In Their Own Words: "Do As We Say, Not As We Do" Says the Right Wing on Judicial Nominees

July 6, 2005

Even before Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement, President Bush’s right wing base had been working feverishly to denounce calls for consultation and consensus regarding any potential nominee. The Right Wing is in the midst of a multi-million dollar campaign to portray Democrats as knee-jerk reactionaries who “will attack anyone the President nominates,” yet it has already begun preemptively attacking Alberto Gonzales before a nomination has been announced.

Progress for America announced that it intended to spend $18 million in defense of Bush’s nominee, whoever it might be, and kicked off the campaign with a series of ads featuring the tag line “a nominee deserves real consideration, instead of instant attacks.” The Committee for Justice issued a similar call for restraint: “We call on the Left to take a breath and resist their natural impulse towards exaggeration. We call on Democrats to resist the temptation to use their attack machine against a qualified nominee. All parties should withhold judgment until a fair and sober analysis has occurred.”

But the only “instant attacks” seem to be coming from the far right itself, even as it attempts to “Tar and Feather” the left and warns of “sinister strategies” to block judicial nominees.

“Gonzales" is Spanish for “Souter”

Newsweek correctly states that “Gonzales is the only A-list contender who religious conservatives pledge, upfront, to fight.” The article quotes Tom Minnery of Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family saying outright about a potential Gonzales nomination: “We'd oppose him.”

In the same article, Manuel Miranda, head of the recently formed coalition of extreme conservative groups called the “Third Branch Conference” and a former Frist staffer fired for unethically reading internal Democratic judiciary staff communications, warned that a Gonzales nomination could doom the Republican Party in upcoming elections: “If the president is foolish enough to nominate Al Gonzales, what he will find is a divided base that will take it out on candidates in 2006.” Miranda went on to threaten retribution against Florida Governor Jeb Bush, if he decides to run for president. “We're not Republican patsies,” he said. “Jeb Bush can go sell insurance.”

The New York Times reported similar opposition to Gonzales: “Late last week, a delegation of conservative lawyers led by C. Boyden Gray and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III met with the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to warn that appointing Mr. Gonzales would splinter conservative support.”

Elsewhere in the article, the Times reported that Paul Weyrich was warning “administration officials that nominating Mr. Gonzales would fracture the president's conservative backers.” Weyrich also claimed to have held a conversation with Republican Party chairman Ken Mehlman to “let the administration know through whatever channels we have that Gonzales would be an unwise appointment because of the opposition of some of the groups.”

In the same article, Phyllis Schlafly, a longtime radical and extreme right leader, said “Bush was very clear, and certainly his constituents believed him, when he said he would appoint justices like Scalia and Thomas. We are not in favor of Gonzales.” One of the reasons for the intensity of the opposition to Gonzales is that the Right feels that they were betrayed by President Reagan with his nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor who was, according to Schlafly, “a terrible disappointment.”

The National Review made its opposition to a Gonzales nomination clear in an editorial entitled “No to Justice Gonzales”: “[The] president has to know that conservatives, his supporters in good times and bad, would be appalled and demoralized by a Gonzales appointment. It would place his would-be successors in the Senate in a difficult position, forcing them to choose between angering conservatives by voting for Gonzales and saying no to him. If Democrats attack Gonzales... conservatives will not rally to his defense.”

Robert Novak wrote a similar piece called “No, not Gonzales!”: “Gonzales long has been unacceptable to anti-abortion activists because of his record as a Texas Supreme Court justice. Beyond pro-lifers, he is opposed by organized conservative lawyers. Ironically, the same Bush supporters who have been raising money and devising tactics for the mother of all judicial confirmation fights are in a panic that Gonzales will be named. With the president's popularity falling among his conservative base as well as the general populace, a politically disastrous moment may be at hand.”

Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council also voiced his opposition to a Gonzales nomination during a recent appearance on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country”: “I think what you would hear would be [what] sounds like slashing the tires of the conservative movement, because this has been a moment in time that has been anticipated for over a decade. And if there is someone who . . . appears along the same lines of an O’Connor, an unknown or someone who has a judicial philosophy that is less than a Scalia or Thomas, it`s a problem. There is no question about it.”

Perkins has repeatedly made his opposition to Gonzales well known. As the Washington Post reported: “Asked, for example, whether the Family Research Council would support Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales for a seat on the high court, Perkins replied acidly: ‘Our position on Attorney General Gonzales is, he holds great promise as an attorney general.’"

Dr. Kelley Hollowell, writing in WorldNetDaily, challenged Bush to “do the right thing” and side with this base over his friend: “… So, Mr. President, what will your legacy reflect in years to come? Will you be the president who abandoned his base for a legacy in naming the first Hispanic justice? Or will you be forever known as the president who turned the tide of immorality in this nation back to its founding principles, beginning with the most fundamental and widely impacting of them all, the right to life?”

Joseph Farah, also writing in WorldNetDaily, likewise opposes a Gonzales nomination: “Yes, the same person responsible for vetting the candidates is himself a candidate. Bush is said to have mused about the possibilities of a ‘Gonzales Court.’ But this would be a disaster. Might as well let the American Civil Liberties Union name the next justice.”

On the other hand, Gary Bauer, head of American Values, claims not to be worried that Gonzales will be nominated, since he expects President Bush to keep his word: “He's said so many times that Scalia and Thomas are his examples of good judges, so to me it didn't seem credible that Gonzales would be in that same category ... I do think that the president knows there are high expectations that he will attempt to bring the Supreme Court closer to the values of the people who have elected him twice.”

Tension is clearly building between President Bush and his base and it looks as if he is beginning to get irritated by his supporters’ unrelenting attacks on his friend. When asked if the President thought the attacks on Gonzales were out of line, he replied, “Al Gonzales is a great friend of mine. I'm the kind of person, when a friend gets attacked, I don't like it. We're lucky to have him as the attorney general, and I'm lucky to have him as a friend.”