In Their Own Words: The New Right Wing Playbook or How to Sink a Supreme Court Nomination

In less than a month, the far right wing managed to sink the president’s Supreme Court nomination, even as the White House urged them to wait for the Senate confirmation hearings. Right-wing activists spent three weeks pushing all the right buttons to lean on the president and get him to adopt a nominee more to their taste. Here are the drums they beat between Harriet Miers’ nomination and her withdrawal.

Bush Owes Us — The ‘Betrayal’ of 2004

Many right-wing activists credited themselves with electing George Bush in 2004; when the opportunity arose to fill seats on the Supreme Court, they said the president owed them a certain kind of nominee, because, they allege, the Supreme Court was the first thing on voters’ minds. Miers struck them as a betrayal.

Phyllis Schlafly (Eagle Forum) — “Millions of people voted for Bush solely because they believed he would change the direction of the court away from judicial activism. They feel betrayed.” Read [Addressing Bush:] “Since your supporters voted for you to change the direction of the Supreme Court away from activism and toward constitutionalism, do you understand their sense of betrayal that your two appointments have failed to do that: Roberts for Rehnquist was a non-change, and Miers for O’Connor can reasonably be expected to be another non-change?” Read

Paul Weyrich (Free Congress Foundation) — “An awful lot of people hung in on the administration’s coalition despite being troubled by the prolific spending, the war and everything else. The one thing they were certain of was that Bush would give us outstanding jurists.” Read

Mathew Staver (Liberty Counsel, Bush v. Gore attorney) — “The reverberations from his decision to nominate Harriet Miers have political consequences, if not corrected, that will haunt the Republican Party for some time. … I didn’t litigate nonstop for five weeks for a stealth nomination. Nor did African-Americans and Hispanics jump party lines to join a record number of evangelicals and others in 2004 to support this President for a nomination where our only assurance is ‘Trust me.’ I’m not a gambling man, and I’m not about to blindly roll the dice on this nomination.” Read

Rev. Patrick Mahoney (Christian Defense Coalition) — “Last year at this time I was involved in a 20-city tour of Pennsylvania and Ohio mobilizing the pro-life and pro-family community to vote in the Presidential race. For the overwhelming majority of the grass roots activists that I worked with, the driving force in the election was judicial activism and the future composition of the Supreme Court. Those people did not stand out in the rain for 20 hours passing out literature or putting up signs for the President to have him turn around and nominate Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.” Read

Chuck Muth (Citizen Outreach) — “The visceral objections to Harriet Miers have more to do with the fact that many conservative activists have been toiling in the political trenches for many years to elect a Republican president and a Republican Senate for the expressed purpose of being able to seat individuals on the nation’s highest court who have the conservative judicial and intellectual star-power and brain-power we were denied by the Left when they ‘borked’ Robert Bork.” Read

Manuel Miranda (Third Branch Conference) — “Was it for this, Mr. President? Was it for this that so many Americans made so many sacrifices, worked so hard, gave up family time, made life-changing decisions, took pains? Was it for this that so many prepared the way for so many years? Was it for this we gave you and 55 senators a mandate? For a Supreme Court nomination as unprincipled in its nature as this?” Read

Human Events — “[C]onservatives have long focused on putting a conservative Republican President in the White House and a healthy Republican majority in the Senate so that the Republican Party can carry through on its commitment to put a constitutionalist majority on the court. Conservatives came through on their end: They helped elect Bush twice. They helped elect a 55-seat Republican Senate.” Read

Ned Ryun (former White House staff) — “I, along with other young conservatives, didn’t sweat blood last fall to elect this President for him to nominate, at best, a second-rate nominee who I doubt very strongly will be a conservative justice.” Read

Richard Lessner (lobbyist) — “Conservatives have waited nearly 20 years to undo the damage done to [rejected 1987 Supreme Court nominee] Robert Bork and the politicizing of the confirmation process by the Democrats. Real people have paid a real price in this fight, from Judge Bork to Clarence Thomas, Miguel Estrada, Janice Rogers Brown and others. Their sacrifices now have been rendered meaningless.” Read

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer (Human Life International) — “Last year Bush asked faithful Catholics to fight for him, campaign for him and vote for him and they did in record numbers; now the President lacks the stomach to fight for the values of those who put him in office.” Read

Robert Novak — “Two questions were asked in conservative circles Monday when it was learned President Bush had nominated his lawyer, Harriet Miers, for the Supreme Court. Question No. 1: ‘Is this what we fought for?’ Question No. 2: ‘What was he thinking?’” Read

Phyllis Schlafly — “There is disappointment that she is not a Scalia or a Thomas with a good record to rally around. … He owed us that and she obviously isn’t that. He has a record of choosing his friends which is not adequate." Read

Eugene Delgaudio (Public Advocate) — "The President’s nomination of Miers is a betrayal of the conservative, pro-family voters whose support put Bush in the White House in both the 2000 and 2004 elections and who were promised Supreme Court appointments in the mold of Thomas and Scalia." Read

Broken Right-Wing Promises

In case there was any doubt about who right-wing leaders wanted nominated, they made it very clear that they believed Bush gave them his “promise” to pick an extreme jurist like Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Miers did not fit the bill, they said, and so Bush broke his promise to them.

Phyllis Schlafly (Eagle Forum) — “Every one of the disparate factions in the conservative movement feels betrayed by the President who led his voters to believe he would appoint a justice like Scalia or Thomas.” Read

Ken Conner (Center for a Just Society, former Family Research Council president) — “The president promised to nominate jurists in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. To date, there is no objective evidence confirming that Ms. Miers holds a judicial philosophy consistent with those two justices.” Read

Stephen Crampton (American Family Association) — “Reduced to its essence, the President’s invitation is to simply trust him: This from a man who rode to reelection on the promise to appoint judges in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. And whatever else Ms. Miers may be, no one has seriously suggested she is another Scalia or Thomas.” Read

National Review editorial — “Miers’s own career as a lawyer shows a strong tendency to identify with local elites and establishments, to go along with prevailing ideas, and to avoid doing anything that might cause unpleasantness or rock the boat. These are useful personality traits, but they are not the traits of a Scalia or a Thomas — the kind of justice this president led conservatives to expect.” Read

Dennis Coyle (American Enterprise Institute) — “For many conservatives the Supreme Court was the issue, the reason for supporting Bush over the years despite misgivings on this issue or that. Decades ago Country Joe MacDonald wailed with absurdist resignation, “And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for?” — a question many conservatives are asking themselves today. The Miers nomination may prove to be a wake-up call so energizing the Republican base that they rise in revolt, scuttling the nomination and demanding that Bush fulfill his promise to name a Scalia or a Thomas.” Read

Fred Barnes (Weekly Standard) — “What’s his obligation to his supporters, the majority of them conservatives? I think it’s quite simple: on major issues, he must do what he promised to do . . . And on the courts, he must appoint judicial conservatives who may not be exact replicas of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas but are at least roughly in their mold. These are core promises. Should the president renege on them, his faithful followers have every right to protest. ... His supporters had every right to jump ship.” Read

Liberty Counsel — “Today, Liberty Counsel announced that it does not support President George W. Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers for the United States Supreme Court. Liberty Counsel also calls on President Bush to withdraw the nomination and to keep his campaign promise that he would appoint Justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.” Read

Operation Rescue — “Ms. Miers may best serve her country by withdrawing so that President Bush may nominate someone with a proven history who all conservatives can support with a clear conscience, and thereby fulfill his campaign promise to the American people.” Read

Terence Jeffrey (Human Events) — “The secret is when and how — if ever — a middle-aged Harriet Miers made the long philosophical journey all the way from being an Al Gore contributor to being a constitutionalist conservative of such unshakable conviction that she merits lifelong appointment to a sharply divided Supreme Court by a President who promised he would name justices in the mold of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Many voters supported Bush on the strength of this promise alone.” Read

Stephen Peroutka (National Pro-Life Action Center) — “Pro-life and pro-family conservatives supported President Bush’s campaign because he promised to appoint judges in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. With 45 million children’s lives lost to abortion, the on-going threat to the definition of marriage, and the continuing attack on the family itself, the stakes are too high to gamble on another ’stealth’ candidate.” Read

Operation Rescue — “We must reject the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court of the United States. President Bush promised that he would appoint strong constitutional constructionist to the Supreme Court in the mold of Thomas and Scalia, but Miers is no Thomas or Scalia." Read

Right Wing Threats for 2006, 2008

Seeking to leverage their influence for all it was worth, right-wing leaders threatened that the base would retaliate by staying home during the 2006 elections, and warned GOP presidential contenders to watch their backs.

Manuel Miranda (Third Branch Conference) — [Sen. DeWine (R-OH) told activists to wait until the hearings. He is up for re-election in 2006.] "Mike DeWine is going to lose in Ohio, and he should be more aware of grass-roots sentiment. Mike DeWine doesn’t have a great deal of conservative support in Ohio and ham-fisted remarks aren’t going to help with that." Read

George Will — “As for Republicans, any who vote for Miers will thereafter be ineligible to argue that it is important to elect Republicans because they are conscientious conservers of the judicial branch’s invaluable dignity. And any GOP senator who supinely acquiesces in President Bush’s reckless abuse of presidential discretion — or who does not recognize the Miers nomination as such — can never be considered presidential material.” Read

National Review editorial — “Conservatives will have long memories about how senators act in this crucial period. Any Senate Republicans who want people to listen when they run for president in 2008 and tell GOP primary voters how seriously they take the task of transforming the Supreme Court — by placing top-notch conservative jurists on it — had better be heard from now. Will Sen. George Allen cross the White House, when it still has the juice to threaten him? Will Sen. Sam Brownback, a key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, show the leadership his admirers expect? Can Sen. Bill Frist break with the White House on something highly important and controversial besides stem cells? Can Sens. John McCain and Chuck Hagel be mavericks when it might do their party and one of its most important causes some good?” Read

David Keene (American Conservative Union) — “From now on, this administration will find it difficult to muster support on the right without explaining why it should be forthcoming. The days of the blank check have ended because no thinking conservative really wants to be part of a team that requires marching in lock step without question or thought, even if it is headed by the president of the United States. … What is most troubling about this whole affair, however, is the way the administration has gone about trying to demonize conservatives who have raised questions about Ms. Miers. It began from day one to attack personally the motives, loyalty and judgment of anyone who questioned the wisdom of the nomination. Since then, the ad hominem attacks on Miers’s conservative critics have been unconscionably heavy-handed and will haunt the president regardless of how the nomination fight turns out.” Read

Bobby Eberle (GOPUSA) — “The best thing the administration could have done was put forward a nominee around whom we could rally. That just isn’t the case with Harriet Miers. She may turn out to be a stellar justice, but the nomination, in and of itself, was one more indication of an administration out of touch with its base. With 2006 and 2008 just around the corner, I only hope they see the error of their ways.” Read

Manuel Miranda — “This could hurt Republicans in the 2006 election. It will quell enthusiasm — just like the president’s father did in 1992 after he broke his no new taxes pledge.” Read

Although the president had already ruled out withdrawing Miers, these threats from his “base” were apparently too much to take. The right wing has again proven its unprecedented influence over this administration’s agenda.

And that influence may extend to the next nominee — as Bay Buchanan said on CNN just hours after Miers’ withdrawal:

“If he follows up with another Harriet Miers, he’s going to turn a revolt into a revolution, and he’s going to have trouble for three-and-a-half years. I mean, we’ve made it clear, this is why we were with him, Wolf. This is why the entire conservative movement was so enthusiastic about George Bush beating John Kerry. We’ve been here for him, and it’s [because of] the courts.”

The president has shown he finds such threats difficult to resist.