Conservatives torpedo Bush judicial nominee

Harriet Miers, President Bush's choice to join the Supreme Court, has withdrawn her nomination. She came under predictable criticism from some liberal groups who thought her unqualified. But the real storm came from the right wing of the Republican Party who wanted a more dependable hardline conservative ideologue to join the Court, an Antonin Scalia Jr. if you will.

Though the real reason Miers was pushed on to her sword was to appease the right wing, the pretext used was that senators (including Republicans) wanted access to documents Miers wrote as White House counsel. Since she had almost no other public record, the Senate wanted these documents to have some idea of the person they were voting on. Without these documents, she was a blank slate.

The White House did not want to release the documents, citing some invention called executive privilege; executive privilege has long been invoked by presidents as an excuse for secrecy, though it's mentioned nowhere in the Constitution (or, to my knowledge, regular law). It's telling that they would rather sacrifice a woman they consider to be a fantastic potential justice in order to prevent the public from learning how things really work at the Bush White House. As for the accusations of excessive secrecy in the administration, bizarre decision making processes and general sliminess, none of those suspicions are going to be alleviated by this decision.

Miers was basically seen as a blank slate; her main attribute was her closeness to the president. Even President Bush himself made no bones about this. His basic pitch for Miers was, "I know her. I trust her. You trust me. So confirm her."

The trouble is that Americans increasingly DON'T trust the president. Given the Iraq debacle, his controversial handling of Hurricane Katrina and the general atmosphere of fast-and-loose with ethics in the White House, faith in the president's judgement is (finally) through the floor.

But what's surprising is that even the right-wing, so fiercely loyal to Bush on Iraq, torture and the war against civil liberties, didn't trust Bush on this one. Instead, they went into open revolt.

This begs the question. When Bush said, "I know what I'm doing, just trust me" on Iraq or the war on civil liberties, the right smeared as unpatriotic anyone who didn't. "In times of war, we must always defer to presidential omniscence," they huffed.

So you can't blame Bush for trying the same approach on the Miers' nomination. Imagine his shock when after years of mindlessly accepting "I know what I'm doing, just trust me" as the be all and end all, suddenly conservatives decided to think for themselves and make up their own mind.

I'm glad they've finally realized that this is how issues should be dealt with. Let's hope they remember this when the public debate gets back to Iraq.