As president,
Nixon imposed wage and price controls, created the Environmental
Protection Agency, initiated race-based hiring schemes, signed
SALT I with the Soviets and instituted rapprochement with the
Red Chinese. All of this resulted in liberals ... despising him
even more!
After five
years of Nixon's ignoring conservatives -- where else would they
go? -- when liberals came after him for Watergate, conservatives
ignored Nixon. (As the details of Nixon's "dirty tricks"
came out, conservative columnist Stan Evans reportedly told Pat
Buchanan: "I want to apologize for all my attacks upon your
administration. I would never have done that if I had known you
were into all that good stuff we've been hearing about lately.")
For five
years, Bush has initiated massive spending programs, obstinately
refused to protect the borders and signed restrictions on political
speech into law. His veto pen remains unopened and unused in its
original shrink-wrapped case. Bush treats conservatives like the
Democrats treat the blacks (which is to say, pretty badly).
Conservatives
were unhappy, but we were confident Bush would never let us down
on the two issues that mattered more than anything else: the war
on terrorism and the Supreme Court.
And now,
although Bush has been bold and strong against the terrorists,
it is beyond question that he has betrayed conservative hopes
for the Supreme Court.
The way Bush
has been attacking his base lately, he better hope liberals start
to love him. There aren't going to be a lot of conservatives left
to defend him if someone in the White House gets indicted or something.
(But at least he can always count on Fox News analysts!)
When conservatives
erupted in pain and rage that the president had thrown away a
Supreme Court seat on his personal lawyer -- because she's a girl
and Laura wanted a girl -- administration flacks snippily informed
right-wing activists that they didn't get a vote. Only senators
vote on judicial nominees (that is, whenever Democrats allow it).
Next, the
Bush White House accused conservatives of elitism and sexism for
opposing the former Texas Lottery commissioner for the Supreme
Court.
Then we discovered
the White House actually believes everything liberals say about
conservative Christians -- that we are "uneducated"
and "easily led." After administration officials snookered
a few evangelical leaders into supporting Miers, they sat back
and congratulated themselves on a job well done. But evangelicals
are, at best, split down the middle on Miers. Apparently, Christians
aren't so easily led. (That's what you get for believing The
Washington Post!)
Now the White
House is threatening Republican senators who are thinking of voting
against the former lottery commissioner. To deliver this message,
Bush chose Tom Rath, a Republican functionary in New Hampshire
who brags on his Web page that he "actively assisted in the
U.S. Senate process that confirmed David Souter as Supreme Court
justice."
At least
Bush found a man with impeccable credentials to promote the Miers
nomination. Note to the promotions department: You can stop printing
up those "Trust Me!" T-shirts. I don't think we're going
to need them!
Finally,
to throw us totally off balance, Bush did something weird and
scary this week: He nominated Ben Bernanke for Fed chairman --
A MAN WHO'S TOTALLY QUALIFIED FOR THE JOB. The White House has
yet to explain how this happened.
Politicians
and Fox News analysts afraid of upsetting the White House keep
saying we need to wait for the hearings to see if Miers is qualified.
This is like saying we need to wait for the hearings to see if
Miers is a polar bear. We already know the answer! She's not a
polar bear, and she's not qualified. The Kabuki theater of nomination
hearings will not tell us anything new.
It's as if
all Miers needs to do during the hearings is utter the magic words
-- say she opposes "judicial activism" -- and conservatives
will love her! I have news for you: Chuck Schumer claims he opposes
"judicial activism," too.
In fact,
the only two people who will derive any benefit from the hearings
are Joe Biden, who will finally look like a constitutional scholar,
and Harriet Miers, who might learn something about the Constitution
from him.
Democrats
are so happy at the mess Bush stepped in with the Miers nomination
that they don't want to help him by opposing her. The NARAL ladies
will have to take a back seat to Democrat dreams of an impotent
George Bush. Yeah, maybe Miers will vote to overturn Roe,
but that still won't create a majority to overturn it.
But if Miers
gets on the court, Democrats can have their way with Bush. He
will have exposed himself as a scaredy-cat. Most important, his
armies will be gone. This isn't a game of kick the can, where
Republicans fight for any idiot with an "R" on his shirt.
Republicans support Bush because he's a Republican, not whether
or not he is a Republican. With the Miers nomination, Bush has
screwed his base, screwed Republican senators, screwed legal conservatives.
Good luck with those indictments! Maybe Tom Rath can help you.
