By Patrick Appel
Bush still believes in Miers:
Asked whether he believes Harriet Miers “would have been excellent on the court,” the president quickly responded, “Absolutely. Absolutely, no question in my mind...and there’s no doubt in my mind that my dear friend, Harriet Miers, would have had the same judicial philosophy 20 years after I went home, and had the intellectual firepower to do the job.” Bush said he felt it was important to pick a judicial candidate who was “not part of the judicial-nominee club she went to SMU Law School” and who was a pioneer in her own law firm. His regret about the Miers case, he told us, was that “this really, really good person got chucked out there and, man, the lions tore her up.”
Suderman responds:
For Bush, it’s not just winning, but being seen to win, no matter the consequences, hence Iraq, hence his continued support of Miers a battle he lost, but still refuses to admit defeat. Troublingly, this habit seems to have infected a substantial number of voters on the right; for conservatism to succeed, it will have to find a way to mitigate, if not fully purge, this tendency.
Bingo.