The Unseen Plan

Everyone, everyone, seems utterly mystefied by the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Even to this day. But a reader wrote in with a couple of theories about what it might really mean, things that I had considered as well:

1) Bush nominated someone unqualified (he likes people like that) knowing that she my not be confirmed. That way he can cry foul when he puts up a second nomination.

2) The conservative right is saying that they aren't happy with Miers is smokescreen to calm some uninformed liberals to think that she is a safe bet. This woman is as right to life as they get.

Both good theories. My own thinking was along the lines of (2), although they both might be operative. Here is how that works:

Knowing that no known whacko they nominate will be greeted without argument from Dems and lefties, the White House picks Miers -- a complete unknown to most -- fully expecting the right will be angered. Rove knows he can placate the Christians after some work on the phones calling Dobson and the like. In fact, stories abound after the nomination described exactly this. Then the NY Times moves in and spills the sonorous praise on her nearly continuously. It seems to an obvious hole in this theory that, if Rove really had planned this, the phone work ought to have be done well in advance, or at least somewhat in advance. For the putative "brain" Rove is assumed to be, scrambling after the announcement does not reinforce the notion of a well-planned action at all.

But we'll continue along these lines anyway. Rove knows that calming the Christians is easy once he gets the Dobsons and Perkins jerk-offs in line. And Dobson is already there. And with no resistance on Miers from the Dems, who are just sitting back -- something they shouldn't be doing -- all Rove has to take care of is a few stuffy Repub senators. And it remains to seen just how long that stuffiness will last. And that is where Dobson comes in. He has sway over a few of those "Christian" senators, like Brownback.

If GOP senators do resist -- doubtful despite the bluster -- then the White House falls onto plan (1). Meirs is defeated, and then they nominate a known right wing whacko. The Times will be employed, again, to start sending out the next series of stories about how this newly-nominated right wing nut is really not all that crazy. This may or may not follow, depending on whether Miller and others are indicted.

If Rove and others in the White House (Libby?) are indicted, then all bets are off. It is hard to know what Bush will do if that actually happens. In fact, Bush won't know what Bush will do if that happens.

But why even nominate Miers in the first place? Because, ultimately, the White House, i.e. Rove and his GOP machine, want a turn key solution on the Supreme Court. They aren't really interested in abortion or gays, but what they do want is someone who will back up the corporate interests that the GOP loves so well. Miers is clearly that person. This is something that Christians have never really figured out. Nominating a jurist who is a strongly fundamentalist Christian might even cause problems for the GOP if, God forbid, that nominee turns out to actually be Christian. At these levels of government, though, that seems highly unlikely.