IT'S MORNING IN CHICAGO
I'm not a serious baseball fan, but when a team in my home town wins the World Series for the first time in 80 years, I figure I might as well enjoy it. I'm more of a fan now than I was before the Summer of the Impeachment, when the home run duel between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa was the nicest thing happening on the news, so I actually started paying attention. Anyway, it was a nice thing to wake up to.
It was at least interesting to wake up to the announcement that Harriet Miers has withdrawn her name from consideration for the Supreme Court position. Like most Democrats I know, I found her less objectionable than most of the possible alternatives. I think, in fact, that she really was what Reagan thought he was getting in Sandra Day O'Connor. I still don't understand why the Hard Right fought her nomination so hard, though. Are they just throwing their weight around unnecessarily? (By the way, in Arabic, there is a word which means literally, "to act like a person from Baghdad" and colloquially, "to throw one's weight around.") Or were they trying to sneak her past the Democrats in Congress by making them think she might be a closet moderate? Now, of course, we may never know.
The other thing that somewhat perplexes me is Miers' official reason for withdrawing her name: that she doesn't want to "burden" the White House with the possibility of having to release materials about her work as White House counsel that might breach attorney-client confidentiality. I find this odd because I distinctly remember from the Summer of the Impeachment that everybody was taking it for granted that there was no attorney-client confidentiality between Clinton and his White House counsel.
And finally, if the Hard Right was really serious in opposing Miers, does this presage a split in the Republican party? Are there really enough people in the party who think Bush has gone too far in reversing the work, not only of Franklin Roosevelt but of Teddy Roosevelt, that they might be willing to form--what? A New Bull Moose Party? Led by McCain, no doubt. Or maybe the Hard Right would split off to form their own party. The mind boggles at the possible names for that, most of which I find too blasphemous to print here. But I think the majority of American voters would find a moderate Republican party, by whatever name, really attractive, and its candidates would be a shoo-in in 2008.
It was at least interesting to wake up to the announcement that Harriet Miers has withdrawn her name from consideration for the Supreme Court position. Like most Democrats I know, I found her less objectionable than most of the possible alternatives. I think, in fact, that she really was what Reagan thought he was getting in Sandra Day O'Connor. I still don't understand why the Hard Right fought her nomination so hard, though. Are they just throwing their weight around unnecessarily? (By the way, in Arabic, there is a word which means literally, "to act like a person from Baghdad" and colloquially, "to throw one's weight around.") Or were they trying to sneak her past the Democrats in Congress by making them think she might be a closet moderate? Now, of course, we may never know.
The other thing that somewhat perplexes me is Miers' official reason for withdrawing her name: that she doesn't want to "burden" the White House with the possibility of having to release materials about her work as White House counsel that might breach attorney-client confidentiality. I find this odd because I distinctly remember from the Summer of the Impeachment that everybody was taking it for granted that there was no attorney-client confidentiality between Clinton and his White House counsel.
And finally, if the Hard Right was really serious in opposing Miers, does this presage a split in the Republican party? Are there really enough people in the party who think Bush has gone too far in reversing the work, not only of Franklin Roosevelt but of Teddy Roosevelt, that they might be willing to form--what? A New Bull Moose Party? Led by McCain, no doubt. Or maybe the Hard Right would split off to form their own party. The mind boggles at the possible names for that, most of which I find too blasphemous to print here. But I think the majority of American voters would find a moderate Republican party, by whatever name, really attractive, and its candidates would be a shoo-in in 2008.
posted by WiredSisters at 9:16 AM
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