under the head: “Update” or “Correction.” That’s what we do.

JUST FOR THE RECORD: This piece, which calls me a “prominent liberal,” slyly accuses me of somehow deliberate dishonesty when I linked to pictures from the right-wing kiddie indoctrination book, “Help Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!” They say I claimed the book contained nudity and then retracted, once my fabrication was disproved. As I wrote at the time, I was conned about a few of the illustrations, as was the blog I linked to. I wasn’t deliberately trying to convey a false impression, and it’s unfair to insinuate that. I corrected and apologized the minute I discovered I’d been had by a parody. But my point remained. As to the term “prominent liberal,” well, I think it tells you more about what has happened to conservatism than what has happened to me. I am now and long have been for small government, low taxes, a balanced budget, welfare reform, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, a flat tax, states’ rights, and an increase in defense spending. I believe abortion and affirmative action are immoral and would have voted in dissent on Roe vs Wade. I’m a believing Christian. Right now, that makes you a “prominent liberal.” Think for a minute what that says about what conservative orthodoxy has now become. You are a “prominent liberal” even if you believe all these things, but also believe that there should be a clear separation between church and state, that abuse and torture of people in captivity is wrong, that soldiers deserve civilian leadership that allows them to fight and win wars, that minorities deserve civil rights, and that presidents are accountable for what happens on their watch in their own government and military.

My column in the Sunday Times on the inspiring courage of Capt Ian Fishback. I can tell you that his step-mom and dad have already read some of your emails and want to extend their thanks. In their words: “WOW! how encouraging.” They have, alas, been unable to reach Ian by any means for three days. Pray for them and him. You can email yr support to supportfishback@aol.com. If other bloggers want to broadcast this email address, please do. Whatever your view on the war, whatever your view about the broader responsibility for the detainee abuse crisis, here is one man who appears to be trying to do the right thing – when it could seriously harm his career. Remember: he’s no show-boater. He tried to get this fixed by internal methods for seventeen months. We need more of his integrity in public life right now.

“I have no doubt that, providing we can keep the training and the security sector reform going, and providing some of the reconstruction will continue at the present rate, we’ll reach a point where we can see an Iraq that is self-governing, providing its own security and has a democracy of the form that the Iraqis want … I would hope that as we go through the political process, the referendum and the next set of elections in December, it will become clear how secure the political machinery in Iraq is becoming.

If the elections are successful, and if a fully elected government gets in with a genuine mandate, then I think that confidence will overspill into all areas of progress. That will allow their own security forces to continue to develop from where they are at the moment, and at some stage in the future they will feel confident enough to take on their own management of the security in their country.” – General Sir Michael Walker, chief of the defence staff in the UK. He is also concerned, however, about morale among his troops and British popular opposition to the war. Despite extremely distressing stories like this one in the NYT, we have to hope that we can find a way out of the mess Rumsfeld and Bush have created, with their ill-planned and under-staffed occupation. There is still hope.

One of the now hundreds of emails I have been forwarding to Fishback. More follow:

Thank you very much for having the moral courage to come forward. As a West Point grad and patriotic American, I was very reluctant to believe the abuse allegations that came out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Like many, I tended to believe Abu Grahib was a more or less isolated incident–surely, I thought, the powers-that-be wouldn’t allow such things to happen on a wider scale. Furthermore, given all the classes we had on military ethics and leadership, I was sure my classmates and co-alums would not permit troops to engage in torture or coercion.

When I was a cadet–when you were, too–Walter Cronkite was given the Thayer Award, and I never forget what he told the Corps: “The public has a right to know what the government does in its name.” And who could forget the neverending admonishment from officers and fellow cadets, that we were to choose the harder right over the easier wrong? So I was very disappointed to learn that this nation’s leadership has in fact allowed such things to happen in yet another short-sighted attempt to cut corners on the road to a noble end.

But I was very heartened indeed to learn that a fellow West Pointer (and fellow A-2 Spartan!) had the courage to stand up and say no. Your letter to Senator McCain was an eloquent expression of what many (and, I firmly believe, most) Americans believe: we are not to judge our actions against the reprehensible standards of the thugs and barbarians we are fighting, but against the lofty principles espoused in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. We took oaths to that Constitution at West Point, oaths to support the law itself, not individuals or leaders or political factions. May God Bless you for having the courage to truly live by that oath. I will keep you in my prayers.

Says it all, doesn’t it?

FROM A SOLDIER’S DAD: “Thanks–many thanks–for your integrity and courage. I support you and pray for you, and for this country, which is simply misguided in the radical turn it has taken in the treatment of prisoners. In times past, torture and abuse simply would not have been tolerated by the American people, the nation’s leaders and the nation’s military. Thank God we still have people like yourself who are willing to stand up and do and say the right thing. Again, Ian, I pray that God will keep you lifted up and strong in this. You are being a moral voice and a true prophet, and being a prophet is dangerous stuff. But keep taking courage in knowing that you are right and that many people still understand and support where you’re coming from in this. Thanks again and grace and peace – from a father of a new U.S. Marine Corps recruit, who heads to boot camp Nov. 14.”

FROM A NAVY MAN: “If you’ll forgive a slightly lighter start from me — my father was a Navy man, an Annapolis grad, and so I’ve always been one to support the chants of ‘Army sucks!’ in the more football-directed end of things, I admit.
But what our country is involved in now is no game, and there is of course no question he would support me in my writing to you now that I admire your decency, your action and the strength of your beliefs, beyond all words.
Your letter to Senator McCain made me once again proud to be an American, sir — I have never not been, despite my many thoughts and concerns about this country over time, but it is the recognition in the strength and belief of others in those ideals that we should always strive for that, I hope, further bolsters my own — to know that there are those who truly set an example.”

FROM A SOLDIER’S MOM: “I have a son who is a helicopter pilot currently in Iraq. Thank you for what you have done. What you are doing is of immeasurable benefit for all military personnel, as well for all Americans. I wish there was something more I could do to help. Be well.”

FROM A CHRISTIAN: “On one level you are a present-day Alfred Dreyfus or Billy Mitchell, but on a deeper level you are refusing to take part in the Scourging of Jesus of Nazareth. May the Creator of all continue to fortify you.”

FROM A VETERAN: “I am a veteran and a very proud American. One of the reasons I am proud is because of brave, honest, good people like you. You are in my thoughts, and I wish you the very best.”

A reminder: email supportfishback@aol.com and I will forward the emails so that he gets a chance to read them personally.