RWN Makes CNN And Businessweek

RWN’s blogger poll on Harriet Miers got a passing mention in a CNN On The Blogs segment where they spoke with Erick Erickson of Red State and Lorie Byrd of Polipundit. You can watch the video here.

I was also quoted in a BusinessWeek column by Richard S. Dunham and Lee Walczak.

President Bush took a surefire winner, a Supreme Court pick that should have inspired and motivated his base…and instead, because of pure political incompetence, this may turn out to be one of the biggest political debacles of the past decade for the GOP. — Blogger John Hawkins at Right Wing News.

In the column, Duham and Walczak looked at some early poll numbers on Miers and declare, based on those numbers that Republicans really aren’t upset over Miers at all. Given that most people don’t know much about Supreme Court nominees right off the bat and that the default position for Republicans is to support a GOP nominee to the Supreme Court, I’d contend that the early polling numbers don’t mean all that much in a situation like this.

I’m also of the opinion that when you have Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, National Review, the Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Michelle Malkin and much of the right side of the blogosphere hammering away at a Republican nominee, it’s going to make a big dent in conservative opinion by the time all is said and done. So let’s see what tale the polls tell over the next week or two in the run-up to the hearings.

I’d also note that while the enthusiasm of the pro-Miers side has been lackluster, the intensity of the anti-Miers forces are off the scale. As an example, here’s a quote from Confirmthem, a blog that has been dedicated to helping George Bush get his nominees through the Senate. Here’s what “feddie” from Confirmthem, a guy who probably would have been doing cartwheels in the yard had George Bush nominated a credible judge like Priscilla Owen or Karen Williams, had to say this week-end:

“You want to shut us out for the next three years, Mr. President? Be our guest. Have you taken a gander at your poll numbers lately? Good luck getting anything done.

I hope placing Miss Miers on the Supreme Court was worth losing supporters like me (a person who gave money to your exploratory committee and two presidential campaigns, and spent countless hours volunteering and working on your behalf).

Oh, and congratulations on being the president who destroyed the Republican Party. With that and all your other “achievements,” I am sure you’ll take great pride in your “lofty” place in history.

Mark my words, President Bush will rue the day he crossed us with the Miers nomination, and the Republican Party will pay a dear price for this betrayal.”

Oh, yeah, that sounds like a guy who’ll forgive and forget once this over — and I have news for you: I’ve seen dozens and dozens, maybe even more than a hundred, similar posts and comments across the blogosphere since Bush selected Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court.

When this is over, if Miers makes it through — the support Bush has lost on the right — permanently — won’t be measured in the hundreds or even thousands, it’ll be measured in percentage points. Could we see 10+% of Bush’s most diehard supporters lose respect for him because the Harriet Miers nomination was the straw that broke the camel’s back for them? When all is said and done, that’s very possible.

Given that there were a myriad of confirmable candidates that the right would have united around (and still could if Miers were withdrawn), tell me how much sense it made to choose Miers in the first place? Heck, how much political sense does it make to continue to stick with Miers given the reaction on the right to her nomination? Time will tell, but I suspect the justifiable sense of betrayal many conservatives feel over this nomination is only going to increase and intensify over the next few weeks and Bush has no one to blame but himself for the fall-out.

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