See other Dead Constitution Articles
Title: 20-Person Team To Sell Re-Packaged Miers
Source:
Time
URL Source: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1118316,00.html
Published: Oct 16, 2005
Author: Mike Allen
Post Date: 2005-10-16 17:26:06 by Uncle Bill
Keywords: Re-Packaged, 20-Person, Miers
Views: 105
Comments: 11
With even Laura off-key on Miers, Bush plans to change the message—again Time Get ready for a whole new Harriet. After a disastrous two weeks, White House officials say they hope to relaunch the nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court by moving from what they call a "biographical phase" to an "accomplishment phase." In other words, stop debating her religion and personality and start focusing on her resume as a pioneering female lawyer of the Southwest. "We got a little wrapped around the axle," an exhausted White House official said. "As the focus becomes less on who she's not and more on who she is, that's a better place to be." So, as the White House counsel begins her formal prep sessions this week for a confirmation hearing that's likely to start in early November, President Bush will hold a photo op with former chief justices of the Texas Supreme Court who will testify to Miers' qualifications and legal mind. The White House's 20-person "confirmation team" will line up news conferences, opinion pieces and letters to the editor by professors and former colleagues who can talk about Miers' experience dealing with such real-world issues as the Voting Rights Act when she was a Dallas city council member and Native American tribal sovereignty when she was chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission. After enjoying the 78-to-22 confirmation breeze for Chief Justice John Roberts, congressional Republicans are now sweating the Miers vote count and tell TIME that it could be as low as 52—embarrassing but still good enough for a lifetime appointment. Lawmakers and staff contend that during her first round of courtesy calls, Miers had anything but a commanding presence, looking more like a prom date next to the confident Senators. Republicans said she seemed unwilling or unable to answer questions about whether she viewed particular cases as important precedents and said she offered little beyond banal chatter. A White House that once appeared impervious to external stimuli suddenly seemed snakebit. Correspondence released in Texas included a number of gushing cards and letters from Miers to Bush—including a 1997 birthday card in which Miers sounded like a breathless teen in a fan letter, declaring, "You are the best Governor ever—deserving of great respect!" Every effort to right the situation only made it worse. Even Laura Bush—the President's safety valve in times of trouble—irked grouchy conservatives with a mild comment on NBC's Today show. Standing beside her hammering husband on a Habitat for Humanity lot in soggy Louisiana, she said it was "possible" that there was some sexism in the criticism of Miers. "It was insulting to the people who are trying to be the most helpful," said a discouraged conservative operative who has been going to the gym more instead of pulling all-nighters for Miers. The day after his wife's stumble, the President took his turn, playing up his nominee's evangelical Christianity as part of her qualifications for the court. But then the message changed again. Press secretary Scott McClellan briefly dropped his sunny volubility and accused reporters of obsessing about the "side issues of religion," as if the White House hadn't been pushing Miers' faith. "We love you, Scott," a correspondent bellowed in singsong as McClellan finished his briefing and left the podium. In yet another misguided effort at damage control, Christian conservative leader James Dobson of the organization Focus on the Family disclosed last week that top Bush aide Karl Rove had privately told him Bush was focusing on women as candidates and that some conservative favorites had dropped out of the running "because the process has become so vicious." Neither Dobson nor the White House gave specifics, and even allies on the right were skeptical of the account. "I don't buy it," one leading conservative said. Bush's friends contend that it is the conservative elite, not the President, who miscalculated and that self-righteous right-wingers stand to lose their seats at the table of power for the next three years. "They're crazy to take him on this frontally," said a former West Wing official. "Not many people have done that with George Bush and lived to tell about it." If a Justice Miers eventually takes her seat on the court, vocal critics can only hope the Bush Administration handles the punishment of the treasonous as poorly as it is currently promoting one of its most loyal subjects.
Why They Can't Hit The Right Note
By Mike Allen
October 16, 2005
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Uncle Bill (#0)
If that's the number, shouldn't they be sweating a filibuster?
Miss Harriet is doa, imo. I hope.
Perhaps. On the one hand, the Democrats might decide that Miers is in fact better for them than any likely replacement would probably be. On the other hand, using a filibuster to nix the Miers nomination might not only have a good chance of success, it is also likely to have small if any political cost, and more importantly, a successful filibuster without much cost would establish a very powerful precedent--one that might make the next filibuster that much easier.
congressional Republicans are now sweating the Miers vote count and tell TIME that it could be as low as 52
#2. To: Uncle Bill (#0)
Great polish gif, btw.
#3. To: aristeides (#1)
If that's the number, shouldn't they be sweating a filibuster?
 | "..be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety." |
#4. To: aristeides (#1)
Chronology Of A Cover-up - George W. Clinton Time Karl Rove has a plan, as always. Even before testifying last week for the fourth time before a grand jury probing the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, Bush senior adviser Rove and others at the White House had concluded that if indicted he would immediately resign or possibly go on unpaid leave, several legal and Administration sources familiar with the thinking told TIME. Resignation is the much more likely scenario, they say. The same would apply to I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the Vice President's chief of staff, who also faces a possible indictment. A former White House official says Rove's break with Bush would have to be clean- -no "giving advice from the sidelines"--for the sake of the Administration. Severing his ties would allow Rove--who as deputy chief of staff runs a vast swath of the West Wing--to fight aggressively "any bull___ charges," says a source close to Rove, like allegations that he was part of a broad conspiracy to discredit Plame's husband Joseph Wilson. Rove's defense: whatever he did fell far short of that. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald appears to be seriously weighing a perjury charge for Rove's failure to tell grand jurors that he talked to TIME correspondent Matthew Cooper about Plame, according to a person close to Rove. Rove corrected himself in a later grand jury session. If charged with perjury, he will maintain he simply didn't recall the conversation with Cooper and told Fitzgerald as soon as he did. Those strategies are being shaped absent any real knowledge of what Fitzgerald might do before the grand jury's scheduled dissolution on Oct. 28. "If he played his cards any closer to the vest, they'd be in his underwear," says a lawyer who is a friend of the White House. But Fitzgerald's intentions aren't the only mystery. Another character in the drama remains unnamed: the original source for columnist Robert Novak, who wrote the first piece naming Plame. Fitzgerald, says a lawyer who's involved in the case, "knows who it is--and it's not someone at the White House." On Sunday, Oct. 16, the New York Times published its long-awaited account of reporter Judith Miller's dealings with Libby; she had spent 85 days in jail before receiving written and oral permission from Libby to testify before the grand jury. The nearly 6,000-word Times account says that notes Miller turned over to the prosecutor contain Plame's name, misspelled as "Valerie Flame," in the same notebook she used to interview Libby, but as Miller wrote in an accompanying first-person piece in the Times, she told the grand jury she believed that information came from "another source, whom I could not recall." In her 3,500-word account of her grand jury appearance, Miller says Fitzgerald also asked questions about Vice President Dick Cheney, including if Libby ever indicated to her whether "Cheney had approved of his interviews with me or was aware of them. The answer is no." The Times account makes clear that Miller's bosses supported her decision to go to jail but that there were deep tensions between Miller and her editors about her overall role in the affair and a disagreement between one of her lawyers, Robert Bennett, and the Times lawyer about her eventual reaching out to Libby that resulted in her freedom. One key point that Fitzgerald is sure to pursue: in his letter to Miller allowing her to testify, Libby asserted that "the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me." In her account, Miller made clear that while she could not recall if Libby had ever identified Wilson's wife by name, he did in fact tell her in a two-hour breakfast meeting on July 8, 2003--six days before columnist Novak disclosed to the world Plame's name and her role as an operative at the agency--that Wilson's wife worked at WINPAC, which stands for Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, a CIA unit that tracks unconventional weapons. Miller testified that she assumed that meant Wilson's wife worked as an analyst, not as an undercover operative.
A Contingency Plan
By VIVECA NOVAK, MIKE ALLEN
October 16, 2005
#5. To: Uncle Bill (#4)
Critics of Rove refer to him as “amoral” and Machiavellian—as in “the ends justify the means.” “He’s (Rove) enormously effective,” says Dallas lawyer and Bush critic Tom Pauken, noting that Rove’s political bible is Machiavelli’s The Prince. And it is Machiavelli—not the authors of the conservative and neocon canon—who has informed Rove's treatment of Pauken. (2) For those unfamiliar with Machiavelli and The Prince, here is one quote from Chapter 18, “Concerning the Way in Which a Prince Should Keep Faith”: Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite...(3) In other words, Machiavelli’s advice is to appear merciful, faithful, upright, etc. as long as it is expedient to do so. However, the prince should know how to be the exact opposite, if necessary! Machivelli’s political philosophy can be summed up as follows: For Machiavelli, politics was about one and only one thing: getting and keeping power or authority. Everything else—religion, morality, etc.—that people associate with politics has nothing to do with this fundamental aspect of politics—unless being moral helps one get and keep power. The only skill that counts in getting and maintaining power is calculation; the successful politician knows what to do or what to say for every situation. (4) For Karl Rove, getting and keeping power means winning; and Rove hardly ever loses. "What Would Machiavelli Do?", WWMD. Very funny play on What Would Jesus Do?, WWJD. Bye-Bye Karl.
What Would Machiavelli Do?
Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war. – Donald Rumsfeld
#6. To: robin (#5)
#7. To: Uncle Bill (#6)
I'm confused, isn't the photo on the right from several years ago?
Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war. – Donald Rumsfeld
#8. To: robin (#7)
Not sure. It's on Drudge next to a current article dealing with her "makeover." I just assumed they brought in the Botox blasters, wig, hair dye and Reese Witherspoon.
#9. To: robin (#7)
Yeah, you're right. It's an old photo.
#10. To: Uncle Bill (#9)
That's one too many "probings", IMO.
"She's got a very probing mind and a probing intellect," Rice said on "Fox News Sunday."
Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war. – Donald Rumsfeld
#11. To: Uncle Bill (#6)
By Debbie Schlussel Don't know about Harriet Miers' views? Well, here's the pic that speaks a thousand words about it: Miers (w/Bush) Honored at Liberal ADL Luncheon This photo of President Bush and Miers, from the Dallas Morning News, was taken at a 1996 Anti-Defamation League (ADL) luncheon at which Miers was honored with the Jurisprudence Award. The ADL is an extremely liberal organization that works together with the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center (which is now using the courts to help illegals and hurt citizen border patrols). The ADL doesn't honor just anyone. It honors people who are liberal and share its very liberal agenda. There is a reason Harriet Miers was honored by the ADL and it's not for her being a conservative (if she is one at all). This photo was taken after Miers' supposed conversion to conservatism. And it speaks a thousand words. Todd BF libertythink
October 7, 2005 
Miers (w/Bush) Honored at Liberal ADL Luncheon
The mind once expanded by a new idea never returns to its' original size
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest