Although not particularly impressed by the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, I decided to wait to evaluate her performance during the Judiciary Committee hearings before finally deciding whether to support or not support her nomination (as if anyone cares what I think, anyway!) ;^).
However, several bloggers are doing a good job discussing the implications of the nomination, particularly Stephen Bainbridge and William Dyer. Most of the debate from such responsible bloggers is well-reasoned and above-board, but David Frum weighed in a couple of days ago (see post “What the Insiders are Saying”) with a post based on alleged well-placed confidential sources who contend that the Miers nomination is the product of the Peter Principle.
Welcome to the big leagues of petty politics, Harriet.

Does it ever seem as if, whenever 60 Minutes needs a rating boost, they do a Bill Clinton-scandal story?
At any rate, get ready for another such segment. Former Clinton Administration FBI Director Louis J. Freeh is promoting his new book My FBI: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror (St. Martin’s Press 2005), and this Washington Post article indicates that his 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace will be a general hammering session on former President Clinton:

Former FBI director Louis J. Freeh has denounced Bill Clinton over the scandals that marred his presidency and for his record on terrorism, saying the level of distrust was so great that he stayed in his post so Clinton could not appoint his successor.
In a forthcoming book and “60 Minutes” interview, Freeh, whose strained relations with Clinton were no secret, says he was so determined to distance himself from Clinton that he sent back a White House pass so that all his visits would be deemed official. This, he said, antagonized Clinton.

The WaPo report triggered the crack Clinton Scandal Response Team into action:

Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said last night: “This is clearly a total work of fiction by a man who’s desperate to clear his name and sell books, and it’s unfortunate he’d stoop to this level in his attempt to rewrite history.” He noted Freeh contributed nearly $20,000 to Republicans, including President Bush, in the last campaign.

Gosh, seems like old times, eh? In fairness to the Clintonites, Mr. Freeh’s tenure at the FBI is not without its bipartisan critics.

President Bush has nominated White House counsel and Dallas-based attorney Harriet Miers to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court of the United States. Ms. Miers has never been a judge before, the first such non-judge nomination since that of the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
Ms. Miers was the first woman to be president of the State Bar of Texas and, for a time during the President’s stint as a businessman, she was his personal lawyer.
Howard Bashman has an extensive list of developing links on Ms. Miers. And Professor Bainbridge asks very reasonable questions and makes challeging observations regarding the nomination here. And Tom Goldstein and Lyle Denniston over at SCOTUSBlog are already expressing skepticism that the Senate will approve the nomination. On the other hand, William Dyer provides an impassioned defense of a nomination of a non-jurist to the Supreme Court.

Following on a theme addressed in this earlier post from last fall, this timely OpinionJournal op-ed points out that the real problem to the Republican Party represented by Tom DeLay is not his dubious ethics, but that he is devoid of ideas other than self-preservation:

The real danger for Republicans now isn’t ethics; it is that, like those 1994 Democrats, they seem to have grown more comfortable presiding over the government than changing it. No one typified this more than Mr. DeLay, who has always been more fiercely partisan than he is conservative. . .
. . . [T]he GOP Congress has become mostly about its money and muscle–and the incumbency it helps to sustain. The policy and intellectual fervor, such as it was, has all but vanished. Nothing typified that more than Mr. DeLay’s comments on September 13, when he declared post-Katrina that there was nothing left in the federal budget to cut. They had already trimmed all the fat. . .

Read the entire piece. As OpinionJournal points out, if voters come to the conclusion that the GOP’s primary ambition is simply to remain in power, then “no amount of money or muscle will save Republicans at the polls.”

In one of the least surprising developments in Texas politics over the past couple of years, a Travis County (Austin area) grand jury on Wednesday charged Houston Congressman and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and two political associates — John Colyandro, former executive director of the Texas political action committee that Mr. DeLay helped form, and Jim Ellis, who heads Mr. DeLay’s national political action committee — with criminal conspiracy in an alleged campaign finance scheme that has been under investigation for almost two years. That investigation and Mr. DeLay have been frequent topics on this blog, as posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here reflect. Here is a copy of the indictment.

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This NY Times article reports that the Justice Department’s inspector general and the F.B.I. are looking into the November, 2002 demotion of Frederick A. Black, a veteran federal prosecutor whose reassignment shut down a criminal investigation that he had been pursuing of Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Mr. Abramoff is a well-known Washington lobbyist and a major Republican Party fund-raiser who is a close confidant of Houston congressman and House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay. Here are the previous posts relating to a broad corruption investigation of Mr. Abramoff focusing on accusations that he defrauded Indian tribes and their gambling operations out of millions of dollars in lobbying fees.

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This Washington Times article refers to House Majority Leager Tom DeLay‘s recent comments regarding the Bush Administration’s record on government spending:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said yesterday that Republicans have done so well in cutting spending that he declared an “ongoing victory,” and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget.
Mr. DeLay was defending Republicans’ choice to borrow money and add to this year’s expected $331 billion deficit to pay for Hurricane Katrina relief. Some Republicans have said Congress should make cuts in other areas, but Mr. DeLay said that doesn’t seem possible.

On the contrary, the Bush Administration compares poorly with past administrations in terms of cutting non-defense governmental spending, approved outrageous and poorly-administered pork barrel spending, ushered in a huge unfunded increase in the government’s future liabilities through the Medicare prescription drug benefit package, and has arguably presided over the biggest and most reckless deterioration of America’s finances in history.
In what parallel universe is Mr. DeLay operating?
Hat tip to Arnold Kling for the link to the Washington Times article.

Sometimes I am left to scratch my head and ponder whether there is any adult supervision left in Washington, D.C. these days. The latest incident giving me pause is the disclosure that Senate Democrats have designated John W. Dean III as a potential witness today during Judge John Roberts‘ confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Now, most of us older bloggers know all about John Dean, but younger folks might not. Mr. Dean is the convicted felon who somehow crafted his legacy of breaching the attorney-client privilege and testifying to Congress against his client (former President Richard M. Nixon) during the Watergate Scandal in the early 1970’s into a job as an “expert” legal commentator for FindLaw.com. An example of his “scholarship” is this article in which he took the dubious position that Senator John Kerry would have a pretty good defamation claim against Swift Boat veteran John O’Neill, who is a longtime and well-regarded Houston attorney.
Recently, Mr. Dean has been writing articles on FindLaw.com opposing the confirmation of Judge Roberts and contending that the White House should release Mr. Roberts’ documents from his time in the Solicitor General’s office during the 1980’s. Unfortunately for Mr. Dean, every Soliciter General in recent memory has taken the position publicly that such documents are covered by the attorney-client privilege and should remain confidential.
So, rather than rely on the advice of previous Solicitor Generals, the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee tap a convicted felon who violated the attorney-client privilege during the Watergate hearings to testify that the privilege should be violated again with regard to Judge Roberts’ work on behalf of the Solicitor General.
What on earth are these people thinking?