Name: Tess
Home: St. Louis
Another Nomination
Bush has announced his second nomination for the Supreme Court: White House Counsel Harriet Miers. I'm trying to muster up some enthusiasm because she's a woman, but I felt sick to my stomach when I read that White House chief of staff Andrew Card said of Miers, "She's a quiet, highly respected force and someone who is seen as not having any agenda other than the president's." Education secretary Margaret Spellings said Miers is "just extremely devoted to the president." Now, I realize that in her role as White House counsel, it was her job to back the president and his agenda, but I wish Bush had picked someone who was less partisan.
If a Democrat were in the White House, would I want him or her to make an unpartisan choice? In all honesty, probably not. I have never been a fan of the Bush agenda; before I succumbed to numbness, I spent the first year of Bush's presidency getting annoyed or angry every time I picked up the newspaper. Call me a clueless member of the liberal elite, but I'm still amazed that a majority of people voted for Bush. Is this really what they wanted? An ill-conceived war, federal government agencies run by well-connected incompetents, and an administration that ignores scientists who don't agree with the party line? Conservative Supreme Court justices who will affect society for decades?
Around the time of the election, when my dad and I talked on the phone, he would rant about politics. "I can't see how anyone could vote for Bush!" he would say. I suggested he ask his wife, but the two of them didn't discuss politics. I tried to talk to my mom about Bush, but all she would say is that she and I were both voting based on our values, but we were emphasizing different things. (For her, abortion trumped everything else.)
A recent article in the Post-Dispatch touted signs of Republicans' political distress: Bush's sagging poll numbers, Delay's indictment, ebbing support of the war in Iraq. But Republicans still control the White House and both houses of Congress. Now Bush is having a big impact on the judiciary. At the midterm elections in 2006, Americans will again have a chance to say whether this is what we want. Is it?
If a Democrat were in the White House, would I want him or her to make an unpartisan choice? In all honesty, probably not. I have never been a fan of the Bush agenda; before I succumbed to numbness, I spent the first year of Bush's presidency getting annoyed or angry every time I picked up the newspaper. Call me a clueless member of the liberal elite, but I'm still amazed that a majority of people voted for Bush. Is this really what they wanted? An ill-conceived war, federal government agencies run by well-connected incompetents, and an administration that ignores scientists who don't agree with the party line? Conservative Supreme Court justices who will affect society for decades?
Around the time of the election, when my dad and I talked on the phone, he would rant about politics. "I can't see how anyone could vote for Bush!" he would say. I suggested he ask his wife, but the two of them didn't discuss politics. I tried to talk to my mom about Bush, but all she would say is that she and I were both voting based on our values, but we were emphasizing different things. (For her, abortion trumped everything else.)
A recent article in the Post-Dispatch touted signs of Republicans' political distress: Bush's sagging poll numbers, Delay's indictment, ebbing support of the war in Iraq. But Republicans still control the White House and both houses of Congress. Now Bush is having a big impact on the judiciary. At the midterm elections in 2006, Americans will again have a chance to say whether this is what we want. Is it?
posted by Tess | 8:23 AM
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