Thursday Morning Quarterbacking

The breaking news hadn’t finished breaking this morning when out trotted every pundit who could squeeze into an air slot to second guess why Harriet Miers quit. Miers had answered a set of questions for the House Judiciary Committee and one of the answers specifically showed such a lack of knowledge of the constitution antecedents to judgments that Republican Specter and Democrat Leahy both asked her for a “do-over.” The news of that humiliation so rocked any idea of Miers as a qualified candidate, it seemed just a matter of time as to how and when her extrication from the approval process would happen.

Still, the pundits weighed in all morning with guesses as to whether George W. asked his old friend and legal confidant for her resignation, or whether she did it on her own as a gesture to save any further embarrassment and hassle for the White House powers-that-be, who are already plagued by their own man-made conundrums, and out-of-their-control divine processes—perjury and hurricanes—as not to need a single hay-straw more on the “problem” side of the scale.

The overwhelming conclusion on the Miers selection comes down on the side of big Bush mistake, for many reasons enumerated everywhere. One question remains--what kind of mistake was it? One of stupidity, haste, studied miscalculation? Or in the more sinister vein of the mindset of Bush, Rove and company, was it the arrogance and willful isolation of a dynasty in charge without regard to consequence? If Bush could get an inside crony like Miers onto the Supreme Court, what heights could he not scale? He wasn’t even willing to produce documents the house committee asked for involving Miers work in the White House, sighting Executive Privilege.

Some of us caught on to the nature of mindless power, however, even if the statements were not so vitriolic:

I think it’s a mistake to recommend or nominate someone from your own staff, particularly someone as close to him [as Miers], because it raises all kinds of questions about executive power.

Secondly, when her major qualifications revolve around her service in the White House, and those papers are not able to be given to us, or the president refuses to give them, it sets up a dialectic confrontation between the two bodies right away.”—Senator Diane Feinstein, MSNBC Thursday, October 27, 2005 [From live broadcast]

In light of indictments about to drop on an unknown number of Bush players—at least Rove and Libby and possibly Cheney and others—it is interesting to note the psychology of Bush decision-making in action. It’s the cause of all the trouble in the first place, including and most importantly, the unnecessary and hugely costly in all its factors, Iraq War.