She Made Coffee and Brought Donuts…

I just heard Hugh Hewitt making the case for Harriet Miers to James Dobson of Focus on the Family by saying, “She was on the mission board at her church for 10 years. She made coffee and brought donuts…” Which is fantastic. I appreciate people at church that are servants and who are involved in the ministry in a critical area like missions. Later on in life when I have more time to devote to it, I would really like to be on my church’s mission board. But that don’t mean I should be on the Supreme Court.

Now, I understand that Hugh is not actually arguing that her church service qualifies her to serve on the Supreme Court, but when you actually have to use information like that to substantiate her nomination, then that probably isn't good. Additionally, she is 60 years old, and forgive me for saying so, but not a sprightly looking 60 at that. If I was in charge of nominating SCOTUS Justices, I wouldn’t even talk about people over 50, and if I could get away with a 30 something with impeccable credentials, then I’d take a crack at it.

There is no doubt that this pick, no matter what kind of Justice she would turn out to be, signals the acknowledgement of the President’s APPARENT weakness politically. He may SEEM weak now, but the numbers haven’t changed since last November and they aren't scheduled to until a year from now. The President seems to be saying with this pick that no conservative with any kind of paper trail has a chance at confirmation. If that is true, let’s find out now and save the stealth nominee in the on deck circle if a real conservative is successfully Borked.

In my opinion, this is the President’s way of saying that its naptime. He tried to get the Social Security package through and failed, he's taken a beating on Iraq and Katrina, and now he seems to have lost his stomach for a fight. He may have accepted his lame duck status early, and with the Hammer out of the picture, he doesn’t have a good pitch for the count so he’s going to ride the pine for the rest of the game. I hope I’m wrong, but this funk surrounding the White House has been thickening for a few months now, and I am not confident that it will lift.

Here’s the big question. Do the Democrats smell blood in the water and bork her anyway (with the cooperation of Senate conservatives) and put the President on the run? Or do they count their blessings, confirm her, and step up the lame duck rhetoric and use Republican frustration against the White House to stymie further legislative priorities? Because Republicans often eat their own over principled disagreements, Dems can capitalize on this and we lose our tax cuts and get to choke on more Katrina/Entitlement/Welfare spending.

Like Patrick Swayze (Bohdi) said in the movie Point Break, “It’s basic dog psychology, you get them peeing down their legs and then you can take what you want.” Or something like that. As it turns out, the junior SCOTUS Justice (Breyer for over a decade now) is tasked with bringing coffee and donuts to the rest of the crew. So apparently I'm mistaken, she's phreakin' perfect for the job.

Heh.