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| Tuesday, October 25, 2005 |
| Catching up |
Let me try to catch up on some developments over the weekend and yesterday:
Ben Bernanke, new Fed Chair: A good pick. But we need to stop fawning over Alan Greenspan, who has allowed and even sometimes cheered as Bush has taken the economy to an extremely precarious place, where China holds the strings. A more responsible chair would have been speaking more, publicly and privately, about increasing savings rates, balancing the budget, reducing the trading deficit.
White House asking people how they should withdraw Miers: Glad to hear it. Though some liberals argue that Miers, for all her faults, might be the best we can get, I just can't bear to think of the world's strongest country putting someone so egregiously unqualified on its highest court for life. I'd honestly sleep better if there was a whip-smart conservative stalwart on there than Miers. Not a Scalia type, but someone more like Roberts, who clearly has an intellectual not an idealogical basis behind his judgments.
Allegations to come out this week on Rove/Libby/Cheney: Just watched the most recent West Wing (best drama ever on TV, imho) in which Pres. Bartlett has to fire Toby Ziegler for a national security leak. Hope we get to see the real thing in a few days. Frankly I've been worried lately that Bush will leave his Presidency without the disastrous legacy that he deserves. Bush should be remembered for the joke he is and was. 2005 will help. |
posted by CB @ 11:36 AM   |
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| 2 Comments: |
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Yeah, so now I'm worried that, whenever Miers withdraws, the Democrats still won't be in a position of power in terms of choosing the next candidate to succeed O'Connor because they haven't been the loud voices of complaint here. I honestly think Miers would be near Scalia and Thomas in terms of knee-jerk constructionism, both because of her close friendship with Bush and because of her fundamentalist religious beliefs. I wish the Democrats had really gotten the word out that they were upset about this nomination; now, what's to stop Bush from only appeasing the radical right with a crazy, but better qualified, choice?
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Your point is valid, but I still think the Dems have been playing this correctly. The GOP is having a real identity crisis here, and the one thing they're good at is rallying together against Democrats. So we've stayed out to allow them to take each other apart.
You're right... we won't be in a position of power, but honestly I don't think we ever could have. You can't attack Miers for radical rightwingedness because she has no public record to suggest that. Your inclination might be correct, but there was no way to support that in public.
Bush may nominate a rightwing nut - Luttig, Alito - but, I dunno, he may not be game for the fight. Does he have the political power? Wouldn't it be easy for Dems to argue that Bush is weakly running back to his rightwing friends?
What Dems have to hope for, I think, is someone like Larry Thompson.
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Yeah, so now I'm worried that, whenever Miers withdraws, the Democrats still won't be in a position of power in terms of choosing the next candidate to succeed O'Connor because they haven't been the loud voices of complaint here. I honestly think Miers would be near Scalia and Thomas in terms of knee-jerk constructionism, both because of her close friendship with Bush and because of her fundamentalist religious beliefs. I wish the Democrats had really gotten the word out that they were upset about this nomination; now, what's to stop Bush from only appeasing the radical right with a crazy, but better qualified, choice?