Ultimate Stealth

Check out Progressive Law Blogs for the latest on Miers, Fitzmas, and other legal matters.

Forget actually having a record of rulings or, like Roberts, claiming that everything you ever wrote in your entire life was the opinion of your client / superiors rather than yourself, Miers has taken the threshold of stealth nominees to an entirely new level. She didn't even answer the questions on the private questionnaire distributed to her by the Senate judiciary committee:

The Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers suffered another setback on Wednesday when the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked her to resubmit parts of her judicial questionnaire, saying various members had found her responses "inadequate,""insufficient" and "insulting."

Senators Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee chairman, and Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat, sent Ms. Miers a letter faulting what they called incomplete responses about her legal career, her work in the White House, her potential conflicts on cases involving the administration and the suspension of her license by the District of Columbia Bar.

Their letter also asked her to provide detailed accounts of private reassurances about her views given by the White House or its allies to some conservative supporters who have been anxious about her positions on abortion and other social issues.

This is pretty absurd. It shows, once again, that the White House is far more willing to tell people like Dobson the truth about Miers than they are willing to tell the public. It also raises further questions about Miers competence: she can't even properly complete a questionnaire for the most important job in her life? It also shows the hole that Democrats dug themselves into when they allowed half of their caucus to vote for a stealth nominee like Roberts. In light of that vote, the Miers nomination and her refusal can almost be seen as understandable. After all, if Democrats were not willing to stand up to the White House's refusal to hand over important Solicitor's General documents involving Roberts, not to mention all of the other stealth aspects of his nomination listed above, one could only expect that the Bush administration would respond by releasing even less information about their next nominee.

And would it kill Senator Leahy to say he was insulted by this, when a reporter made it easy for him to give such a line? From the press conference on the matter:

Q Senator Leahy, are you insulted personally by her lack of responsiveness?

SEN. LEAHY: I have seen an incomplete questionnaire. We've sent out -- I thought -- a very good questionnaire. I was satisfied with the questionnaire that went out. Democrats and Republicans on the committee -- and you know this is a committee that goes across the political spectrum -- were satisfied with it. I don't know of anybody who would tell you in that committee, that they were satisfied with the responses. So I would describe myself as unsatisfied, and I have to be satisfied before I'll vote for anybody, Republican or Democrat.

You are playing far too nice Senator. The White House is giving you the middle finger on nominees, as they make it perfectly clear that they don't think they have to tell you anything about who they want on the court. If you want more responsiveness on Miers and future nominees, then you need to take a harsher stance against stealth than simply saying you are "unsatisfied."

Tags: Judges (all tags)

Comments

5 Comments

Nice doesn't cut it
The saddest moment in last fall's Presidential debates was when Kerry passed on calling Bush a liar.  Can you imagine Harry Truman passing on that one?  PS-  Harry surprised, in large part by taking the "Republican" farm states.  Truth works, guys.

Now a year later, Leahy pulls the same weak act.  The Bushies have no hesitation.  No wonder we seem weak!  

by David Kowalski 2005-10-20 06:50AM | 0 recs
You're on the something here
A lot of contributors to this and other progressive political blogs talk about how Dems need to be more aggressive about their agenda, which I think is simplistic and not necessarily the right answer (depends on the district and the candidate). But we CAN all agree that our national figures need to un-Dukakis themselves and get mad and emotional when appropriate. Sometimes I think they still haven't gotten over being in the minority, and would rather be statesmanlike than actually connect to the voters. People get made when they're insulted. Pretty simple "frame," and a good one.
by ColoDem 2005-10-20 06:58AM | 0 recs
Freedom of Information Act
FOIA lets us check files. The only thing is, with people like Miers directly reporting to bush you can have quite a few of them  MIA before you can file a request. Rove and Miers have been a one-two punch to democracy in the USA. Rove pushes Bush to classify everything, literally - over 12,000 new document classifications and Rove personally sees to it what Bush and the White house want to keep secret and what they don't - because in this white house, everything is some kind of campaign stunt (witness Val Plame, a totally egregious abuse of power that worked to the benefit of al qaeda and against the US interests fighting the war on terror). And then you have Miers - lets' review some of the documents she conveniently lost in her career has gatekeeper of all documents in the Whitehouse -  a presidential daily brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack the United States", Bush's national guard records (with a little help from Ben Barnes I'm sure), anything about Enron... Kenny Boy, you got the frequency?

Bowers point is not just here, but its best we read it in the context he wrote it. Bowers wants us to hit them hard, where they live, right now. Not on some general thing - which, whether its by Karl Rove or anyone else - is exactly how they're operating - they really are destroying the country at large -- but instead on specifics. If you have a questionnaire to fill out for a grant, if you miss one question they pitch your grant application.  But if you're a bush crony or a halliburton "burn and loot" type - you get away with murder.

This is all I could add to what I consider an excellent post. Bowers nails it.

by turnerbroadcasting 2005-10-20 07:03AM | 0 recs
one word:
Gutless.

That's why Dems appear weak on Nat'l Security.  Because of shit like this.

They are gutless, spineless jellyfish.

by dayspring 2005-10-20 07:08AM | 0 recs
No Balls
You can't dress this up. You can't put flowers on it, nor perfume. In reality, Nat'l Democratic leaders, like Leahy, have no balls and it's one of the main reasons for the current low status of the party. If roles were reversed and Cheney was given that to respond to, he would be quoted as saying "f**kin liar" and get the backing of his entire party.
by blogus 2005-10-20 11:26AM | 0 recs

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