Schumer: Miers lacks votes for confirmation

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rick_reno

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Who better to comment on this than the Joker himself. I remain convinced the ONLY reason she got the nod from the glorious one was she knows about all the skeletons in the closet. As his personal attorney, she'd have access to them.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9793760/

WASHINGTON - A Democrat on the Senate committee that will consider Harriet Miers’ nomination said Sunday that President Bush’s Supreme Court choice lacks the votes now to be confirmed, saying there are too many questions about her qualifications.

“If you held the vote today, she would not get a majority either in the Judiciary Committee or the floor,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York. On the 18-member GOP-controlled committee, “there are one or two who said they’d support her as of now.”

Miers, a longtime Bush confidante who has never been a judge, was nominated to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The nomination has troubled some conservatives who say it was a risky choice because Miers was a blank slate on issues such as abortion and gay rights.

Democrats, too, have expressed concerns about whether the current White House counsel could sever her close ties to Bush and rule independently once she were on the bench.

“The hearings will be make or break for Harriet Miers in a way they haven’t been for any other nominee,” Schumer said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “She’ll have to do very well there. She has a tough road to hoe.”

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, rejected suggestions that the White House was considering whether to withdraw Miers’ nomination. Hutchison said the former Dallas lawyer is highly qualified and deserves to present her case. Confirmation hearings are set to begin Nov. 7.

“She is the only one whose entire career is in private practice,” Hutchison said, in contrast to the current justices. “I can’t imagine not having someone with practical real-world experience.”

Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have asked the White House to release more information on the nonlegal work Miers has performed there over the past five years.

Brownback, a Judiciary Committee member, cited concerns he had about Miers’ views on affirmative action following reports that she supported diversity and numerical set-asides when she was president of the State Bar of Texas.

“I do think we’re going to have to see more information — not attorney-client privilege type information, but more information of the work product that she was involved with at the White House that was not of a legal nature but that’s of a policy nature,” Brownback told “Fox News Sunday.”

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the committee, agreed. “The president has based that decision based on what he’s seen her do in the White House. We ought to at least know what she did in the White House,” he said.

The head of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, said it was his guess that Miers would not be confirmed if the White House failed to provide the request documents.

“We have no idea what this woman’s record is about. She’s obviously an accomplished attorney. The question is what does she believe. We have no idea,” Dean told ABC’s “This Week.”

“We’ve got to see what she wrote for the president when she was his legal counsel,” he said.
 
Irrelevant information opined by an irrelevant source, and an irrational, "conspiratorialist" conclusion based on abject silliness.
 
She'll have her chance to show her stuff and it will be what it will be.

If Bush has to withdraw her and nominate someone else, it will, in the end, be to his advantage--if he picks the right person. No one will remember in five years what short-term political embarrassment he suffered by having his nominee rejected; they WILL remember whether he appointed a great or a mediocre Justice.
 
No one will remember in five years what short-term political embarrassment he suffered by having his nominee rejected; they WILL remember whether he appointed a great or a mediocre Justice.

Well said, longeyes!

I believe this Miers individual would be hard-pressed to amount to mediocre. That said™, Schumer isn't worthy to kiss the ground she walks on.
 
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Anybody who listens to Schumer needs their head checked.

I hope she is confirmed. I will call my senators next week.
 
I hope she is confirmed.

Why though?

Do you know enough about her to be sure she needs to hold a life-time appointment to one of the most powerful positions on Earth?

I don't. Therefore, I would vote against her. I will give Bush the benefit of the doubt on some of his appointments, like say the Director of FEMA. But this is much more important, and given his history of somewhat questionable appointments, I really think he needs to prove she is worthy of the office.
 
Remember - this is the BEST person he could find for this position. Does anyone believe that? That's the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard, and in 8 years of Clinton and 5 of Bush I've heard some amazing tales.

Assuming she makes to the Senate love fest, I guess we'll get a snipet of how good/bad she is. I'm hoping for the best.
 
You gotta be concerned

When she was suggested by the demo minority leader as a candidate, when she gets lukewarm reception by finestine, shumer, kennedy et al, there is a chigger in the woodpile waiting to bite us in the a**.. I suspect that the demos are going to "reluctantly" support her. That scares the hell out of me. Yes they make noise, but not much, and if you will notice, not one is shouting "Nazi" about her. There is a plan afloat IMO. No, I don't trust Bush, since he has not shown conservative credentials himself. I think that he is caving to the dems as he has on most constitutional and social issues as he has all along for 5 years. He passed more of the dem agenda than the dems did. Spending has gotten worse under the repubs than the dems. Yes I support his stance on terror, but that is about all. We really don't even know about Roberts yet, and he may turn out bad. I tend to believe that he is a good one, but we have been fooled before.
 
Never mind that ALL nominees lack the votes for confirmation before the hearings have even occurred. If they take it on faith one way or the other, they aren't doing their job.

When Schumer is unhappy, it's good news.
 
There is no such standard. She is his choice, period.

This is correct RealGun, and it says a lot about Bush that he is willing to appoint anyone, whether they are the best candidate or not, to such a high office.

I run a small business. We recently looked for a new office manager. We ended up picking the best candidate of several who interviewed. It would never have occurred to me to pick the 2nd best candidate.
 
Lone_Gunman said:
This is correct RealGun, and it says a lot about Bush that he is willing to appoint anyone, whether they are the best candidate or not, to such a high office.

I run a small business. We recently looked for a new office manager. We ended up picking the best candidate of several who interviewed. It would never have occurred to me to pick the 2nd best candidate.

Argumentative, maybe, but I am not sure any of the sitting Justices were literally "the best" in their own time. Somebody picked 'em.
 
Lone_Gunman said:
Possibly true, but I still haven't seen you or anyone else (including Bush) be able to explain why he picked her, other than he likes her.

I don't care about Harriet Miers. I am just saying that nominees are chosen by the President, and people are howling at the moon to try to make rules for his choice. She does have a very strong advantage in being a relatively known quantity to the President. That is the same concern when one finds a better career path within their network, people who already know your capabilities.

I expect that there would be some sort of partisan squabble no matter who he picked. As on the thread re Bush's pick for Greenspan's replacement, some have gotten their brain so in a knot that they propose that if Bush nominated the person, there must be something wrong with that nominee or something fishy about the selection process.
 
Lone_Gunman said:
So are you saying it does not matter to you who gets picked for the Supreme Court?

No. I am saying that I will wait for the hearings. People don't yet "know" what they think they know. Spouting off is all the rage.
 
If she does what Roberts did, she will simply avoid answering questions that are controversial, saying she does not want to give her opinion now on an issue that may come up before the court.

We know little more about Roberts now than we did before the hearings. I suspect we will still not have much information about Miers when her hearings are over.

Unless a candidate could either show a record as a stict constructionist judge, or very definitively convince me she is a strict constructionist during a hearing, I would not vote to confirm if I was on the Senate.

Personally, I would prefer to see a long record of stict constructionism, rather than a few hours of lip service during a hearing.
 
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