Joseph McCarthy,

You wrote that we didn’t support Judge Roberts. Where was this? I posted something from Ann Coulter, but explicitly stated that I didn’t think she believed what she was writing. Further, I helped organize students to go down to the Roberts confirmation and protest in support of him.

I just wanted to point out that the Roberts nomination and Miers nomination are not equivalent at all. Roberts is clearly a constitutionalist if you take a close look at his judicial decisions, while Miers is completely unknown.

I recently posted an article by the American Thinker that supported the Miers nomination so that we could see another side, even though I generally disagree with him. How can you say that we’re blinded by our own ideology?

And as for your argument in defense of Miers, it is truly on thin ice. There are many more qualified candidates in this country based on experience and known judicial philosophy.

The only argument I can come up with in favor of Miers is that Bush may realize that there needs to be some ambiguity as to how Miers will vote in order to get the RINOs to support the 5th judicial conservative that will tip the scales, whenever that may come.

Trust me, Bush is saying. Trust but verify, they should reply.

For as of today there is no evidence Harriet Miers possesses the judicial philosophy, strength of intellect, firmness of conviction or deep understanding of the gravity of the matters on which her vote would be decisive to be confirmed as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

If she does not exhibit these qualities in testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Harriet Miers should be rejected.

You said it Pat.

The reason I am disappointed about the Miers appointment is not because of what her supposed political views are or past political connections or involvement. I am not disappointed because she has never been a judge. The reason I am disappointed is that I don’t believe that she would even be qualified to argue a case before the supreme court, much less sit on the court as a judge if it were not for being the President’s personal attorney. She may be a great conservative, pro-life and everything else good and holy, but that does not qualify her to be on the Supreme Court. Does she posses the knowledge of past rulings and proceedings of the Supreme Court like Roberts has? What does she think about the world court, or the role of precedents of other countries rulings? What is her view of property rights? What are her views on federalism and the role of the states? We would know the answers to all of these questions if Bush had nominated Brown, Prior, Owens and many, many other potential nominees. Judge Roberts is articulate, young, and bold. Miers is older and seems to be more of a follower. Again I want to emphasize that it is not that I don’t like Miers, it is that there are SO MANY others who would have been a slam dunk, whoop there it is kind of an appointment. Rush and Ann Coulter have both stated that an all out war over this would have been the final blow to the Democratic Party. I believe the Democrats would have turned themselves into kamikaze suicide bombers in a last ditch attempt to keep control. This would have fired up our base for the 06 elections and I believe assured us a great victory.

This article in the Washington Post captures the essence of the opposition to Miers nomination.

Bush tried to defuse the smoldering conservative revolt with a Rose Garden news conference Tuesday, and the White House followed up yesterday by dispatching Gillespie, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman and presidential aide Tim Goeglein to meetings that regularly bring together the city’s most influential fiscal, religious and business conservatives.

“The message of the meetings was the president consulted with 80 United States senators but didn’t consult with the people who elected him,” said Manuel A. Miranda, a former nominations counsel for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who attended both private meetings.

Weyrich, who hosted one of the meetings, said afterward that he had rarely seen the level of passion at one of his weekly sessions. “This kind of emotional thing will not happen” often, Weyrich said. But he feared the White House advisers did not really grasp the seriousness of the conservative grievance. “I don’t know if they got the message. I didn’t sense that they really understand where people were coming from.”

Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform and host of the other meeting, declined to comment on the discussion because of its presumption of confidentiality but said there is widespread concern given the experience with the nomination of Justice David H. Souter, who proved more liberal once on the bench. “There’s a great deal of frustration because of the Souter experience,” Norquist said. “The problem is there’s no fixing, there’s no allaying those fears. For the president to say ‘Trust me,’ it’s what he needs to say and has to say, but it doesn’t calm the waters.”

Trust me. President Bush is living in a bubble if he thinks his base is going to trust him on this one. The sad thing is, there was no reason for us to even be in this situation in the first place. If Bush had put up a nominee whose views were well known then it wouldn’t have even been an issue.

At Weyrich’s two-hour luncheon featuring Mehlman and Goeglein addressing 85 activists, the host opened the discussion by rejecting Bush’s call to trust him. “I told Mehlman that I had had five ‘trust-mes’ in my long history here . . . and I said, ‘I’m sorry, but the president saying he knows her heart is insufficient,” Weyrich said, referring to Republican court appointments that resulted in disappointment for conservatives.

Inside and outside the beltway many conservatives feel cheated. President Bush has failed once again to make the right decision.