It is often said that travel broadens the mind, but I'm not entirely convinced that's true. Instead, I believe that travel actually clears the mind, allowing us to return home with a fresh perspective on old problems and a readiness to embrace new challenges. It allows us to discover, if we're inclined to self-examination, a new love of home and what it means to us.

It is all too easy, I suppose, to be overwhelmed by the lure of the new. It's in our nature to want to explore different places, view strange horizons, and taste all that other cultures have to offer. For Americans more than most other people, I think, a visit to other parts of the world has all of that, in addition to the lure of the old.

On a recent trip to Spain, I was as drawn as anyone to the older sections of Madrid and the small towns of the countryside. The twisting streets only fit for walking, the weathered, time-etched churches, the trendy new shops and bars housed in buildings raised when America was still a young nation all seemed to cast a sort of spell. I was moved by the almost untouched wilderness of the Gredos Mountains, through which Celts, Romans, kings and Conquistadors alike marched without the land even seeming to notice their passage. I was impressed by the generosity and friendliness of all the Spaniards (and Portugese) I met.

However... as much as I loved traveling to Spain, and as much fun as I had, no moment gave me quite the rush of emotion as the feel of the plane's wheels leaving the ground when I began my journey home.

It's not because I had difficulty speaking the language that I looked forward to going home, nor was it due to simple unfamiliarity with the country. It wasn't due to the different food, either. On the contrary, the challenges of getting along in a foreign land were exciting and entertaining, to myself as well as many of the Spaniards with whom I conversed. My mime repertoire has expanded to the point where moving to New York City, painting my face white, and doing the "Stuck In A Box" and "Walking Against The Wind" routines for donations is now a fallback career choice.

I once had to mime getting a blister to a clerk at a pharmacy while looking for bandages. Walking all over a city is hard work. When I needed to wash clothes, I stunned several life-long Madrid residents by finding (traveling via bus and sore feet) a self-serve landromat -- a thing which few Madrilenos had supposed even existed in their city. As for the food, I nearly bought a whole pig's leg to bring home, so I wouldn't miss the jamon serrano too soon. I'm sure my fellow passengers wouldn't have minded my boarding the plane with a pig's leg slung over my shoulder like Errol Flynn carrying a deer in Robin Hood.

As exciting and different as other places in the world might be -- and they are -- I will always only have one home, and that's the USA. Here is the place generations of my fellow-countrymen struggled to reach, to seize the opportunities offered -- then and now -- by life in America. I loved traveling to Spain, and look forward to seeing other parts of Europe and the rest of the world, but I know that I'll always be eager to return home, where I belong by choice.

With the world to choose from, I choose this place. I wouldn't condemn my descendants to retrace the journey my ancestors were forced to take by high taxes, struggling economies and oppressive governments -- all of which still exist in the places they fled, though the names have changed.

I met some Americans eager to apply for dual citizenship and move to Europe, drawn by the older, different culture and atmosphere. That's their decision, but could not be mine. I met even more Spaniards, however, who seemed eager to learn about and even come to America... especially after my setting the record straight on all too many issues upon which they've been misled.

When our Liberals tell us that all Europeans hate us, I have to wonder whether they simply hate watching Americans bashing their own country in order to curry favor with foreigners. For too long their only sources of information about this country have been Liberal movies, Liberal newspapers and Liberal visitors, all of which frequently disparage and deride the American culture and people.

As the internet culture continues to gain ground overseas, we will be able to exchange more information without the filters that have been in place for so long. The days of Liberal information control will finally come to an end, as long as we keep the United Nations from taking control of the internet. And I couldn't be happier to throw a few spadefuls of earth on the grave of Leftist disinformation from time to time, simply by not hesitating to speak my mind.

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I'll be on vacation in Spain for the next two weeks, and will probably not be doing any serious blogging.

The Paris riots, well into their second week at this point, are the inevitable result of Socialism and multiculturalism run amuck. What else can one expect when Leftist policies prevail, racial division replaces political debate, and angry, largely unemployed subcultures are created in the name of "fairness?" French Socialism and reluctance to assimilate the growing Muslim population are the underlying causes of the spreading violence. A society with enclaves of resentful, culturally-segregated groups of people who are not held responsible for their own lives is a recipe for disaster. The recent events in Paris should serve as a warning to all Americans: stop the drift towards multiculturalism and Socialism before it's too late.

Multiculturalism had its roots in the Left's response to the civil rights movement of the 1960's. When you can't segregate populations by law, you persuade them to segregate themselves. The trend continues today with the Left's insistence that Hispanic immigrants should "celebrate their diversity" instead of celebrating being American. America was founded upon immigration, and drew strength from blending elements of various cultures into the mix, not separating them.

Whoever first coaxed people -- some of whom could trace their American ancestry back to the Revolution -- into wearing clothing, naming their children and even celebrating artificial holidays based on some mythical pan-African culture was a marketing genius. Democrats, more of whom voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act than Republicans, rushed to cast the blame for this subcultural seclusion on their political foes. Race pimps and hatemongers continue to feed the resentment of people who voluntarily isolate themselves from the mainstream, telling them they're being oppressed. The victim culture has taken on a life of its own.

Whenever a black person works hard to make a successful life for him or herself without playing on or pandering to victimhood, the multiculturalists show their true colors, as it were. Condoleezza Rice, for instance, was Provost of Stanford University and National Security Advisor before she was chosen to be Secretary of State -- America's representative to the world. In her current position, she replaced Colin Powell, who had previously been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- the highest military position within the Department of Defense. Liberals have reviled both for not being "black enough," calling Rice "Aunt Jemima" and Powell "Uncle Tom."

Maryland's Lt. Governor Michael Steele has also been called "Uncle Tom" as well as "Sambo" for not embracing the subculture of eternal black victimhood pushed by the Left. Protesters even threw Oreo cookies at him during a debate. That's the end result of multiculturalism for you -- throwing food at people who don't toe the line on race-based politics, shouting them down with childish antics, not even allowing them to speak.

Socialism is the government taking over responsibility for feeding, housing and clothing you, managing your health care and retirement, telling you where to live and how, even raising your children. Socialist governments turn productive, responsible citizens into helpless infants. In order to pay for all of that care, the government increases the tax burden on its most productive citizens and corporations, reducing economic growth and forcing businesses to reduce the workforce. This, of course, increases the number of citizens dependant on government assistance, which increases the cost of caring for them. The purpose of a Socialist government is to perpetuate the government and increase its control.

When people are taught to revel in being cultural outsiders, they are bound to feel inferior and resentful towards the majority. That's what the Left wants. When responsibility for their own lives and decisions is removed, people also tend to feel inferior and resentful. That's what the Left wants. When a critical mass of isolated, resentful people is reached, the resulting explosion might tear the entire society apart. That's what the Left wants. We must take steps to avoid the impending dual train wreck of multiculturalism and Socialism, before it's too late.

In a move supposed to promote more "transparency," Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) recently invoked a rarely-used rule to force the Senate to close its doors for a short time, kicking out the reporters and barring all non-Senators from a secret discussion on pre-war Iraq intelligence. How a closed-door secret session increases openness in government remains a mystery to all but Harry Reid.

After the secret session, Democrats strutted before the cameras, bragging how they had forced the Republicans to move ahead with yet another inquiry into the use of intelligence before the invasion of Iraq. The media, desperate for any kind of Democrat victory, ate it up. No one even mentioned that the move to phase two of the investigation was already scheduled for this month... something every Democrat serving on the Senate Intelligence Committee already knew.

Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), the Senate Majority Leader, was rightly upset over the literal hijacking of the Senate for a publicity stunt. It's the same tactic the terrorists use in Iraq to bury good news... no matter how much progress is made there, a single hand grenade tossed into a marketplace crowd will dominate the headlines for the day. So what was really behind this prank?

As I see it, the move was pre-planned as the Democratic response to the anticipated indictment of Karl Rove. Democrats and Liberals desperately hoped that Rove would be indicted for intentionally exposing covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. He presumably did this to punish her husband, Joe Wilson, for telling the "truth" about Nigerian uranium.

Wilson was sent to Niger on Plame's recommendation, specifically to debunk "this crazy report," as she put it, that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium. Liberals and Democrats believe, no matter how unreasonable it is, that Karl Rove deliberately exposed a secret agent out of sheer vindictiveness. The indictment of Rove by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was supposed to lead to another one-way debate on how "Bush Lied!" as a kickoff to the '06 campaign season. After all, that worked so well for the Democrats in '04. (Campaign seasons, like Christmas sales, seem to start earlier every year.)

Only... it was Wilson who lied about the uranium buy attempt, which did take place after all (as he noted in his book, yet omitted from all his interviews). His wife's identity wasn't being actively concealed, and she hadn't been stationed overseas in at least five years -- the two conditions necessary to make "exposing" her a crime. Neither Rove nor anyone else was indicted for "outing" her, which -- as she was not a covert agent -- could not have even been done in the first place. "Fitzmas" was what the Angry Left dubbed the fabulous day that, in their fantasies, the entire Bush administration would be marched out of the White House in handcuffs. Well, Fitzmas fizzled... and Reid apparently never got the memo to put the followup on hold.

The "Bush Lied!" meme has been laid to rest several times before, but -- perhaps in keeping with the recent Halloween season -- the Left has brought it back from the grave. The Robb-Silberman Commission report filed in 2005 "found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs." The 2004 Butler Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, the British investigation, found no evidence of "deliberate distortion" of the intelligence material or of "culpable negligence". The Senate Select Committee Report on Intelligence in 2004 "did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." Well, if the Left doesn't get the conclusion they want, they simply claim it's all a lie and ask the same questions again... and again... and again.

So here's a handy little quiz for you. Below are just 21 statements made before Saddam's overthrow by US government and other officials about his weapons of mass destruction. Can you pick out which statements were deliberate lies, and which were merely based on faulty information (as the "Bush Lied!" crowd claims any statements by Democrats must have been)? Who said the following?

1. "Without question we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator leading an impressive regime. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he's miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction."

2. "What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad's regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs."

3. "We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and the security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction."

4. "One bottleneck for Tabun production is the availability of precursors. Iraq may have retained up to 191 tonnes of NaCN [potassium cyanide] and up to 140 tonnes of DMA.HCl [dimethylamine hydrochloride]."

5. "The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow."

6. "In total, at least 300 to 350 R-400 and R-400A bombs remained unaccounted for by UNSCOM."

7. "We know that he has stored nuclear supplies, secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

8. "We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas. Saddam Hussein also has experience in using chemical weapons. He has ordered chemical attacks on Iran, and on more than forty villages in his own country."

9. "We begin with a common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations, is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."

10. "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."

11. "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock. His missile delivery capability, his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists including Al-Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."

12. "Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal." 

13. "A document submitted by Iraq in February 2003 outlining the production of Clostridium perfringens [gas gangrene], did not add any detail to previous Iraqi declarations. No evidence to support the declared destruction of the agent was provided."

14. "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."

15. "There was unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. We also should remember that we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."

16. "Based on its estimate of the amounts of various types of media unaccounted for, UNSCOM estimated that the quantities of additional undeclared agent that potentially could have been produced were: 3,000 - 11,000 litres of botulinum toxin, 6,000 - 16,000 litres of anthrax, up to 5,600 litres of Clostridium perfringens, and a significant quantity of an unknown bacterial agent."

17. "This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."

18. "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed." 

19. "(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983" 

20. "There are 550 Mustard filled shells and up to 450 mustard filled aerial bombs unaccounted for since 1998. The mustard filled shells account for a couple of tonnes of agent while the aerial bombs account for approximately 70 tonnes."

21. "I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country."

Ready for the answers? Some of them may surprise you.

1. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), 23 January 2003
2. French President Jacques Chirac, 16 October 2002
3. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 1 February 1998
4. The United Nations (UNMOVIC), 6 March 2003
5. President Bill Clinton, 17 February 1998
6. The United Nations (UNMOVIC), 6 March 2003
7. Al Gore, 23 September 2002
8. President George W. Bush, 7 October 2002
9. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), 19 September 2002
10. Al Gore, 23 September 2002
11. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), 10 October 2002
12. Senator John Edwards (D-NC), 10 October 2002
13. The United Nations (UNMOVIC), 6 March 2003
14. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), 27 September 2002
15. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), 10 October 2002
16. The United Nations (UNMOVIC), 6 March 2003
17. Letter signed by Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Congressman Harold Ford (D-TN), Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) and others, 6 December 2001
18. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), 27 September 2002
19. National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, 18 February 1998
20. The United Nations (UNMOVIC), 6 March 2003
21. Senator John Edwards (D-NC), 24 February 2002

Quotes taken from "Words of Mass Destruction" from Snopes.com, "If The Bush Administration Lied About WMD, So Did These People" from RightWingNews.com and the 6 March 2003 UNMOVIC report "Unresolved Disarmament Issues: Iraq's Proscribed Weapons Programmes."

UPDATE: More quotes from the Left recalled by Sister Toljah. How these people can claim, while keeping a straight face, that President Bush lied about WMDs is beyond me. No wonder Liberal politicians and Liberal actors have such a tight alliance.

Some years ago, a good friend asked me to be the best man at his wedding. The problem was, I wasn't sure he was making the right decision, and several of our mutual friends had already expressed similar doubts to me in private. So I sat him down and told him the truth. What else could a true friend do? I asked him flat out whether he was marrying this girl mostly because he feared he was getting old, and thought that he might not find a better match.

It turns out that he had wondered the same thing about his own motivations, but hadn't been able to put his doubts into words. And once they had told everyone about the marriage, it didn't seem right to tell anyone that he wondered whether he'd made a mistake. So we drank some beer (his own home brew), talked it out, and by the end of the afternoon we both knew that his fiancee was the right girl for him. I was proud to be his best man, and they've been together for more than ten years.

When you think a friend is making a mistake, isn't it your duty to point it out? The old commercial says, "friends don't let friends drive drunk," but that's not the only tragedy that can be avoided by a friendly voice of reason. If I hadn't spoken up, my friend would have still gotten married, but he would have harbored doubts that might have come out and damaged their relationship the first time they had an argument that got emotional.

In the case of the Harriet Miers nomination, Conservatives who didn't blindly support President Bush's original decision are accused of being disloyal to, abandoning, even attacking the President. In fact, no such thing took place. Rather than playing the part of Kool-Aid drinking party apparatchiks, marching off a cliff unquestioningly like good little soldiers, many Conservatives spoke out, giving voice to their doubts about the President's pick. They asked for evidence that Ms. Miers was a good choice for Supreme Court instead of suppressing their doubts and accepting her without question. The rift occurred when it turned out that there was none to be found.

Most Democrats and not a few Republicans seem to be aghast at this blatantly "improper" use of free speech. I understand and expect the former, but the anger of the latter is somewhat ridiculous. "You elected him, now you must blindly accept everything he does," say the Democrats. Of course, they were mostly happy with Ms. Miers, who looked likely to be a moderate Conservative with gusts of Liberal activism on some issues. "How dare you lowly people question the decisions of the President?" ask the Republicans. "You'll damage the party's election prospects for 2006!"

I checked my copy of the Constitution, and -- unless my eyes are failing me -- it still begins "We, the People," not "We, the Party." Elected officials serve the people in a republic, not the other way around. We have questioned, and rightly, mistakes we felt were made on border control, illegal immigration amnesty, pork barrel spending, Medicare entitlements and steel tariffs, among others. It's our right, and more, our duty to do so. The difference is that Congress could easily correct those mistakes under public pressure. A Supreme Court Justice is appointed for life.

So we pointed out the mistake, and the nomination was withdrawn. That news alone will bring Bush's support roaring back. The fact that he did listen to the people who put him into office destroys the Liberal meme of the aloof, out-of-touch President who stubbornly follows his own path no matter what. Obviously, President Bush listens to those who have constructive criticism to offer -- he just ignores Liberal nay-saying and whining, as should we all.

Taking a Mulligan -- a golf term for "undoing" a poor shot -- on Harriet Miers gives President Bush an opportunity to launch a public relations offensive with his base solidly behind him. The economy is expanding at a strong rate of 3.8 percent, the Iraqi people have approved a democratic constitution and will be holding an election in December, and a series of public trials for Saddam Hussein's brutal crimes are soon to begin. Now, if the President nominates a strong originalist like Sam Alito, Janice Rogers Brown, Michael Luttig or Edith Hollan Jones, we can finally have that national conversation about judicial activism and tyranny the Left has been dreading for decades.

When Harriet Miers was first nominated to the Supreme Court, my initial reaction was, "who?" Then I thought, "I'll reserve judgment until I do some research into her background and opinions." But there was nothing to be found -- nothing in her favor, anyway. That was before Senator Arlen Specter suggested that Harriet Miers "needs a crash course in Constitutional law." It was before Miers went out of her way to show her ignorance of the Equal Protection clause on the questionnaire, her answers to which many Senators considered "inadequate," "insufficient" and "insulting." And it was before Miers herself admitted, "I need to sort of bone up on this a little more," when asked about some points of Constitutional law.

If this is a Master Plan or a joke, it's a very bad one, and we could be paying for it for generations. Does anyone really think she would be a good Justice just because she's religious (so was Anthony Kennedy) or Republican (so was David Souter)? Sure, she might vote whichever way President Bush tells her to (for a while), but that does not make her a good Justice. That's not what it's supposed to be all about.

The most common question from Republicans is, "Don't you trust the President's judgment?" I'd like to trust my own, if I could find a single speech or written narrative from Harriet Miers that shows her own opinion and a convictive style of writing. A seat on the Supreme Court isn't just a button-pushing vote -- it requires persuasive ability, wisdom and a familiarity with Constitutional law. I don't want someone who'll just vote as she's told... I want an originalist thinker in the mold of Scalia or Thomas, as the President promised. So far, the only writing ability she's shown has been in creative butt-kissing.

As a contrast to the zero trail of Harriet Miers, consider the speech Janice Rogers Brown gave before the Federalist Society in 2000. This woman is such a brilliant thinker, a Constitutional scholar, a Conservative and an originalist that I'm appalled she was passed over in favor of Harriet Miers. In fact, if I were Bush, I'd have put JRB up for Chief Justice and Roberts in for O'Connor, as originally planned. She hits the nail on the head more times in a single speech than will happen during the entire post-Katrina Gulf Coast reconstruction. Brown is the perfect example of what a SC nominee ought to be. Someone we could all rely on to be the kind of originalist scholar who can not only convince her peers through reasoned argument, but influence future generations through her decisions and dissents. I could support Harriet Miers if she had ever given such a speech, or spoken about her Conservative and originalist ideals -- assuming she has any -- so proudly and well.

"The great innovation of this millennium was equality before the law," Brown stated in her speech. "The greatest fiasco -- the attempt to guarantee equal outcomes for all people." She went on to say, "Democracy and capitalism seem to have triumphed. But, appearances can be deceiving. Instead of celebrating capitalism's virtues, we offer it grudging acceptance, contemptuous tolerance but only for its capacity to feed the insatiable maw of socialism. We do not conclude that socialism suffers from a fundamental and profound flaw. We conclude instead that its ends are worthy of any sacrifice -- including our freedom."

Brown identified the New Deal of 1937 as the point where America submitted to quasi-Socialism. "Something new, called economic rights, began to supplant the old property rights. This change, which occurred with remarkably little fanfare, was staggeringly significant. With the advent of 'economic rights,' the original meaning of rights was effectively destroyed. These new 'rights' imposed obligations, not limits, on the state. It thus became government's job not to protect property but, rather, to regulate and redistribute it." Janice Rogers Brown might have been predicting the terrible decision of Kelo v. New London. In that case, the CT Supreme Court decided that the city of New London could transfer property from one private owner to another if the change would result in higher tax revenues or job creation. The Supreme Court upheld that decision as Constitutional by a 5-4 vote, to the shock and dismay of all who believe in what the Founders intended.

I can not support a bad nominee. That's what Miers is, no matter how you pretty it up. No one knows her positions on most of the important issues, and she has no background in Constitutional law. For instance, we know she supported quotas and "Affirmative" Action when she was president of the State Bar of Texas. Has she changed her mind about that? No one knows, and anything she says now is suspect. Her only "qualifications" are that she's very religious, and very loyal to President Bush, and those aren't enough to make her a better Supreme Court Justice than JRB or any of the others mentioned.

Honestly, I don't want anyone's rubber stamp vote on the Supreme Court, not even President Bush's. It flies in the face of the independent judiciary envisioned by the Founders of our country. A rubber stamp certainly won't impress the other members of the Court enough to be able to sway their votes to her side. And what kind of decisions or dissents will she write? How will she justify them? "Well, I voted no because George told me to."

Some say that perhaps a Justice who has no background in the Constitution or Constitutional law might be good for the Court. Perhaps a "blank slate" not schooled in the mistakes of the system might be the right person to fix it, they feel. Unfortunately, someone who never studied Constitutional law won't even know what the mistakes are, let alone how to fix them, unless she waits for someone to tell her how to vote. Would you hire a network engineer who didn't understand the basics of networking, had never patched a jack in a LAN closet, or who didn't know the difference between a hub, a switch and a router? Would you let your "blank slate" loose to rewire your entire company's network, believing that someone who hadn't learned the "mistakes" of bad networking was the best person to fix the problems you've been having with your system? Good luck with that.

Conservatives have always been among the first to complain when any President has made a mistake. We're Conservatives, not party apparatchiks. When President Bush didn't close the borders after 9/11, we pointed it out. When he didn't clamp down on government spending or illegal immigration, we pointed it out. When he signed McCain-Feingold, the Medicare bill, several padded federal budgets and countless pieces of pork-stuffed legislation like the Highway Bill, we pointed those out, too. So when people say that we must support anything he does merely because he is the President, I will continue to politely refuse to drink the Kool-Aid.

I, for one, think the debate over the Harriet Miers nomination is actually healthy for the Right. This is how it's done, not the schoolyard name-calling into which the Left has caused "debate" to sink. Already, we've at least got the Republicans and members of the administration making worried noises about controlling the border and even cutting spending, just by making our presence known. That's good. They realise that Conservatives are not happy. We are the base -- no Republican can get far if we are ignored.

With any luck, Ms. Miers will withdraw her nomination for the good of the President and her party. If not, we will see which Republican Senators put principle ahead of party... or at least, which Senators aren't willing to sacrifice their party to support a mistake.

UPDATE: For the sake of the Truth Laid Bear blog autopoll: I oppose the Miers nomination.

UPDATE: Acting in the best interests of the President, the Republican party and the country, Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination on 27 Oct 2005.

The fight over Harriet Miers is important for a variety of reasons, not all of them immediately apparent. The main reason, of course, is that lifetime appointments to the all-powerful Supreme Court should not be made lightly -- especially when we are, after decades of Liberal judicial activism, in a position to turn the Court in a more originalist direction at last. The judicial branch of the federal government was never intended to become the instrument of change. The Constitution is the foundation upon which our entire society is built, the framework upon which all our laws are hung. Such an important piece of legal and societal infrastructure should not be altered by the whim of five out of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Yet the composition of the present-day court is not the only incentive to pay attention to the Miers confirmation vote. One reason the vote is so important is that no matter which way it goes, it will help determine who will run on the Republican ticket in the 2008 Presidential race.

Although Presidential races are won or lost by the voters in each state, the nominations for each party's candidate are really set by its base. Only the base is motivated enough, generally speaking, to campaign and vote during the primary elections that determine the party's eventual candidate. Furthermore, most campaign money also comes from the base. No Democrat can get the Democratic nomination without running the gauntlet of that party's Liberal wing, and no Republican can get nominated by that party without passing Conservative muster.

No matter how good a candidate for Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to be, the far-Left groups that control the Democratic party were mostly opposed to his nomination. Roberts was too Conservative, too religious, too normal, too smooth, and too well-liked for the Liberals to accept... and besides, he was nominated by George W. Bush. Not every Democrat who voted against the confirmation of John Roberts was considering a run for President in 2008, but no Democratic Senator considering such a run, or running for re-election in 2006, could afford to vote in Roberts' favor. Jon Corzine of New Jersey had his own reason to oppose Roberts -- he needed to please the Liberal base in preparation for his imminent run for NJ governor. In the end, only 22 Senators voted against John Roberts' confirmation, and that list has quite a bit of overlap with the list of Democratic Senators running in the next election or two:

Daniel Akaka (D-HI) - 2006 re-election
Evan Bayh (D-IN) - possible 2008 Presidential run
Joseph Biden (D-DE) - possible 2008 Presidential run
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA) - 2006 re-election
Hillary Clinton (D-NY) - 2006 re-election, probable 2008 Presidential run
Jon Corzine (D-NJ) - seat up for 2006 election, may not be running
Mark Dayton (D-MN) - not running, but seat up for 2006 election
Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) - 2006 re-election
Tom Harkin (D-IA)
Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
Edward Kennedy (D-MA) - 2006 re-election
John Kerry (D-MA) - possible 2008 Presidential run
Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
Barack Obama (D-IL) - possible 2008 Presidential run
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Harry Reid (D-NV)
Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) - not running, but seat up for 2006 election
Charles Schumer (D-NY)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) - 2006 re-election

With the Miers nomination, the shoe is on the Right foot. Many of the more prominent Conservatives are opposed to her sitting on the Supreme Court, and many Republicans question her nomination. As evidence that Ms. Miers is not Supreme Court material continues to accrete, more and more Conservatives are joining the "opposed" camp. The hearing on her nomination, scheduled to begin on 7 November, will tell us nothing. One can almost create a mental picture of Harriet Miers referring to a transcript of the Roberts confirmation hearing before answering every question.

After the hearing comes the vote... and that's the important thing to watch. As with Liberals and Democrats, no Republican who wants the Presidential nomination can afford to flout the Conservative base. If the trend of increasing opposition to the Miers nomination continues -- and there is no reason to suppose it won't -- the Conservative base of the Republicans will be generally opposed to her confirmation.

Watch the votes of Senators George Allen (R-VA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), John McCain (R-AZ), Rick Santorum (R-PA), Bill Frist (R-MI), Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE). Most of them are up for re-election in 2006, and all are reportedly considering a run for President/Vice President in 2008. If all Republican Senators running in 2006 or 2008 vote against Harriet Miers, there's a good chance her nomination could be defeated. Hopefully a serious, proven originalist who doesn't need a "crash course in Constitutional law" (according to Senator and Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-PA) before sitting on the country's highest court will be nominated in her place.

That's why vocal and continued opposition to the nomination of Harriet Miers is necessary. Not only is there a chance that our representatives will vote down an inadequate nominee in a fair vote, but we'll get a clearer idea of President Bush's possible successor -- the man or woman who gets to nominate the next round of Supreme Court Justices.

23 Oct 2005 UPDATE: Looks as though columnist George Will agrees with me. In today's column, Will writes:

As for Republicans, any who vote for Miers will thereafter be ineligible to argue that it is important to elect Republicans because they are conscientious conservers of the judicial branch's invaluable dignity. Finally, any Republican senator who supinely acquiesces in President Bush's reckless abuse of presidential discretion -- or who does not recognize the Miers nomination as such -- can never be considered presidential material.

Ahh, but I said it here first. ;)