Author: Dean Pajevic

Are there so many cracks now that Harriet Miers’ nomination may crumble? From George Wills’ condemnation of Bush’s decision-making and choice to Trent Lott’s dismay (calling it a “mistake”) to this — “Cracks begin to emerge in mantle of Republican majority” — just in from John Byrne, publisher and editor-in-chief of Raw Story.

Byrne writes in an e-mail, “The mainstream press has yet to pick up on the fact that Brownback, Lott and Warner are all suddenly challenging Frist’s control of the Senate — which may spell trouble down the road. Meanwhile, the Gang of 14 is meeting at 4:30.”

In fact, the media has featured Trent Lott’s statements before the cameras today — the footage has been replayed hourly on MSNBC and CNN. And Scarborough and others are talking up Brownback’s opposition. (Of course, meanwhile, the increasingly laughable NYT — the paper of record no more? — has done another shoddy job of vetting its source on Miers’ background.)

Byrne has written a fine piece that puts it together for us:

WASHINGTON — It began on a quiet Thursday afternoon in May. Fourteen senators from both parties reached across the aisle to form a pact that ensured that a longstanding rule preserving the rights of the minority party – the Democrats – would survive.

That evening, Republican leader Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) took to a nearly empty Senate chamber to denounce the deal. His voice was defiant but tempered with defeat – Republicans would not get an “up or down vote” on their President’s coveted judicial nominees.

In retrospect, the deal likely marked the first crack in the levee of the Republican Congress. Since then, a fissure in Senate Republican discipline – paired with the triple indictment of House Republican mastermind Tom DeLay (R-TX) – has sent the conservative caucus spiraling into increasingly entropic waters.

On Tuesday, two leading Republican senators broke ranks. The first was Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KN), who signaled that he might oppose Harriet Miers, President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court.

More BELOW:

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“Senators beginning what ought to be a protracted and exacting scrutiny of Harriet Miers should be guided by three rules.

• “First, it is not important that she be confirmed.

  
  

• “Second, it might be very important that she not be.
  

• “Third, the presumption — perhaps rebuttable but certainly in need of rebutting — should be that her nomination is not a defensible exercise of presidential discretion to which senatorial deference is due.
  

  
  

• “It is not important that she be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court’s tasks.
  

• “The president’s ‘argument’ for her amounts to: Trust me.

• “There is no reason to, for several reasons.

  
  

• “He [President Bush] has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. …
  

  
  

• “Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers’s nomination resulted from the president’s careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. …
  

  
  

• “In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. …”

Who wrote this today? Answer below:

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Lemonade
by Raymond Carver (who lived and is buried in Port Angeles, in a cemetery plot that overlooks the Strait and is graced by a marble bench and his poems, engraved)



When he came to my house months ago to measure

my walls for bookcases, Jim Sears didn’t look like a man


who’d lose his only child to the high waters

of the Elwha River. He was bushy-haired, confident,

cracking his knuckles, alive with energy, as we

discussed tiers, and brackets, and this oak stain

compared to that. But it’s a small town, this town,


a small world here. …

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Trees near the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula – photo by Darcy on a hike last Sunday.

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Paul Hackett, “the Iraq War veteran from Cincinnati who was hailed by national Democrats for his narrow loss this summer in a heavily Republican House district, has decided to challenge Mike DeWine for U.S. Senate in 2006,” reports the A.P. via Yahoo.

Hackett flew home Monday evening “from Washington after meeting with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee,” said spokesman David Woodruff, “who served as Hackett’s campaign manager in his special election campaign for the 2nd District House seat against Jean Schmidt. …”

A WSJ poll, according to Swing State Project, shows:

     Hackett (D) 44

     DeWine (R) 36

From Kos at 12:20 pm:

Incumben Sen. DeWine is myred with low reelect numbers while the Ohio Republican Party implodes around him. Bush is at 37 percent in the state. Governor Bob Taft is at 17 percent. Partisan polls showed Sherrod Brown making a competitive race. That weird (and frankly questionable) internet poll by Zogby yesterday had Hackett handily beating DeWine. So who will DeWine face?

Guess we know now. In August, Chris Bowers wrote:

I like Tim Ryan … he would have an excellent chance … DeWine is arguably the most vulnerable Republican up for re-election … and things only continue to get worse.

However, there is another candidate … who would start with huge support from the netroots, who has already proven he can win votes in areas where most Democrats fear to tread, who will be exactly the sort of truth teller Democrats need … whose position as an Iraq war vet could aid a national Democratic tidal wave in 2006. … Marine Corps Major Paul Hackett.

This map of Hackett’s donors shows that he already has a national movement behind him: … See the map and read more.

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