WHAT HAPPENED TO "UP OR DOWN" VOTE ? WHAT IS THE REAL MEANING OF BUSHCO SHOVING POOR HARRIET OVERBOARD ?

As predicted here for the last couple of days, poor old Harriet Miers "withdrew" her nomination so poor old Bush wouldn't have to turn over "classified" documents to untrustworthy yentas on the Senate Judiciary Committee who were demanding them, like Kansas neo-Nazi Senator Sam Brownback.

I woke up a little late this morning (double episode of SOUTH PARK last night) so when I turned on CNN "Dollar" Bill Frist was just finishing reading Miers' withdrawal letter, making it all look very neat and graceful and setting the stage for a Medal of Honor for her great service. I can't imagine anyone is falling for this charade, but, hey, I can't imagine anyone with less than $100 million is assets voting for Bush either. (And even I know they didn't steal that many votes!)

Even before "Dollar" Bill had finished his role in the farce People For the American Way had sent out this statement-- which is a lot more truthful than anything that came out of Frist's mouth: "Harriet Miers’ withdrawal from her Supreme Court nomination demonstrates that ultraconservatives are so determined to swing the Supreme Court sharply to the right that they pounded their own president’s nominee into submission, and now demand a nominee with unquestioned far-right credentials. It’s an astonishing spectacle. The unelected power-brokers of the far right have forced the withdrawal of  President Bush’s own Supreme Court nominee, before a confirmation hearing has even been held.  President Bush’s complete capitulation to the far-right interest groups is astounding. The ultra-right wing dominance of Republican Party politics is complete, and they have dealt a terrible blow to an already weakened President and his administration,” said PFAW President Ralph Neas. “Right-wingers are openly saying they elected Bush to put a battle-ready ultraconservative on the court to replace the moderate Sandra Day O’Connor, and they’re demanding a new choice – bipartisanship, moderation and mainstream Americans be damned.”

Neas and PFAW-- like most progressive groups-- had concerns over Miers, as did I, but they were willing to see the confirmation process through and give the lady an opportunity to explain herself and to have the Right's much-vaunted "up or down vote." However the hysteria from religionist-right and sexists within the GOP (according to George AND Laura Bush) doomed the nomination (which was a very personal one for the president).

The first day of this nomination I said that it wouldn't fly on the extreme right because Harriet Miers had donated money to anti-choice groups but NOT to the kinds of anti-choice groups which advocate blowing up women's health clinics and killing doctors.

Bush has been beset by catastrophes of every kind-- from his ill-starred, downward-spiralling occupation of Iraq, to Mother Nature's (or "God's," take your choice) revenge on him in the form of devastating hurricanes and floods for his abysmal policies, to the legal system snaring dozens of key Regime operatives (DeLay, Frist, Abramoff, Cunningham, Ney, Cheney, Hadley, Libby, Wormy, Rove, et al) to the embarrassing shutout of the Astros last night. He just didn't have the strength to stay the course for Harriet any longer.


Neas, of course, urged Bush to resist calls for the kind of ultraconservative maniac committed to overturning Roe v Wade, who would satisfy the extreme right. “After this sorry episode, the best way for the President to demonstrate leadership and recover strength would be to choose a nominee with a great legal mind and mainstream legal philosophy who could draw bipartisan support. The President must not let the extreme right dictate his next choice, but instead choose a nominee who can bring us together and maintain a fair and independent balance on the Supreme Court,” he said. I wonder if such an idea has ever crossed Bush's mind.