Redstate

Leon - Betsy is a medium sized wheel in the right side of the blogosphere. I see she's not on the blogroll here at RS, but she is blogrolled many places, HH among others, and she has RS on her blogroll.

If anything, the blurb you quoted seems out of character from what I've read on her site, but she is, as described, a civics teacher, and maybe it's a try to call the class to order.

OTOH - I love the fireworks, and the occassional time out for a deep breath and call to civility simply highlights the amazing volume of commentary going on within the letter and spirit of the rules here and elsewhere among conservative sites.

I have yet to tire of comparing and contrasting the decorum here with the profanity filled scrolling found on certain other blueish sites.

Kudos to Clayton as well!

I must say, with all the heated debate around here and I can't think of any profanity. That is a credit to this site and all the people who have posted here. We can debate, we can (vehemently) disagree, yet we can do so without devolving into Andrew Dice Clay with Tourettes Syndrome.

Additionally, have we doubled Clayton's pay yet?

doubled Clayton's pay yet?

Thanks to the wonders of modern mathematics, we were able to triple it. For you geeks out there, here's what we did:

clayton->payrate = 0.0;

clayton->payrate *= 3; // give clayton a big raise

pay (clayton);

how about multiplying by 3.0?

a good job of taking various parts of the base for granted at times.

I do get the feeling more and more that social conservatives are being treated the same way the DNC treats its black voters.  They want us there on election day, casting our votes, but when it comes time to actually pay up, they screw us over.

One of the main reasons I spent time this past election season knocking on doors trying to get out the vote for Bush was over the issue of supreme court appointments.  I feel like the very promise that motivated me to vote and try to get out the vote has been broken.

I think I have the right to be angry.

I probably won't threaten to stay home though-but it may make me less likely to volunteer to work for the party next go around.  They may still get my vote, but they may not get my help.

that President Bush and his people thought they were giving the SoCon base exactly what it wanted: an evangelical Christian justice (of which there are none right now) who would be a reliable vote against Roe, gay marriage etc, and with the added benefit that the lady is confirmable. At a guess they are probably a bit surprised by all this uproar, and may well be less not more likely to accommodate the SoCons in the future.

And luckily I get time-and-a-half over this on weekends. :)

I think your analysis is spot on:  Miers was intended to be a (confirmable) gift to the SoCon base. What Bush failed to understand--perhaps, what he could have realized until the Miers nomination--is that he's already spent his store of "trust me."  

I don't pretend to speak for those who call themselves social conservatives.  I'm a pro-business Republican, after all, in favor of free trade, for balanced budgets, left on most social issues (save abortion), and fairly close to a foreign policy realist.  But I am familiar with the feeling that Bush has the unique capacity to execute terrible programs well (Medicare reform; pork giveaways) and screw up noble causes (Iraq;* social security reform).  As a result, it's fairly difficult to trust the man -- regardless of where his heart may be.  

*In fairness, the jury is still out on Iraq.

I worried about you, with you being gone for DAYS like that.  Especially with the recent stress and all.

Did you know you were famous.  Now that's the big time!  Not just acknowledged, but praised!  Congrats.

As an ex-Libertarian Party member, now Republican (registered for W.), I understand the desire for "principles."

But I also hunger for winning/ small steps in the right direction.

Leon, do you really claim that Kerry would have made an SC choice more in line with your principles than Miers?

I actually think Miers, at 90%, is more likely to overturn Roe than Roberts, at 80% (my guestimates), and FAR more likely to NOT be seduced by the intellectual seduction of Platonic "benign dictatorship" for the Greater Good.

Betsy's complaint about "sanctimonious conservative purity" almost certainly is exactly the complaint of the Dems against Nader voters in 2000 (allowing Bush to win), AND against Perot voters in 1992 (allowing Clinton to win).

Is winning a two-step forward, one step back better or worse than losing and getting the reverse, while sticking with principles?

I think Betsy's a bit hard on those with principles, but you're being too hard on those who want to win for their imperfect but better side.

Bush is weak because the press is biased against him and almost all Reps, especially Christian pro-life folk.  Until that aspect of the culture changes, Reps will only win by big compromises.

Bush(elected Reps) has been spending like crazy, but I didn't hear where Kerry was going to cut anything, only increase taxes to spend even more.

On further thought, I kinda like the idea of you  disappointed small-gov't Reps continuing to irritate Betsy.  At some point, it's better to lose (the Presidency, especially), rather than accept the BS.  But for SC nominations, the Presidency is MOST important.

Of course, I do quite like Harriet, from what I read (Beldar's blog & Marvin Olasky).

all I have to say about worthless tripe such as that which you have spotlighted, is that my wife, a Russian, is very cynical about politics because, in her native land, politics is nothing more than a choice between crooks - who will steal, from whom, and for the benefit of whom - and if this is the best that can be said for our own political system, and if this conception, nihilistic to the core, is to be lauded as the essence of virtue and realism all at once, then I can do without politics.  Power must be a means to a good end; if it is an end in itself, it is demonic.

At the risk of making a mountain out of molehill, the one thing that irked me about Becky's post was this line: "we have to deal with two imperfect candidates and figure out which one would be less bad for the country" which you have alluded to Maximos.

For elections this statement is often true because of the nature of the two-party system. Fighting for the perfect candidate is what primaries are for, right?  But when nominating justices, that needn't be the case.  Bush wasn't faced with two imperfect candidates.  He ignored many who were thought to be perfect.

Now, Harriet Miers may be the perfect Justice.  I, for one, am trying hard to reserve judgment.  But the point is that we ought to expect something more than a choice between bad and worse.  In those times when we're forced to amke the choice, conservatives, to the extent they can, should make that choice and pressure said choice to do the right things in office.  However, we ought also to recognize when we can justly demand the perfect choice.

Betsy seems to miss the point in that regard, though in reading her blog a little I like what she has to say.  If we have really gotten to the point where we're content with the lesser of two evils, it's a sad day indeed.

You said,

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This may come as a news flash to Betsy and Hugh, and a lot of other people I've been reading and emailing with, but some of us have what we like to call principles. And we involve ourselves in this incredible mess called politics because we like to see those principles advanced. And when it becomes plainly obvious that after a protracted period of time, our principles are simply not going to be advanced - well, then, we have families and jobs and churches and whatnot that would be grateful for the extra time.

So, if you don't agree with my principles, or just don't hold them as strongly as I do, that's just fine with me. They're my principles after all. But if you go start calling me a kid because I try to live by the strength of those principles, you're just going to expose yourself as a second-rate party hack who views winning elections as an end rather than a means. May I be eternally saved from such a pitiful political existence.

So go ahead and sell out your own soul and use your hours and money to try and get the least crooked crook in office. If that's a profitable use of your time, more power to you. But by trying to look down your nose at folks who work in politics because they actually believe in something, you only make yourself seem even smaller than you actually are.

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I agree with your principles.  I have this to suggest.  At what point did Christ Die for his Church?  The traditional Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant answer is that he died for his Church when his Church was his enemy.  In other words, he died to sanctify his Church, he died to make the dirty prostetute his clean bride.

We are called to pick up our crosses and follow Christ.  This means, to die to ourselfs and give to a world which rejects us.

Let us not forget that we are not in politics for the power or the control, but for the principle.  We are involved ... to fight for what is right, not simply to win.

Like you, I am in it for principle, and I hold my head high if I lose fighting for those principles.  I hold my head high when Judases betray me.  I hold my head high when I am critisized and attacked.

The difference between those like Scalia, Glendon, and the Great Pope John Paul II and those who are today unknown is that the great ones did not give up.  Scalia formed the Federalist Society when others felt it was hopeless.  Glendon went before the UN to fight for life, even as they booed anyone who was pro-life.  John Paul II --in a communist country-- dared to pray, preach, teach, and sing with others in public -- even as he could have been killed for doing so.  He did what others were shot for doing.  I am not saying that Glendon and Scalia are in the same league as JPII, but I am saying they share something in common --the desire to fight for what is right, even if not popular.

You are called to fight the same fight; maybe to a lesser level, but the fight is there.  One which can save the lives of more than a million innocents a year.

My question #1 in deciding how mad to get about a decision by our elected officials is, "how hard will it be to change this?"  The budget is stuffed with highway pork?  Bad, but there's another budget next year.  The budget is stuffed with new programs?  Worse, since new programs rarely go away.  The budget is stuffed with new entitlements that put a permanent drain on the federal fics?  Now, I'm gettin' angry.  But even then, all of those are things a new president could change, if he or she had the votes in Congress.  

But Supreme Court Justices essentially can't be removed, and their decisions live on for decades or centuries after they are gone (many areas of Constitutional jurisprudence are, to this day, the products of John Adams' nominations).   With the (possible) exception of war, no presidential choice has as long-lasting effects as the choice of Supreme Court Justices.  What was worse for America - Jimmy Carter in the White House for 4 years, or Harry Blackmun on the Supreme Court for 30?  I'm not sure I'd pick Carter; at least after 4 years, we got to have another election, whereas after Breyer was confirmed we had to wait 11 years for another Supreme Court vacancy, and these two latest vacancies are to replace judges confirmed in 1972 and 1981.  And nobody now requires presidential candidates to promise not to change anything Jimmy Carter did.

I have not, personally, concluded that Harriet Miers should not be confirmed by the Senate, nor have I concluded that she would not be a wonderful Supreme Court Justice; I'm still waiting to be convinced.  But I can't fault anyone for complaining about the nomination.  This is, to many of us, the #1 or #2 reason (behind only the war) for supporting Republicans for the White House.  If Miers is another Kennedy or O'Connor, we will be grumbling over our disappointment for decades.  If she is (as I very much doubt) another Souter or Blackmun, we will rue this nomination for the rest of our lives.  And even if she is another Thomas, we will be sad if she steps down in 20 years, sad that a younger candidate might have held the fort for longer.

So, yes, this is very much an issue worth getting exercised about.  We will live with its consequences all our days, without a second opportunity to do anything about it.

this same debate in issue now rages on the left as well.

frankly, so far, on that side, I have found that the burden really is on the pragmatists, the compromisers of principle, to lighten up and learn WHY THINGS MATTER, to learn, WHY THEY NEED THE IDEALISTS... in our world of politics, and our world where we all understand, one way or another, to admit imperfections (because nothing is perfect)... it's clear why one should compromise.  

E.g. because Hillary is worse than Bush, or what have you... for the left the opposite works for the Hillary-haters (you know they are numerous on the left as well, right?)

Anyway, good luck solving all this.  Indeed, I hope we might use what we learn to re-unite the whole nation on our common ground while respectfully debating all the stuff that lays on... uncommon ground.

There has been more than a fair amount of harshness from the anti side in this as well.

To me this argument is one where from my perspective one side is trapped in the mental place where the a non-existant perfect drives out the perfectly good reality.

If McCain politically, supported by George Will of the punditocracy, et al, had not killed filibuster reform, I would be joining the anti side in this debate.

But the great loose cannon of modern America did in fact develop the gang of 14 and it does put at risk at this time openly vocal conservative judges.

I choose winning what battles we can over losing gloriously.

Winning the war is incremental.

And, by the way, there other justices who don't feel so good these days.

Remember: incremental