What if Miers was Bush 2nd Choice and Janice Rogers Brown was Really his First Choice?

I thought that Janice Rogers Brown would've been President Bush's 1st choice. Perhaps it was his first choice all along (I'm hoping here) but picked Miers banking that either way if she wins the vote it would be good. If not then President Bush will have a benchmark to use just as Jason Smith theorized. However, I believe what the Administration really wanted (hopefully true) as a first choice was Janet Rogers Brown as the Supreme court nominee. It'd would have been a distastrous combo punch out had it gone Brown first...and then Miers. Others feel sorry for Miers for getting caught in the crossfire, but I disagree. I think everybody in the Administration, including Miers, knew this was coming. Maybe they were trying to prepare and use this as set-up just in case.

Now, if President Bush nominates Janice Brown, it'd be an excellent woman to have for the Supreme court. I'd imagine with the benchmark already set after Meirs withdrew her nomination it'd be a way to help ensure that the Democrats get themselves pinched into a corner if they are going to be the rabid bunch by going after a 2nd nominated woman. But this time it'd be a first nominated black woman for the Supreme court. What a quandry for the Democrats to face!

Janice Rogers Brown qualifies well to be the next Supreme court judge with her experience in being in the 2nd highest court in the land. She has a sharecropper story and did everything herself by pulling her own bootstrap. She is a woman, and if voted for the Supreme court, she'll be the 1st black woman judge in the Supreme court history

We had the first woman judge, Sandra Day O'Connor, now since retired.

We had the first black judge, Thurgood Marshall. Died some years ago.

We have the second black judge Clarence Thomas.

We have the second woman judge, Ruth Ginsburg.

It is clear, I believe, that the Administration's goal is to have another woman Supreme court judge just to keep Supreme court "balanced" on the judges makeup. Rather than ruin two choices for a woman judge (Miers and Brown in that order), he choose Miers to go first and then, if it doesn't work out, Bush would capitalize on the responses from the Democrats who would not have wanted Janice Rogers Brown in the first place but may acquience so not to look like hypocrites and/or racist by going ahead and vote Janet Rogers Brown for the Supreme court.

Now, what do you think would have happened had President Bush picked Brown first instead of Miers? After the Democrats voted for John Roberts to be the Chief Justice after trying to find excuses not to vote for him, all very weak, no way in hell will they sit back and not have things their way and let President Bush "get away with it" this time around. Here's why.

But for all the accolades and praise from family and friends, her reception in Washington among Democrats in the Senate has not been pleasant.

Minority Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) said, "Her opinions, if they weren't on such serious matters, would be laughable."

Democrats who are blocking her nomination say she is out of the mainstream and a judicial activist. They say her decisions and speeches show her to be opposed to government, abortion and even hostile to civil rights. They say that because she has ruled against affirmative action programs in the past.

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) remarked, "We are not going to turn back by appointing judges to lifetime positions who will bring us and return us back to those days of discrimination and prejudice."

In her confirmation hearing two years ago, Justice Brown tried to address the concern of Kennedy and others.

"Probably the most important thing that we have ever done is to try and guarantee people equality under the law,” said Rogers Brown. “And maybe that's because I have lived in a time when that was not so."

Her mom admits that the unfair criticism bothers her, and Janice, too, to a certain degree.

Holland said, "She hides it very well, but I know that it bothers her because it bothers me. Some of it is so negative. They take some things that she says out of context."

She added, "It hurts, but I pray a lot. God does answer prayer."

Part of why Democrats are so opposed to Brown is because of comments in some of her speeches, like this one: “Where government advances and it advances relentlessly, freedom is imperiled; community impoverished; religion marginalized and civilization itself jeopardized...”

And in another speech, she said, “These are perilous times for people of faith, not in the sense that we are going to lose our lives, but in the sense that it will cost you something if you are a person of faith who stands up for what you believe in, and say those things out loud."

Her mom believes that outspokenness does not sit well with her opposition. Holland said, "She tells it like it is. And they don't like it They don't like to hear the truth."

So, Miers was the first on the chopping block. The Democrats had their taste of blood and got what they wanted and got Miers to withdraw her nomination. Now, it would be Brown's turn but there's a problem this time. For the Democrats to try and reject a 2nd nominated woman for the Supreme court, a 2nd black woman nominated for the Supreme court, they would look foolish in the eyes of their black constituents, and their constituents in general, if they try and stop Janice Rogers Brown. Doing this would portray many of the Democrats as just being plain racist and/or hypocrites.

It would have been easier for the Democrats to try and reject Brown had she been nominated first. And then probably easier still to reject Miers as the 2nd choice (rather than the first) because of her background and such. Noticed how weak she was when she presented her case before the Senate Panel? And how the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter returned the committee's questionnaire to Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers after many lawmakers found her original answers unacceptable??

I think the whole thing was a clever set up by the Administration and Miers agreed to go along with it and wouldn't matter if she won the seat or not since the first objective by the Administration was to get another woman onto the Supreme Court panel. The Administration was banking on the Democrats' reaction toward Miers. And if Miers nomination fails, then Janice Rogers Brown would be next and use the Democrats' past response against them.

Was it all a set-up? Was it a plan for the Democrats to waste their political capital on Miers before moving on to Brown? Was this designed to be a clever fallback tactic by the Administration should the Miers nomination not go through?

Seems like it.

UPDATE: The Anchoress Online seems to think so, too. So does Generation Why? And "Underneath the Robes" gives an example of a decoy used for the nomination of John Roberts and gives names of other potential female judges that could be up for nomination.