Bush picks a winner
The media is abuzz today as Bush announces his pick for Sandra Day O’Connor’s replacement: White House counsel Harriet Miers? She’s never been a judge, even!
This is another crony appointment… another yes-person who strokes Bush’s ego like a newborn kitten. David Frum fills in the blanks:
In the White House that hero worshipped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met.
Sweet Jesus. Hold on while I vomit.We have a winner here!
A Daily Kos writer offered some more substantive motives for why Bush would pick such a blatantly inappropriate person:
1.) She’s an intellectual lightweight, easily influenced. Putting her on the Court with two purportedly “brilliant” Conservatives - Scalia and Roberts - makes her a lockstep vote with them. She may not qualify ideologically as a Right-Wing Conservative, but she can be counted on to vote that way.
2.) She’s his legal fixer, someone who knows where all the bodies are buried. She’s accustomed to saving him from sticky legal situations - vide the National Guard records cleansing. She can be counted on to protect him at all costs - and he is going to need the Supreme Court to protect him.
The Supreme Court is going to have to rule on whether a sitting President can be indicted when there is no House Judiciary Committee willing to vote for impeachment. The Supreme Court is going to have to issue a raft of rulings on issues stemming from the Fitzgerald indictments, the DeLay case, the entire mess of worms on K Street and in the Congress.
Bush is no longer thinking about his “legacy”. He’s thinking about remaining a free man. This choice tells us that they know that they are guilty and are facing very serious legal consequences. Miers may be all that can keep Bush out of jail, perhaps for treason.
