The American Spectator

p> LET DOWN br> Re: Lisa Fabrizio’s Cut Her Some Slack and the “Oxygen Masks” letters in Reader Mail’s Breath Holders : /p>

Lisa Fabrizio makes a good attempt at reassuring me to support the President’s Supreme Court nominee. But I find one point of reasoning too calculating. The fact that Ms. Miers is an Evangelical Christian and scares the liberals plays into the stereotype liberals use against people of faith. I understand the politics but it is unseemly. Besides the liberals are on a jihad and fright does not enter into their thought process, only obsession.

Conservatives were counting on the President to nominate somebody to continue the great debate of liberal versus conservative philosophy. The conservative movement is more than faith. Within this debate is where the battle of good versus evil would be played out for all to see and choose. I do not automatically assume that a stealth candidate is an invisible conservative and I understand that to liberals in the Senate thou shall speak no conservative evil.

But today’s Republicans are more interested in holding ground than to advance the conservative cause. There is no such thing as standing still. The world simply does not work this way. We either shrink or grow. Losing campaigns are conducted on a holding ground strategy. It is this consolidation strategy that the Republican Party employs that has supporters worried. This SC “fight” could have energized the party and it could have made the spineless run for cover. It could have served as a cleansing process. It could have been an early kill or cure in preparation for next year. The base is ready for a fight but the establishment Republicans would rather keep their pillows fluffed.

Lisa points to intelligent personnel cabinet choices but also neglects the bad ones that have long been forgotten. Lisa also forgets the dumb choices made such as working with Ted Kennedy only later to be accused of heinous crimes, the huge prescription drug boondoggle (no political gains), and big social spending increases (no political gains). This accommodation strategy has done nothing to win over the other side. It has antagonized the base and that is a dumb play. The anxiety felt by the base has a foundation that lies on these past dumb political ploys.

Winners realize the right time and also the only time to make a decisive move but this administration seems overwhelmed, on its heels playing defense, and unwilling to rally against the media. Where is the Dick Cheney who called Tom Daschle an obstructionist? That stuck. Where is the President Bush that called the Democrat establishment to task during the Homeland Security bill fight, as union supporters and not U.S. security supporters. The media howled but the administration won. We have not witnessed this backbone in a long time.

p>Sure there will always be time for recriminations later but then it will be too late. History indicates the next administration will swing to a Democrat and there will be another SC nominee during that time. It will certainly be a left wing nominee. Even a Republican majority will be cowed by the MSM and cave big time. The court could end back on the left side of the road. We hear reassurances about Miss Miers. We need ironclad fact. br> —