frum.nationalreview.com/archives/09292005.asp#077899
I have to confess that at the time, I was mostly joking. Har riet Miers is a capable lawyer, a hard worker, and a kind and generous p erson. She would be an reasonable choice for a generalist attorney, whic h is indeed how George W Bush first met her. She would make an excellen t trial judge: She is a careful and fair-minded listener. In the White House that hero worshipped the president, Miers was distingu ished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. She served Bush well, but s he is not the person to lead the court in new directions - or to stand u p under the criticism that a conservative justice must expect. The harsh truth is, at this 5 year mark in the administration's life, tha t its domestic achievements are very few. The most important, the tax cu t, will likely prove temporary, undermined by the administration's overs pending. The education bill, the faith-based initiative, and the rest do not amount to much. the immigration proposals are disasters that will never become law. Civil justice reform should be credited to Congress, not the White House. After that, what is there other than the Patriot Act and of course judi cial nominations? But even on judicial nominations, thus far the preside nt has only preserved the old balance on the court. If he is actually to advance his principles, he will need a real conservative leader: a Lutt ig, for example, a Michael McConnell - or perhaps Senator Mitch McConnel l if the president is concerned about confirmability. The Senate will al ways confirm a fellow-senator, and McConnell is one of the body's outsta nding conservative intellects. This is no time for the president to indu lge his loyalty to his friends. All this year, the president has been te sting the limits of his support. Well we are at the limit now, and anyth ing less than a superb choice for the O'Connor vacancy will overstep it.
He is not accused of taking bribe s He is not accused of personal enrichment. He is not even accused of b reaking campaign-finance laws. Instead, if I understand the indictment correctly, he is accused of circu mventing the campaign-finance laws, doing something technically legal in order to achieve an end that the state of Texas has sought to ban: rout ing corporate contributions to candidates for Texas office. So I can understand why DeLay so passionately insists on his innocence. E very taxpayer appreciates the distinction between tax avoidance - using legal means to reduce one's tax liability as far as one can - and tax ev asion. DeLay was engaged in what might be called campaign-law avoidance. My guess is that the technical legality of what he did will in the end de feat the indictment - if indeed the case ever goes to trial. Innocence is a good e xcuse the first time, and maybe also the second, possibly even the third . But when you get up to the fourth protestation of innocence, well it b egins to acquire a bad sound.
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