What a day
“[Tuesday] night George Bush kept his campaign promise that he would name a justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. And I for one am ashamed that I ever doubted him,” Manuel Miranda writes at www.OpinionJournal.com.
“I should have understood the president better. In John Roberts, the president got what he wanted, and we conservatives did too,” said Mr. Miranda, a former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, and founder of the Third Branch Conference, which promotes the appointment of conservative jurists.
“But what a day! From the earliest moments on Tuesday, the Capital’s rumor mill predicted with increasing ’certainty’ that the nominee was Edith Brown Clement of Louisiana, whom President Bush elevated four years ago to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
“As sound a judge as she might be, she isn’t in the Scalia-Thomas mold and conservatives around the country picked up the phone and got on e-mail to ask, why her? The choice of Judge Clement seemed odd. She would have satisfied no aspect of the GOP base. It seemed for a moment that the White House had opted to take the easy path. And, for a while, it looked as if conservatives had lost the battle to persuade the White House to name a nominee with a clear conservative record.
“But then, around 5 p.m., the rumor tide shifted. Word spread that it would not be Judge Clement, that it would be neither a woman nor an Hispanic. A few hours before the president made his prime time announcement of Judge Roberts, the news broke, and was met with relief. Not only because it was Roberts, but because it was over.
“Neither the Washington press corps nor the activists on either side of the great divide could have taken much more. Another rumor might have caused a riot.”
A non-quota pick
“With the Supreme Court pick of John Roberts, George W. Bush rose to the occasion,” Weekly Standard editor William Kristol writes at www.weeklystandard.com.
“The occasion was an opportunity to reshape the Supreme Court. Bush seized the opportunity, in two ways: He moved the Court a solid step to the right (to speak vulgarly), and he elevated its quality. It’s true that Roberts is a Rehnquist, not a Scalia or a Thomas. He’ll be a little more incremental, a little more cautious, than some of us rabid constitutionalists will sometimes like. But he is a conservative pick, and a quality pick — and, to my surprise, a non-PC, non-quota pick,” Mr. Kristol said.
“I had expected Bush to choose a woman. Indeed, I pointed in last week’s editorial to several competent and qualified conservative women. But in preemptively yielding to gender quotas, so to speak, I made a mistake — and earned a well-deserved and well-argued rebuke from Charmaine Yoest at National Review Online, who said I (and others) had ’conceded too easily’ to the pernicious claims of identity politics. She was right. And the president, weighing a truly important decision for the country’s future, agreed with her.
“By simply going for the best person, by not worrying about walking out to the podium [Tuesday] night accompanied by a white male, Bush did something important and courageous. He showed that he knows that on really significant matters, one has to ignore political correctness and political pandering, and even political convenience. For this lesson, as well as for an intellectually impressive and politically sound choice, Bush deserves a lot of credit. I unreservedly give it to him.”
Feeling giddy
“The factor we think most likely to ensure Judge Roberts’ confirmation: that the Washington establishment, and the media establishment, know him and like him,” ABC’s political unit said yesterday in the Note, its daily roundup of political news and opinion (https://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html).
“Do not underestimate how hard it will be for Democrats to tar a potential nominee who has given working Washington journalists his cell phone number and who is generally seen as a mensch. And that Seth Waxman support (He is no Zell Miller …) is just going to be the tip of the iceberg of Democrats singing in the ’Amen, Roberts’ choir.
“Here is the giddy (but not unwarranted) view from a very senior Senate Republican leadership aide who has been involved in the judicial confirmation process: ’Our side is fired up and inspired; theirs is dispirited and disconsolate.’”
Early help
Claiming to do its part to keep big-government Republican politicians from even getting a foot in the door, the Club for Growth has helped Nevada Assemblywoman Sharon Angle raise more than $160,000 in one month.
That’s more than either of her two Republican U.S. House nomination competitors raised over all three months of the past quarter, said club President Pat Toomey.
“The Federal Election Commission requires the club’s political action committee to state how much in contributions we bundled for the candidate, and our FEC filing shows a record amount for us this early in a primary,” Mr. Toomey said.
The club has begun raising money for Mrs. Angle this early because it regards her as a limited-government, low-taxes candidate. As such, she will need financial help in order to win the primary contest next year, because, in the club’s view, big-government Republicans normally have a fundraising edge in primaries, thanks to “special-interest” contributions.
Hillary’s lead
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to sport a hefty lead over potential Republican challenger Jeanine Pirro in the 2006 Senate race, according to a statewide poll released yesterday.
The Siena College Research Institute Poll also found that Gov. George E. Pataki’s favorable rating among New York voters has climbed to its highest level of the year — 52 percent.
The poll had the former first lady leading Mrs. Pirro, the Westchester County district attorney, 57 percent to 31 percent, the Associated Press reports. A June poll from the Albany-area institute had Mrs. Clinton leading Mrs. Pirro 59 percent to 29 percent.
Mrs. Pirro has said she will run for statewide office next year, but she has not announced whether that will be for Senate, state attorney general or, less likely, governor if Mr. Pataki doesn’t run again.
Little interest
A Pew Research Center poll says only 50 percent of the public is closely following reports on White House adviser Karl Rove and the leak about a CIA agent.
But the survey found 58 percent of those closely following the developments and 39 percent of the general public feel Mr. Rove should resign because of reports he may have leaked classified information about the agent in violation of federal law, United Press International reports.
However, Republicans seem uninterested in the topic, with 42 percent of respondents declining to offer an opinion. Thirty-nine percent said he should not resign.
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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