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Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Harriet Miers Paper Trail

Posted by Bob Brigham

Conservative bloggers were outraged to learn of Harriet Miers Homosexual Agenda of support gays and lesbians. Conservatives lost it when they found out Miers had donated money to Al Gore's campaign. During the first 24 hours, the Harriet Miers paper trail was nothing but bad news for her nomination.

Now we have the photo trail, an event that the mainstream media won't touch. From Editor and Publisher:

On its front page Tuesday, The New York Times published a photo of new U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers going over a briefing paper with President George W. Bush at his Crawford ranch “in August 2001,” the caption reads.

USA Today and the Boston Globe carried the photo labeled simply “2001,” but many other newspapers ran the picture in print or on the Web with a more precise date: Aug. 6, 2001.

Does that date sound familiar? Indeed, that was the date, a little over a month before 9/11, that President Bush was briefed on the now-famous “PDB” that declared that Osama Bin Laden was “determined” to attack the U.S. homeland, perhaps with hijacked planes. But does that mean that Miers had anything to do with that briefing?

As it turns out, yes, according to Tuesday's Los Angeles Times. An article by Richard A. Serrano and Scott Gold observes that early in the Bush presidency “Miers assumed such an insider role that in 2001 it was she who handed Bush the crucial 'presidential daily briefing' hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.”

The significance?

The PDB was headed “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,” and notes, among other things, FBI information indicating “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks.”

This is the probably with Bush promoting cronies -- they aren't fit for jobs they are giving. It appears Harriet Miers is earning the nickname, Brownie Miers

Posted at 03:14 PM in International, Scandals, Supreme Court | Technorati

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Comments

Uh, I'm a little confused here. The quotes seem to imply that she was, in fact, on the ball there, and was directly involved in providing President Bush with information that he later disregarded and pretended didn't exist. That says some ugly things about Bush, not about Miers.

I'm not disputing that she isn't fit for the position, mind you, just that I have no idea how you jumped from what appears to be a rare sign of competence here to that conclusion.

Posted by: Zed at October 4, 2005 05:21 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Am I the only one who finds Bush's emphasis on Miers' and Roberts strict constructionist views a bit unsettling. While both of these nominees seem to have some right ideas about civil rights (gay rights, for example) and unknown views on the constituional right of privacy, there is another aspect that seems to be ignored here as we proclaim that these two nominees are not right-wing and that Bush "caved in." Its been a while since I've had con law, but am I right in saying strict constructionism could severely limit the action of government in some spheres? Do we really think the wealthiest conservatives who bankrolled Reagan and Bush II care about abortion? What they're after are lower taxes for the rich, corporate welfare, and a hands-off government when it comes to business regulation ...

Posted by: mcittone at October 5, 2005 01:42 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment