Scarborough Hardballs Miers

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds—

Ralph Waldo Emerson essay on Self Reliance

Here’s more proof for me that if you live long enough, you find some depth in people where you thought there wasn’t any at all.

Joe Scarborough, former congressman and hack republican news host on MSNBC wasn’t breaking the party line until recently. Especially evident in the ensuing scandals, and lack of base-touching, by the Bush administration regarding hurricanes and Iraq War management, is that Scarborough speaks a more informed and objective mind.

The latest case in point, a conversation on Hardball with Chris Mathews on MSNBC, is Scarborough’s take on the selection, and potential for approval, of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. He was trenchant enough for me that I went to the transcript as soon as it was available today, 3 days later:

SCARBOROUGH: Republicans always blast affirmative action, but they‘re always holding up women and African-Americans and Hispanics, saying, look at us. Look how inclusive we are...I think that‘s part of it...

...But, Chris, at the end of the day, I think the president was too clever by half. He knew Harriet Miers, knew she was a conservative, knew she would vote the way he wanted her to vote...

...And when Harry Reid put her name on the list, it was too much for him to pass up and said, OK, you want her, you got her. And he thought he was going to get away with it.

And you know what? In the end, he will. She‘s going to probably pass. But, at the same time, he‘s caused a lot more scar tissue from conservatives at a time, especially with the Karl Rove possibility of indictment and Tom DeLay indictment and Iraq and Katrina and all these other things blowing up all around him—this is the time he needs his base, like Reagan needed his base in ‘87 and ‘88 during Iran Contra. This isn‘t going to help the president at all.—[emphasis added] Hardball with Chris Matthews 10/7/05

What’s more bizarre is Bush’s conservative base doesn’t know how good they’ll have it with Miers in the Supreme Court.

What's troubling for President Bush, however, is that 27 Republican senators -- almost half of his party's members in the chamber -- have publicly expressed specific doubts about Miss Miers or said they must withhold any support whatsoever for her nomination until after the hearings.—Washington Times 10/10/05

Axes to grind, distancing from an embattled president, skeptical of credentials—all these elements are part of what’s bothering those who would have been Bush’s lay-down allies several months ago. After Miers’ confirmation, all this will be a hill of beans, and Bush will have his second personally-placed Supreme Court vote for years to come.

But the echo of Scarborough’s pre-weekend prediction, “This isn‘t going to help the president at all,” may come into play more heavily when the indictments start rolling in for the likes of Rove, Libby, Delay and more in the next few weeks and months. That’s when the House Judiciary Committee can really put in some serious hearings time.

We don’t need no stinkin smoking gun—we just need a mid-term election.