Conservative opposition to the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court continues to mount. The NY Times reports that aides to 6 of the 10 Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee have (anonymously, of course) expressed deep disappointment with the Miers nomination. One of them came up with this doozy of a quote:
Everybody is hoping that something will happen on Miers, either that the president would withdraw her or she would realize she is not up to it and pull out while she has some dignity intact.
Nice. With Republican "friends" like that, who needs the Democrats to take you down?
In other Miers-related news, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson has explained the mysterious "assurances" he received from Karl Rove regarding Miers on his radio show. Dobson says that Rove gave him two major reasons why Bush didn’t name one of the conservatives’ preferred picks: (1) the President was determined to name a woman to succeed Justice O’Connor, "and you can imagine what that did to the short list" (and Laura says Miers’ opponents are sexist!); and (2) several members of the "short list" had taken themselves out of the running because they didn’t want to go through the confirmation hearings. Dobson then makes a cryptic comment regarding cutting the short list by 80%, but it’s not clear whether he’s referring to reason 1, reason 2, or both of them together.
Frankly, I find reason #2 rather difficult to believe – I certainly don’t buy it to the tune of 80%. Being on the Supreme Court is a pretty good job, especially for someone who’s already a federal judge; there are 55 Republicans in the Senate, so being confirmed is a good bet; and the confirmation hearings, while they may be unpleasant, are only a couple of days out of your life, and they can’t possibly be as bad as Clarence Thomas’s. Unless Mike Luttig, Edith Jones, Janice Rogers Brown, etc. went around leaving their pubic hairs on Coke cans, they shouldn’t have much to worry about from the hearings other than having some nasty things said about them – they’re used to being pilloried by People for the American Way et al., and in fact probably see it as a badge of honor. So I could see one person, maybe two, on the "short list" taking themselves out of the running (rumors abound that Priscilla Owen was the intended nominee but withdrew her name), but Dobson makes it sound like judge after judge was declining Bush’s offer to be nominated. I just don’t buy it.
I’m sure that Priscilla Owen’s name was leaked purely to make conservatives feel good. She’s a folk hero to them. There’s no way they would have considered naming her to the bench, she’s radioactive. Bush had plenty of acceptable conservatives he could have named.