'An up or down vote' on Miers

[Tactical Progressive]

Democrats really fucked up in not protecting Harriet Miers from the nutcase reactionaries. Whoever we get is probably going to be alot worse than her and we'll just have to live with it now. They didn't push hard enough for her confirmation hearing, in no small measure thanks to the automatic anger of the knee-jerk-negative wing of my fellow Progressives that just don't get politics. The same ones that will probably be screaming the loudest at the far worse options coming down the pike.

That said, there are two good things that could come out of Miers being sacked:

1) Now whenever a sanctimonious Republican demands 'an up or down vote' on their upcoming extremist nominee, Democrats everywhere can say 'Like you gave an up-or-down vote to Harriet Miers? You didn't even let her have a nomination hearing so stuff it.' Republicans talk out of both sides of their mouth all the time. What they demand from everyone else doesn't apply to them. They can have 'an up-or-down vote' on their latest extremist as soon as they give one to Miers.

2) This is more ephemeral, but at the same time it's a bigger club as well: They forced Miers out because she wasn't ideologically hard-right enough, which gives political validity to Democrats not allowing a nominee that is too far right. It has to be spoken a thousand times in a thousand different ways. This is a big thing because they've been saying that Democrats have no justification to object to a nominee on ideological grounds, yet that's exactly what they did. They set the terms when they played Miers out for her ideological insufficiency. They opened the door. Now we get to play that game and we have to play it with all the sanctimony of a Republican that doesn't get its way. That's what you did. That's what you did. That's what you did.

So there is some good that can come out of Miers defeat at the hands of the right-wing extremists, but it was still a screw-up to let her go down without a fight from the left either way.

[yellowcanine]

1. The pubby talking point is that she was headed to an "upperdown" vote but

she withdrew. Seriously, that will be the line. Face it, the Dems are no match for the Pubs when it comes to dishonest debate and we probably should always assume that if there is a "fair way" and an "unfair way" to do something, the Pubbies will take the "unfair" way as long as they are in charge.

[Tactical Progressive]

2. Of course they will

So what. It's the truth and everyone knows it so you keep saying it and saying it and saying it. She didn't get an up or down vote, so why should Alito or anyone else. They pushed her out on ideological grounds, so can we.

They'll also be saying it was about qualifications not ideology. So what again. It was about ideology and everyone knows it again.

So you keep saying it. It rings true because it is true. All it takes is for Democrats to keep repeating it.

It's not a matter of dishonest debate. That's all Republicans ever do or ever will do. It's a matter of debating period. Democrats don't have to back down on either of these points, whatever rhetoric Republicans devise to mask it.

[yellowcanine]

5. Dems should not back down. They should use all of the tools at their

disposal including the filibuster and force the Pubs to try and get cloture and invoke the nuclear option if they can't. If Pubs invoke the nuclear option Dems should take them to court and if that fails, make it an election issue.

[xultar]

3. Not necessarily, they needed to let her get run over by the wingnuts

first before they could say in fact an up or down vote on the decision of the radical right isn't what the senate is all about. They will also need to ad that the radical right has an unconstitutional hold on the government and that a small fringe radical group is taking over the processs in the senate.

Do do that though they needed to let it acutally happen.

[beyurslf]

4. How do you know she is better or worse than any one coming down the line?

We didn't know anything about her philosophy because she had no credentials. The only thing we were told is that she had a religious conversion and this guided her. She was a lap dog for Bush. Who knows how she would have voted.

I will take a well-qualified jurist with whom I fully disagree over a wholly unqualified jurist any day. Alito will have sound judicial logic (albeit logic I don't like).

[Tactical Progressive]

6. How do we know?

Well for one, the small parts of her history that we were privy to indicated that she has supported Democratic candidates for the Presidency in the past, and she has related to others that she thinks the pro bono work is important. Can you think of a dyed in the wool winger thinking either of those things? For another: the right wing was apoplectic about her. When you've been following politics as long as I have that's no small indicator. In fact, if conservatives hate something that is typically a better determinant of whether something is wrong or right than how you yourself perceive it. They are amazingly consistent in their ugly perceptions.

Of course I don't know anything for sure given the scant history we were given, but that cuts both ways. She could have been the most liberal member of the court for all you know too.

As to 'well-qualified' wingers I fully disagree. Republican ideologues are successful to the extent that they become practiced in using their skills to rationalize their sub-human perspectives. Republican 'intellectuals' are people who are good at distorting and corrupting reason and truth to get what they want. A successful Republican, jurist or otherwise, is someone who can lie and intellectually cheat better than his peers. That's the last thing you want on the bench or anywhere else.