PressEthic

Does anyone else find it odd to read about so many Republicans criticizing something that Bush did? I am speaking, of course, about those unhappy conservatives who thought Bush would make a different, perhaps more ideologically-driven, choice for the next seat on the Supreme Court.

It must be kind of strange to report on the issue too. Especially after all of these years spent by lefty political pundits trying to get conservatives to admit anything bad about Bush. The thing is, as long as Bush was serving them, they would never admit any wrong doing on the part of their dear leader.

But since Bush’s announcement of Harriet Miers as his nominee for the Supreme Court, Republicans have been surprisingly vocal in their criticism. An article from the Christian Science Monitor, there were numerous quotes from Republicans showing their unhappiness:

"We were looking for somebody who could advance the cause of the right, move the court in our direction, and it takes a certain amount of intellectual power to accomplish that," says Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, one of the first of many conservative think tanks in Washington. As a longtime conservative leader, he was consulted about the Miers nomination. "I will probably end up supporting her," he adds, "but I can tell you that ... the grass roots are just heartbroken by this nomination."

And later in the article:

Manuel Miranda, a former aide on judicial nominations to Senate majority leader Bill Frist ® of Tennessee, says that conservatives in his Third Branch Coalition, representing some 200 groups, are also deeply disturbed by the nomination. "It's not about Harriet Miers. It's about what Harriet Miers is not. She could be reliably conservative and it wouldn't matter: she's not the most qualified nominee the president could nominate," he says.

But after reading the recent accounts, I am still left to wonder how Democrats feel about this development? My inclination is to distrust Bush, though I think that recent mishaps and mishandlings within the administration lend credence to the fact that Bush backed down because of his current unpopularity and his unwillingness to start yet another fight.