Conservatives Confront Bush Aides

Sort of looks like the FDR Republican President and his Kool-aid vendors still have a lot of work to do to get the GOP base on board – assuming that they have any concern about even bothering to do so at this point.

The conservative uprising against President Bush escalated yesterday as Republican activists angry over his nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court confronted the president’s envoys during a pair of tense closed-door meetings. A day after Bush publicly beseeched skeptical supporters to trust his judgment on Miers, a succession of prominent conservative leaders told his representatives that they did not. Over the course of several hours of sometimes testy exchanges, the dissenters complained that Miers was an unknown quantity with a thin résumé and that her selection — Bush called her “the best person I could find” — was a betrayal of years of struggle to move the court to the right.

Although the Chief is still trying to be optimistic about the appointment, none of this exactly gives a warm glow. All there is is a (hopefully not forlorn) hope that Ms. Miers ultimately proves to be a sound constitutional originalist. Unfortunately, all there is is that hope…but not much substance at this point.