Harriet Miers and illegal snooping.

[techs]

Bushes wacky pick of Miers now makes sense to me. Bush knew he had done the illegal snooping and wanted someone on the court that he could trust to OK it. After all someone who thinks you're the most brilliant person she ever met is pretty likely to think your interpretation of the constitution must be right.
btw I now wonder what questions were asked of Alito before he was picked as the nominee to check on how he might lean on the issue of illegal snooping.

 

[Rainsford]

Hmm, you may have a point. In this case though, a truly conservative judge like Alito (and the other conservatives on the court) are much more likely to strike down attempts at illegal wiretapping. After all, individual rights are quite the conservative value...just not for "modern" conservatives.

Edit: Just to make it clear, I think Bush's picks (Alito and Roberts, that is) are less likely to support this kind of thing than you might think at first. While I don't agree with their views on some topics, I think their conservative interpretation of the laws does not allow support of that kind of wiretapping. Today's "conservatives" complain a lot about activist judges, and seemed happy to get more traditional judges on the court...but it would take a truly activist judge to support the illegal snooping.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Choosing Miers for this reason is plausible, though if I had to bet I'd pick that Bush in his bubble of loyalists just didn't realize how much his grip on the party had weakened, and just chose Miers as another crony appointment.

 

[JacobJ]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Choosing Miers for this reason is plausible, though if I had to bet I'd pick that Bush in his bubble of loyalists just didn't realize how much his grip on the party had weakened, and just chose Miers as another crony appointment.

cronyism....

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

No offense, but this explanation makes essentially no sense at all. Miers would only have been one vote of nine on the USSC, and it was not reasonably foreseeable that the issue would be reviewed by the court anyway (he had succeeded in keeping it secret for years until a couple of weeks ago).

 

[conjur]

Unless they planned the "leak" as the conversations with the various newspaper editors weren't coming to the results the Propagandist wanted. Don't be surprised to find some lackey scapegoated.

 

[dahunan]

He picked Miers to tell his Christian Base that he still wants to undo the protections provided by Roe vs Wade --

He knew there was no way in hell should would get elected.. she probably served more than one purpose..

Message to the fundies
Some sort of distraction for events happening around that time

 

[Lemon law]

I have to disagree with Don Vito------Bush wanted a reliable vote on the supreme court and when its still has some liberals just one changed vote in nine can send the USSC lurching decisifely rightward.

Althiugh I do believe Don Vito is right that Bush did not expect his full domestic spying program to be made public.-----I believe JaconJ is more correct that Bush never had a grip on reality and is is losing his grip on the Republican party when he did not vet Miers with the party faithful.

This domestic spying things is a major blunder by Bush and marks the fifth time in a year that Bush failed to gage American sentiment.

1. Domestic spying--its extent will trouble everyone
2. The entire Miers nomination.
3. The Terri Shiavo thing----bringing the entire force of the Federal government to save a clearly brain dead woman----it horrified most thinking American who rightly feared a big government would
take the power of rational family decisions away from the family-----Bush, Frisk, and Delay could only see themselves as the calvary riding to the rescue-----and slunk back into the woodwork when polls showed them as a set of miscalculating idiots on the wrong side of public opinion.
4. The hurricaine Katrina fiasco--------Bush actually discovered that there are times when the Federal government is expected to do a good job----and the American public will hold people accountable when it does not.-----And no amount of ROVE spin could erase that perception with
the great slogan machine finally silent and insufficent.
5. The Social security reform thing-so soon after the election and talk about Bush's political capital.
A clear message that the American people did not trust Bush to monkey with something as important as social security.

Well, its now 2006. And Bush does not seem any more able to gage American sentiment---this domestic spying and the Alito nomination will soon be center stage with Bush again on the run.
Will enough Repunlican run away from Bush to sink domestic spying?

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: DonVito
No offense, but this explanation makes essentially no sense at all. Miers would only have been one vote of nine on the USSC, and it was not reasonably foreseeable that the issue would be reviewed by the court anyway (he had succeeded in keeping it secret for years until a couple of weeks ago).

More importantly, she "allegedly" participated in the process . . . granted a very superficial one . . . of figuring out how to get around the law. She would have to be horribly unethical to fail to recuse herself.

 

[ntdz]

Originally posted by: techs
Bushes wacky pick of Miers now makes sense to me. Bush knew he had done the illegal snooping and wanted someone on the court that he could trust to OK it. After all someone who thinks you're the most brilliant person she ever met is pretty likely to think your interpretation of the constitution must be right.
btw I now wonder what questions were asked of Alito before he was picked as the nominee to check on how he might lean on the issue of illegal snooping.

Only in your delusional reality does it make sense...

 

[Lemon law]

To Bali who poses she (Miers) would have been horribly unethical to not recuse herself given she partispated in the process------of crafting the justification for Presidential spying.

Somewhat confuses me-----any attorney not really troubled by the constitution questions raised and saying GWB is the greatest man she ever saw is already morally bankrupt---why let some ethical considerations get in your way?-------did Scalia?

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: DonVito
No offense, but this explanation makes essentially no sense at all. Miers would only have been one vote of nine on the USSC, and it was not reasonably foreseeable that the issue would be reviewed by the court anyway (he had succeeded in keeping it secret for years until a couple of weeks ago).

More importantly, she "allegedly" participated in the process . . . granted a very superficial one . . . of figuring out how to get around the law. She would have to be horribly unethical to fail to recuse herself.

However, Scalia set a new bar for recusals...and it's so low as to be non-existent. Ruling on your golfing buddy?