Miers Nomination

Washington Post Paints Amazingly Black Picture of Current White House
By Noel Sheppard | October 25, 2005 | 1:37 AM EDT

Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post pulled no punches in their front-page article this morning about the challenges currently facing President Bush:

“Rarely has a president confronted as many damaging developments that could all come to a head in this week. A special counsel appears poised to indict one or more administration officials within days. Pressure is building on Bush from within his own party to withdraw the faltering Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers. And any day the death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq will pass the symbolically important 2,000 mark.”

Rarely?  I guess 9/11 doesn't count, for regardless of what happens this week, it’s got to be a cakewalk by comparison to the days following the first attacks on this country since Pearl Harbor.

They continued:

NY Daily News and a Burning Bush
By Ken Shepherd | October 24, 2005 | 11:09 PM EDT

[Hat tip: Drudge Report]In "Bushies Feeling the Boss' Wrath" Thomas M. DeFrank, the New York Daily News Washington bureau chief portrays President Bush as "frustrated, sometimes angry, and even bitter" of late.

Bill O'Reilly on Today Show Casts a Pox on Both Houses - Buzz Word: "Ideologue"
By Mark Finkelstein | October 20, 2005 | 8:01 AM EDT

Is it shtick or sincerity? Bill O'Reilly loves to portray himself as a down-the-middle straightshooter, and there he was this morning on the Today show in full pox-on-both-their-houses mode.

Katie Couric began the interview by asking his take on the Plame affair:

Anti-Miers Conservatives "Going Over To The Insurgency"?
By Tim Graham | October 18, 2005 | 7:39 AM EDT

In an article headlined "The Conservative Machine's Unexpected Turn," Washington Post reporter Peter Baker gets a little too light in the metaphor department. He begins by noting that the White House wanted to build an army to fight for his judicial nominees.

Maher Wishes Bush Would Follow NBC's West Wing, Tell Christian Right to “Go Screw”
By Brent Baker | October 17, 2005 | 3:46 PM EDT

<img vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0" align="right" src="/media/2005-10-14-HBORealTime.jpg" />On this past weekend's<i> <a href="http://www.hbo.com/billmaher/">Real Time with Bill Maher</a></i> on HBO, comedian Bill Maher pointed to the liberal scriptwriters of NBC's <i>West Wing</i> for political guidance. Maher touted how “Alan Alda plays a Republican Senator who tells the Christian Right to go screw.” Maher yearned: “Why can't we have that in real life?” Last Tuesday (October 11) on MSNBC's <i>Hardball</i>, the <i>Chicago Tribune</i>'s Jim Warren had also held up how the Alda character &quot;confronts a top Christian Right official who insists on a public pledge that Alan Alda, if elected President, will only pick anti-abortion judges to the federal court. And Alan Alda, seeing the world as much more complicated, declines to do that.&quot; Maher proceeded to wonder: “Why can't we have a real Alan Alda character who says to the Christian Right what the Democrats basically say to the black people, which is, 'you know what? Where else are you going to go?'&quot; <br /><br />Full transcripts of Maher's comments, the Alan Alda character's lines on the October 9 episode of <i>The West Wing</i> and links to previous NewsBusters items on <i>The West Wing</i>, follow.<br /><br />

Media Promotion of Miers
By Rudy Takala | October 16, 2005 | 5:35 PM EDT

In the midst of the recent controversy surrounding Harriet Miers' political leanings, the media seems to have come to its own comfortable determination that Miers is a suitable candidate for the Supreme Court.In this story by Donald Lambro for the Washington Times, several Republican chairmen are quoted as saying they believe their constituents support Miers. What I want to know is the last time a party chair said, "Yeah, my constituents agree, our president doesn't know what he's doing." This is news?

PBS Host Flustered that Miers’ Moderation, Consensus-Building Considered “Epithets"
By Brent Baker | October 16, 2005 | 3:48 AM EDT

<img vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0" align="right" src="/media/2005-10-14-PBSWWMartin.jpg" />On Friday’s <a href="http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/"><i>Washington Week</i></a> on PBS, <i>Washington Post</i> reporter Michael Fletcher informed the panel that “the little bit we know about” the “record” of Harriet Miers “indicates kind of a, you know, bridge-builder, moderate” and “so there's deep con

Tina Brown Marks Iron Lady's 80th Birthday With Slam at Miers
By Ken Shepherd | October 13, 2005 | 5:52 PM EDT

Washington Post columnist Tina Brown today took the opportunity to mark the 80th birthday of Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first female prime minister, with a scathing attack on Harriet Miers.In, "You've Come a Long Way, Ladies," Brown begins:

The Absurdity of Dana Milbank and Bush's Body Language
By Sharon Hughes | October 12, 2005 | 2:24 PM EDT

Describing a brief interview NBC's Matt Lauer had with President Bush and the First Lady in front of a Habitat for Humanity construction project yesterday, The Washington Post's Dana Milbank was so obsessed with the President's body language that everything else he wrote about the interview got lost in his frenzied descriptions. For instance, regarding a question about prosecutors' interest in Rove, Milbank described the President's response as: "Bush blinks twice.

Chicago Trib's Jim Warren: Conservatives Never Satisfied, So Bush Should Lie to Them?
By Brent Baker | October 11, 2005 | 7:42 PM EDT

<p>
<img vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0" align="right" src="/media/2005-10-11-MSNBCHBWarren.jpg" />The opposition from the religious right faced by the fictional Republican presidential candidate on NBC's <i>The West Wing</i>, symbolizes for Jim Warren, the former Washington Bureau Chief for the <i>Chicago Tribune</i> who is now a Deputy Managing Editor for the paper, how real-life conservatives, upset over the Harriet Miers pick, will never be satisfied. On Tuesday's <i>Hardball</i> on MSNBC, Warren admired how the fictional drama's Alan Alda character “confronts a top Christian Right official who insists on a public pledge that Alan Alda, if elected President, will only pick anti-abortion judges to the federal court. And Alan Alda, seeing the world as much more complicated, declines to do that.” Warren asked and answered his own question: “Why is that relevant? I think it's relevant because just like Bill Clinton could never satisfy his left, it seems that Bush can never satisfy a group for whom he has cut taxes, delivered Saddam Hussein on a platter, done what they want on late term abortion and stem cell research, come out against gay marriage and picked a whole lot of conservative judges.”</p><p>Full transcript of his proposition, and the <i>West Wing</i> scene, follows.</p>

Jack Cafferty: I Look Foward To Trains Derailing
By Ian Schwartz | October 11, 2005 | 12:01 AM EDT

On yesterday's The Situation Room, Jack Cafferty made an over the top statement comparing the upcoming Miers confirmation hearings to a train derailment.

(transcript via Radio Blogger)

Wolf: James Dobson's claims about Harriet Miers making it into the Cafferty File today. Jack is in New York, and he's smiling, as only Jack can do.

Jack Cafferty: I love this. I mean, I...this is just going to be one of the great shows, unless she backs away, one of the great shows we've seen in a while. If the Miers nomination to be a Supreme Court justice wasn't in trouble before, it is now. And by the way, it was in big trouble before. With evangelical leader Dobson hinting he might have secret information about Miers' views on such issues as abortion, and with his acknowledgment that he talked with Karl Rove at the White House about her nomination, Miers' opponents have been handed a loaded gun. Even if Dobson is called before the Senate Judiciary Committee and actually testifies, there'll always be a suspicion that we're not getting the whole story on her. Nevertheless, all that being said, I can't wait for the hearing. I mean, I wish they'd start this afternoon. Here's the question. Should evangelical leader James Dobson have to testify, be subpoenaed and be forced to testify at Harriet Miers' confirmation hearings...I hope he does. And I hope she does, and I just...I mean, I just can't wait. This is going to be a dream for people like me.

WB: You might have to wait until early December for those hearings, though, Jack.

Jack Cafferty: Yeah, but I mean, you know, this is going to be like watching those super trains that go from the Tokyo airport into downtown Tokyo, go off the tracks at maximum speed. I mean, you just won't see anything better than that.

So let me get this straight .. the pain, suffering, and death of hundreds of people is equal to the Judiciary Committee's questioning of Harriet Miers? Jack never ceases to amaze me.

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On PBS, Jim Lehrer Puts Justice Souter on the "So-Called Liberal Wing" of the Court
By Ken Shepherd | October 10, 2005 | 3:03 PM EDT

What follows is a brief exchange from Friday's edition of the PBS NewsHour, during a discussion with liberal columnist Mark Shields and conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks on the Harriet Miers nomination. Notice that while conservative critics of the Miers nomination are properly labeled as conservatives, Lehrer insists on watering down the liberal label for Justice David Souter: