On Miers

"The "conservative" "movement" now wants so much to get behind the President."

--David Brooks, PBS News Hour

Right. So long as he nominates one of them, they're behind him 100%.

I have no idea why they nominated Miers. But Bush said, "Trust me," and the Rabid Right didn't. It would be nice to have a man of any sort of substance in the Office who would now make them pay, who would see that the greater good requires ending their stranglehold. They insist on having a fight. Let them fight themselves. Nominate a moderate.

I don't say that as a liberal who'd like to see it. I say it as an American who thinks it's the obvious battleground. Bush is a lame duck. He doesn't need a base. His veep says he isn't going to run. There's a bloodbath on the way, one Mr. Brooks there sees pretty clearly despite his insistence that Miers was shot down on her "qualifications", as if there's more than one qualification that matters to the social extremists. Have we not suffered enough disaster yet from basing our actions on "faith"? You may be able to win electoral college victories by appealing to the Solid South and the Empty West, but for how long? 51% last time. 48% before that. A few thousand votes in a single state either time and you lose.

But of course there's no such man in the White House, and the base wants to conquer, not govern. There are more disasters ahead. Right now there's a slim chance of confining them to the electoral hopes of the extremists.