Bush Consultation on Alito: “Zero, Nothing”
This nominee concerns me - Clay
When President Bush nominated John Roberts, the White House repeatedly highlighted the level of Bush’s consultation with the Senate:
I think you heard from some long-time serving members of the Senate who said that this level of consultation was unprecedented.
The same occured during the lead up to the Miers pick:
We have consulted with over 70 United States senators. That matches the level of consultation that we held for the first vacancy. The level of consultation that we engaged in was unprecedented; we have now matched that.
With Alito’s nomination, however, the White House disregarded the process:
[Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid’s tongue was firmly in cheek when describing consultation with the White House about the Alito nomination.
“I really am impressed with the consultation of this nomination. Let me tell you what it consisted of. I was at the Rosa Parks event last night, which was a solemn occasion and very nice. [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card walked up to me and said I am going to call you at 6:30 in the morning. I said, ‘That is too bad,’ because I knew by then they had already picked someone…. He didn’t call me at 6:30 [but at] about quarter to 7. The conversation lasted maybe 10 seconds. He said, ‘You have already heard?’ I said, yup, and that was it. That is the consultation. With [Judge John] Roberts we had consultation, with [White House Counsel Harriet] Miers we had consultation, with Alito zero, nothing.”
It’s not that President Bush didn’t have the time — he spent last weekend “contact[ing] prominent conservatives to test the reaction to various candidates.”
posted by ClayGunter at
3:03 PM
1 Comments:
I am, by no means, prepared to say that Alito is the best possible candidate out there for the position as I've not studied up on him enough yet. At first glance, though, he's definitely a STRONG candidate. Very impressive resume, 15 years on the bench. What little I've read of his opinions and dissents, it appears that he consistently bases his decisions on law rather than personal prejudices.
I can, however, give you the conservative perspective on those comments you have concerning the nomination.
1. Bush consulting the majority of the Senate on who he was nominating to SCOTUS (Roberts and Miers) was purely a courtesy. There's no requirement for the president to consult anyone about who he's nominating. I see that Reid references a constitutional obligation for the Senate to give advise but, I don't believe that the constitution requires him to seek advise on such nominations. I'd look it up but it's getting late and South Park is on.
I am, curious, however, which Republicans gave him the OK on the Miers pick. Dubya should seek each one of them out and smack him on the head for making him look stupid.
2. Even if Bush had consulted Reid and Reid made it known that he was unhappy with the pick, he'd have still moved forward with the nomination. Surely Reid doesn't believe that he'd have carried any weight with this. If the president is required to get a sign-off from the Senate on any of his nominees to any office, there would be no need for a confirmation hearing.
3. Bush had no choice but to consult with prominent conservatives on the Alito pick because there was no way he was going to alienate his base again. The only conservatives who were happy with the Miers pick were those with a blind allegiance to GWB. Those of us (myself included) who already have issues with Dubya's brand of conservativism were ready to run him out on a rail. Ask my wife...after the Miers announcement, I told her that he'd pretty much lost me.
Why was I mad about the Miers pick?
A. Miers may be a brilliant corporate lawyer but there was no evidence that she was a constitutional scholar. Kinda difficult to believe that she was the best possible choice. Her resume consisted of being a Dallas City Counselwoman, running a law firm (which doesn't necessarily mean that she did much practicing of law at the time) and running the Texas Lottery Commission. While she, admittedly, has practiced law as White House Counsel for the past few years, she seems much more suited to a management position for some government agency than a seat on SCOTUS.
B. This whole thing just SMACKED of cronyism. Leave alone the fact that these two lived in the same North Dallas neighborhood for some time, there was a paper trail of their friendship that did not look good. After the Michael Brown/FEMA fiasco, the LAST thing we wanted to see was Bush nominate someone less than qualified to ANY position, let alone the Supreme Court. In the case of Miers, had it not been for her personal relationship with Dubya, she'd still be managing a law firm and living in Preston Hollow.
(This is going a lot longer than I'd planned.I've missed South Park.)
Finally, it's pretty telling that Reid was so upset about not being consulted in advance about this nomination. Perhaps it was quid pro quo, but it seems that was why the Republicans were so up-in-arms yesterday with the closed session. Reid was not REQUIRED to talk to Frist before calling the closed-door session, but it's virtually unprecedented for such an action to be taken without both of the Senate leaders being aware that it was coming. (For the record, I thought the Republicans handled it poorly. If Frist would have kept his mouth shut, this would have passed by unnoticed.)
Like I said, I've not studied up on Alito to the point that I can wax poetic about why he's the best person for the job. What else concerns you about him?
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