Bush's nomination of Miers for the Supreme Court has apparently given the GOP senators yet another reason to question the wisdom of following the dear leader.
Raw Story reports:
On Tuesday, two leading Republican senators broke ranks. The first was Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KN), who signaled that he might oppose Harriet Miers, President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court.
“Her views on the Constitution need to be answered,” Brownback declared.
The second was Senate veteran John Warner (R-VA). Warner openly criticized Frist for stalling the military’s budget bill. For a man known to prefer backdoor channels to bare-knucked politics, the senator’s words rang like an air raid siren through the halls of Congress.
And on Wednesday, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott joined in, saying President Bush’s choice for the Court was “clearly not” the most qualified person for the job.
“The credibility of the House leadership has not been this low since 1998,” a Republican lobbyist told The Hill Thursday, referring to the period that spawned an attempted coup against then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA). Blunt faces a leadership challenge from Ohio Republican John Boehner (R-OH).
Bush’s nomination of his trusted counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has further illustrated the growing divide in his party. Miers received an “underwhelming” rating from many grassroots conservatives; Brownback is not alone in concerns that Miers may not be the best conservative the President could have selected.
What was once a hairline fracture in party cohesion is now a broken bone. Whether Republicans in Congress can reform a disciplined cavalcade behind the party’s agenda and its leadership – as the Democrats did on Social Security – may be the difference between holding onto the presidency and Congress and losing control in the years to come.
And as for the fourteen senators who held together the filibuster and marked the first crack in Republican hegemony: they’re meeting today at 4:30.
Bill Frist Republicans Harriet Miers Bush Frist investigated Republican Corruption Election 2006 Culture of Corruption
