The Donner Party
Harriet The Judge

The coming days will be quite enjoyable, what with the Hard Right members of the Republican Party going completely ape-shit over the nomination of Harriet Miers to SCOTUS and turning into the Donner Party, where they tear philosophical flesh limb from limb. There are days that I wish the Democratic party could be more pragmatic and forceful in an articulated vision and philosophy. But then, there are times like this, when that doesn't seem to matter--let the Republicans eat their own.

Here's the latest major Hard Right Repub player coming out against Miers--Richard Viguerie, one of the central players in creating the vast network of the Republican Noise Machine. AmericaBlog has an email he sent out:

“Congratulations are due to Ralph Neas, Nan Aron, and Chuck Schumer for going toe-to-toe with President Bush and forcing him to blink,” said conservative activist Richard A. Viguerie. “Liberals have successfully cowed President Bush by scaring him off from nominating a known conservative, strict constructionist to the Court, leaving conservatives fearful of which direction the Court will go.” “President Bush desperately needed to have an ideological fight with the Left to redefine himself and re-energize his political base, which is in shock and dismay over his big government policies,” Viguerie added. “With their lack of strong, identifiable records, President Bush’s choices for Supreme Court nominees seem designed more to avoid a fight with the extreme Left than to appeal to his conservative base,” lamented Viguerie. [...] Remembering and still dismayed about how his father, President George H. W. Bush (the 41st), lied to conservatives and American voters by saying he was a conservative and expressly stating he would not raise taxes, conservatives fear President George W. Bush (the 43rd) has done the same by failing to nominate well-known conservative, strict constructionists to the U.S. Supreme Court. “President Bush has presided over the largest growth in government since Lyndon Johnson, and now he appears willing to lose all credibility with conservative voters by failing to fulfill his campaign vow to nominate an openly Scalia- or Thomas-like justice,” Viguerie concluded.

Keep it up, boys and girls.