This is Floyd Wynne with THE VIEW FROM HERE   11-02-05

                Well, she was tried in the press and found guilty!

                I’m talking about Harriet Miers who now has withdrawn her name for the Supreme Court position.

                What was she guilty of?  Well….she was a lawyer….she was a woman….she was a leader in her state of Texas, and was head of a prestigious law firm.   So what was she guilty of?

                From the day she was nominated, she came under not only extra close scrutiny of anything she might have written or said during the last 20 or 25 years, but criticism that she wasn’t qualified to sit on the nation’s highest court.

                She didn’t even get to the confirmation hearings which were scheduled for next week.

                She came under criticism not only from the conservatives as well as some of the liberals, but she also came under the spotlight of the media…which delighted in a witch hunt to find anything she might have said or done that would disqualify her for the position.   They succeeded.

                In withdrawing her name, she said that the question of executive privilege was one of the main reasons.  She felt that her position as legal advisor to the President placed President Bush in an untenable position.

                The Conservatives were apparently upset because they didn’t think she was conservative enough…..while the Liberals were strangely silent….almost lending their approval to the selection.

                But….as the confirmation hearings neared, the Liberals began to complain that they didn’t know much about her and they wanted all the papers that she had written while advising the President.  

                The President meantime, and rightfully so, had stated that her advice to him was strictly privileged and not available.   That, too, caused a firestorm.

                My feeling is that the President nominated her in the first place because if he had nominated a strong conservative it would have brought on a prolonged battle in not only the Judiciary committee but on the Senate floor as well.  It might well have brought on as bitter filibuster by the Democrats.   It may also be that others whom he might have considered did not want to go through that kind of a shooting match that probed their every thought and action at every age.

                The Miers case is the result of the terrible bitterness that has settled over our Nation’s Capitol.

                Open your eyes to what is happening there.   The House Majority Leader, Tom Delay, has been indicted through the efforts of a Democratic District Attorney in Texas…..Senator Frist is being investigated for some actions taken by the Trust he has established for his share of the family affairs……A special prosecutor may or may not indict the advisors to both the Vice President and the President…..and the majority of the nation’s media are strongly anti-Bush.  

                In my mind the Democrats have been working behind the judicial scene to try to not only to discredit the President, but also to lay the groundwork for trying to recapture either the Senate or the House in the 2006 elections.

                At any rate…..what must the rest of the world think of America…..a nation in total disarray…..yet a nation at war in Iraq against Terrorists who threaten the entire globe…..and the only Superpower left on the globe.

                One of the Democratic leaders said right after Miers withdrew her nomination…..the President should now calm down and take his time about another nomination.

                My retort would be…..let’s put the nation first……politics second…..a novel idea that is certainly not present in Washington, D.C,

                This is Floyd Wynne and that’s THE VIEW FROM HERE.