Day of the Deflated Right
I think it was Rich Lowry who wrote in The Corner that President Clinton liked to do small, popular things, while President George W. Bush likes to do big, unpopular things. Not to pile on, but I think Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court falls in the “big, unpopular” category. She comes across as the female version of Alberto Gonzales: A Bush crony who’s not a white man, nor particularly qualified for the task at hand.
Her appoinment* is a disappointment.
* Sure, she’s only nominated at this point, but I strongly doubt that Senate republicans are going to derail her. She’s in.
UPDATE:
Ann Coulter saw it coming, in a way. Here’s from her September 28th column, “Bob Shrum with a good cause“, in which she trashes the idea that Karl Rove is some kind of campaign super-genius:
Now Bush has Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat to fill. For those conservatives confident that Bush won’t betray them, let’s review Bush’s other ideas about what constitutes a good Republican.
In 2002, Bush backed liberal Richard Riordan in the Republican gubernatorial primary in California against conservative Bill Simon…
n 2004, Bush backed liberal Republican Arlen Specter over conservative Pat Toomey in the Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania. Bush still lost Pennsylvania and, worst of all, Specter won. So that worked out well.
In 2004, Bush backed Mel Martinez for the open Senate seat in Florida and asked the magnificent Katherine Harris not to run against him, so she graciously bowed out. Martinez has since called on Bush to shut down Guantanamo. What’s Spanish for “buyer’s remorse”?
This year, rumors have it that Bush is again discouraging the magnificent Harris not to run for the Senate. Here’s hoping she ignores him…
Also this year, Bush is backing developmentally disabled Lincoln Chafee over the only Republican in the race, Stephen Laffey, Harvard MBA and mayor of Cranston, R.I. Chafee opposes Bush on taxes, Iraq, abortion and gay marriage. This man is literally too stupid to know he’s a Democrat.
As it stands now, President Bush will leave conservatives with little more than John Roberts (who will hopefully not go Souter on us) and tax cuts threatened by poorly controlled spending sprees.
Chances are one can always rely on the Democrats to energize the Republican base, but there has to be more to conservatism than simply winning elections for the G.O.P.
