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Throw aside ideology? In a fight over a Supreme Court nominee? When Republicans start talking like that, there is blood on the moon.
It is even within the realm of possibility that Ms. Miers will withdraw her nomination entirely. If she decides to sit down before the Senate, it is probable that she will be asked a number of questions on the minutiae of constitutional law. This nominee, who has no experience in the law whatsoever, will come across as being as bumbling and uninformed as the lamest first-year law student in the country. Who wouldn't want to do that before a bank of cameras?
There is Katrina and its aftermath. There is Majority Leader Frist under investigation, and former Majority Leader DeLay under indictment. There is Iraq, which grinds on interminably and which killed three more American soldiers on Friday. There is the coming winter and the looming explosion of heating prices; reports suggest that heating costs will increase by 70% as the snow starts to fall, translating into about an extra $350 on bills for anyone with natural gas heat, with similar bad news for anyone who has oil or electric heat. On top of that is the rise of the I-word: "US consumer inflation surged at the fastest pace in more than 25 years in September, rising a steeper-than-expected 1.2 percent, the Labor Department said Friday," reports Agence France-Presse.
After all that, or course, is the giant hammer hanging over the White House. Punxsutawney Karl stepped out of the Grand Jury room on Friday and saw his shadow, so it looks like we will have at least six more weeks of scandal. The inquiry into the deliberate outing by administration officials of a covert CIA agent as a means to effect political revenge, according to the New York Times, "has swept up a dozen or more other officials who have been questioned by investigators or have testified before the grand jury, and, should it lead to the indictment of anyone at a senior level, it has the potential to upend the professional lives of everyone at the White House for the remainder of Mr. Bush's second term."
"The result, say administration officials and friends and allies on the outside who speak regularly with them," continues the Times, "is a mood of intense uncertainty in the White House that veers in some cases into fear of the personal and political consequences and anger at having been caught in the snare of a special prosecutor. And given how badly things have been going for Mr. Bush and his team on other fronts - a poll released Thursday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center put his approval rating at 38 percent, a new low - they hardly have deep reserves of internal enthusiasm or external good will to draw on."
They're scared. They should be.
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