Yah, all the people screaming about Miers, and her "lack of experience" are now screaming about the need for new leadership in the Republican party. Too much experience I guess.....

Please Robert,

The idea that Alito isn't superior to Miers is laughable.

Further, there are plenty of good reasons to argue that Republican Leadership in both houses are massive failures.

Prior to the election we got all the sunny optimism about a war that didn't have many casualties, a great economy, and a tide coming in from the right across the globe.

The fact is that Bush still had 20 points on Congressional Republicans, and their poll numbers were based upon more than just the war. The leadership was brain dead, and there is no downside to admitting it.

Heck, I recognize that Trent Lott is better than Lamer Alexander, but good golly, if those were the only two choices, things don't bode well for the 'good guys.'

Nominating Miers was a weak move by a President who had suddenly turned cautious. Why? We don't know. Perhaps he felt Frist couldn't run the Senate or he thought Specter would cut off a strong conservative at the knees.

If he just wanted to overturn Roe, it would have been better to nominate Ashcroft, Cornyn, Hatch, or even somebody like Alex Kozinski.

The problem this conservative has is that once the Senate was 55-45 and Bush claimed to have "political capital", they really didn't do a whole lot with it. 2005 should have been the year of mastering the bureaucracy (both at the State Dept. and through the Katrina mess). They fumbled both. Condi looks weaker and more out of touch each passing day, and the hopes for entitlement reform are gone, maybe for a long time.

Lott is better than Alexander, to be sure, but is he better than Schumer? Does the GOP have anybody who is?

If the GOP had delivered school vouchers, instead of vouchers "in theory" or perpetually "on the horizon," they would have held Congress by a landslide. This drift from liberty and small government to OJ's sophisticated "third way," kept a lot of Repubs. at home. Harriet was a judicial third way, we dodged a bullet there.

Only blacks want vouchers and they aren't about to vote for an openly racist party. The GOP won't go to the mattresses for vouchers that white suburbanites oppose.

Miers was the pick of a strong president, who thought the folks he'd served owed him one. How was he to know just how petty the ideologues were?

An openly racist party that has had two consecutive Af-Am secretaries of state? the party of Steele? the party of Lincoln?

The belief that you can buy them off with tokens is part of the problem. Evangelicals get legislation.

Miers was a silly choice, made by a President who didn't think he could win a real fight. Or just didn't want one. But with 55 votes (or at least 54, given Chafee), why worry? That's what had many people baffled.

If he wanted to cheer 'the base', all he had to do was nominate Cornyn or Ashcroft (or Luttig, or Jones, or Alito himself in the first place). Or Emilio Garza. Or any one of a dozen others.

The Democratic sharks smelled blood, and although they didn't stop Alito (that majority thingy), they bottled up the committee the rest of the year. There are some open seats on various benches that Bush hasn't even offered a nomination on yet. What does that say about Harriet Miers?

Miers was a silly choice, made by a President who didn't think he could win a real fight. Or just didn't want one. But with 55 votes (or at least 54, given Chafee), why worry? That's what had many people baffled.

If he wanted to cheer 'the base', all he had to do was nominate Cornyn or Ashcroft (or Luttig, or Jones, or Alito himself in the first place). Or Emilio Garza. Or any one of a dozen others.

The Democratic sharks smelled blood, and although they didn't stop Alito (that majority thingy), they bottled up the committee the rest of the year. There are some open seats on various benches that Bush hasn't even offered a nomination on yet. What does that say about Harriet Miers? The fault may be Specter's, but the President should have known that this is the ideological flashpoint - and he can't just smile and hope the problems go away.

Ah, Mr. Bruno, you always bring a smile to my face. Miers was, of course, better then Alito, unless you prefer rule by lawyer. The Republican leadership were massive failures? I missed the part where we had a depression, got kicked out of the middle east, saw the banks collapse, and watched welfare become a constutional right. Yes, the budget got bigger, while we tried to avoid the mess that was the end of WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Damn those Republicans! Why can't they just sell out the brown people and leave them to die in peace? Immigration? Why can't the Republicans do a better job of enforcing the Immoral Racist laws the Democrats passed? We all respected Dole for being "A tax collector for the Welfare State" right? What better face for the Republicans then to be the Democrats enforcers. We can tell the voters, "We aren't Mr. Big, we're the guys who break your kneecaps when told to, by Mr. Big. Vote for Us!". You complain about Lott in the leadership, but you aren't pushing a replacement. Why is that? Could it be that you have slit the throats of any possible replacement, as ordered to by the Democrats? You are not taking their orders directly, of course. They smear any leadership the Republicans put out, any lie will do, and watch as the rank and file, that would be you Bruno, demand the removal of another plaster saint. Compare the job security of Tip O'Niel to that of the last(what, 6 or 7) Speakers for the Republicans. You put people into the most political job in the country, and then try to strip them of the tools needed to do the job. Somebody's brain dead, and I don't think it's the leadership.