Okay maybe Im willing

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Okay, maybe I’m willing to be a bit bolder now (though probably late for the party) and say that no, I’m not at all clear that Harriet Miers is ever going to sit on the Supreme Court. The Times today quotes a staff lawyer to one Republican member of the Judiciary Committee saying: “Everybody is hoping that something will happen on Miers, either that the president would withdraw her or she would realize she is not up to it and pull out while she has some dignity intact.”

Down further into the article we find out that Judiciary Republicans actually have their staffs working on anti-Miers research. If the Times report at all accurately reflects what’s going on up there, that is a very big deal.

Clearly, at this point Miers has significant, if still silent, Republican opposition in the Senate. They want her gone. But they’re not yet willing to have it be at the expense of dealing the president a major political reverse.

So how many Republicans will prove willing to come out against her? And which ones?

One interesting dimension of this Kabuki theater exercise is that it’s not even completely clear which part of the Republican caucus open defections could come from. The White House now seems to be banking everything on the claim that Miers is a down-the-line evangelical Christian (I guess we might call this ‘extreme originalism’). But Sen. Brownback, one of the most staunch pro-lifers in the Senate, seems to be most out in front questioning whether she should be on the Court.

As I wrote a few days ago, I think the real issue is not that there’s yet that much focused and public opposition to Miers. The issue is just who the White House can find to champion this nomination or defend it. So far, I don’t think I’ve heard one senator come out strongly for her. Pretty much the same thing with the standard GOP pressure groups on the outside.

With so little force propelling this pick forward, it won’t take much to knock it back for good.

Latest Editors' Blog
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: