Times Publishes HewittOn what the
Right lost with Miers:
The right's embrace in the Miers nomination of tactics previously exclusive to the left - exaggeration, invective, anonymous sources, an unbroken stream of new charges, television advertisements paid for by secret sources - will make it immeasurably harder to denounce and deflect such assaults when the Democrats make them the next time around. Given the overemphasis on admittedly ambiguous speeches Miers made more than a decade ago, conservative activists will find it difficult to take on liberals in their parallel efforts to destroy some future Robert Bork.As for who's reponsible, Hugh has no trouble identifying the culprits:
The center of the Miers opposition was National Review's blog, The Corner, and the blog ConfirmThem.com, both with sharp-tongued, witty and relentless writers. They unleashed every argument they could find, and the pack that followed them could not be stopped. Even if a senator had a mind to urge hearings and a vote, he had to feel that it would call down on him the verbal wrath of the anti-Miers zealots.Hugh's show today was on the need to "get the band back together". A lot of Miers' critics conducted themselves well; the geniuses at the Corner are a notable exception. Sometime when you feel mean, take a gander at their posts last year on election day. They were doing the chicken little routine. So much for their political instincts.
