Republicans like to disseminate the myth that they speak with a strong singular voice unlike the supposed disarray of the Democrats. However the Harriet Miers fiasco revealed that the Republican Party is nothing more than a precarious amalgamation of three distinct houses, each vying for a Supreme Court nominee that would side with their separate agendas. The Religious Right, big business and the 'neo cons' have all taken refuge under the Republican tent. However, they are not blood brothers, but rather are engaged in blood letting.
How conservative does a nominee have to be to placate the Religious Right? Are they looking for a Christian ayatollah? Bush told the GOP that his Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers "is one of us". She is "no liberal", but is "a rock-solid conservative". She is a "born-again evangelical Christian and church-goer" and "her views on social issues like gay rights and abortion would not drift to the left". But Bush's assurances weren't good enough for the Religious Right. Mires was not known to have taken a strong public stand supporting their skewed goals. They feared that after they had fought so long and hard for this day, Bush may have squandered a golden opportunity to realign the court and silence liberals forever in picking Miers.
Religious Right leaders complained that all they ever got from Bush was lip service and "as soon as we reelected him he forgot about us and pursued his business agenda". But, Bush has always understood that absolutist conservative policies like banning abortion do not have majority support among the electorate. While anti-abortion politics galvanize religious conservatives, such policies are not election winners at the polls. Consequently, throughout his presidency he has been careful to keep these issues on the back burner.
Religious Right luminary, Alan Keyes contended that truly conservative judicial nominees divide the money powers of the Republican Party from the grass roots voting power. Keyes said that while the preponderance of Republican grass roots voters are undoubtedly pro-life moral conservatives, the preponderance of the 'money-is-god' Republicans, who can mobilize the networks of donations from the corporate world, are indifferent or hostile to the moral agenda. But, because money is the key to media access in our politics today, these business Republicans are cheered by all the party including the Religious Right.
Bush was born into the moneyed 'big business' fraction of the Republican Party. He always has been proud to claim it as his political base. He mostly dances to its tune: corporate deregulations, grants, tax breaks and weakening labor. He transfers wealth its way by dismantling the country's social programs. Big business with its political payola virtually writes its own ticket in the Republican controlled federal government.
Incidentally, Bush's weakening labor and transferring wealth to big business is increasingly impoverishing working Americans and is inadvertently lowering resistance to abortion.
In contrast to the Religious Right, big business came out in strong support of Harriet Miers. Unlike her lack of recorded public verbiage on right wing mores, she was followed by a long, distinguished paper trail as a corporate lawyer.
Before joining Bush's inner circle during his years as Texas governor, Miers headed a corporate law firm in Dallas. She built her career on defending large corporations. She was at her best fending off class-action lawsuits by angry consumers claiming to be ripped off by Microsoft, the Texas Automobile Dealers Association and former mortgage industry giant Lomas & Nettleton. She handled a trademark infringement case for the Walt Disney Company. And, she has had experience with contract conflicts and other tiffs between companies. Her specialty was keeping cases out of the courts and the headlines.
Bush is also proactive for the 'Neo Con' fraction of the Republican Party, which clashes with the other two. In their desire for an imperial America militarily dominating and even colonizing much of the world, the 'Neo Cons' have committed innumerable crimes and sins resulting in so much anguish and blood letting that should be contrary to the mores of the Religious Right. (If it is wrong to "kill babies" in America it should be as equally wrong to "kill babies" in Iraq.) And, with the exception of corporate war profiteers, big business is being crippled by the stratospheric federal deficit being raised by the cost of 'Neo Con' wars and covert actions.
The new Republican spin is that they want conservative Supreme Court Justices that strictly interpret the constitution and aren't pro active for any current cause. If this were really true, wouldn't such judges immediately throw out legislation so opposed to the Constitution as the Patriot Act?
Bush's administration has been weakened by the Miers fiasco. Now, seemingly a Bush priority is to unify the three houses of the Republican Party. He caved into pressure and sacrificed the well-being of the American people by nominating Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Republicans should be pleased with Alito because he is a notoriously right wing judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He has consistently ruled to strip basic protections from workers, women, minorities and the disabled in favor of unchecked power for corporations and special interests. However he still has to survive expected strong opposition from the Democrats.
