BUSH'S CHOICE OF A NOBODY HAS EVERYBODY UP IN ARMS 5th

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BUSH'S CHOICE OF A NOBODY HAS EVERYBODY UP IN ARMS

By Cynthia Tucker Mon Oct 24,10:44 AM ET

President Bush may be as confused about the controversy surrounding the nomination of Harriet Miers as I am. Sure, he nominated a crony. So what? He's been doing that for the past five years. Indeed, he started his presidency without enough of his own cronies to put in office, so he had to borrow some from his daddy. Since when did his supporters mind?
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Bush must have reasoned that his heretofore loyal constituency of ultra-conservative Christians knows he has no political capital left, what with a 39 percent approval rating, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. So he couldn't risk nominating a jurist with a trail of scholarly writings hostile to the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. Nor could he expect confirmation of a judge who is so far to the right that he has to write his decisions with his left hand. Not only Democrats but also moderate Republicans would likely object to an obvious extremist.

No, the president needed a cipher.

He undoubtedly figured his base would fall in line behind Miers if he used the same signals and not-so-subtle cues he's used on everything from the invasion of Iraq to his interference in the case of
Terri Schiavo. With rhetoric that frequently called attention to his bona fides as a born-again Christian, Bush was employing a code that communicated effectively to other born-agains without frightening moderate voters. In an October 2004 New York Times profile, writer Ron Suskind described the alliance between the president and his base of ultra-conservative churchgoers this way:.......