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| SHIELDS AND BROOKS | |
 October 14, 2005 
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JIM LEHRER: And to Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks. David, what's your view about the White House's using religion in the Harriet Miers' nomination? DAVID BROOKS: It's old-fashion identity politics. When Bush first ran for office in 1999 in one of the Republican primary debates, he was asked who his favorite philosopher was. And he said Jesus. And he didn't say anything theologically, but the message was I'm a Christian, you're a Christian; we're in the same group. And it reminded me of the old machine politics, I'm a Jew, you're a Jew; I'm a Portuguese, you're a Portuguese; I'm black, you're black. It was first time that I thought evangelicalism was used as an identity group, vote for us, we're all on the same team. That's what they're going to hear with Harriet Miers, poor Christian woman being attacked by those people in the capitol. You're a Christian; she's a Christian; let's stick together as a team. To me it's a completely cynical and completely irresponsible thing to do. It tells you nothing about her. There are a lot of Christians in this country with good or bad judicial views; it sort of debases the whole process. JIM LEHRER: Cynical, irresponsible, Mark? MARK SHIELDS: I think that, Jim, but I think it's also more. I mean, it's not her religious beliefs that they're using as a credential; it's her church membership. They never address her; they just simply say she belongs to a church which is universally pro-life, so you can't ask about abortion -- JIM LEHRER: You can't ask her if she's pro life. MARK SHIELDS: You can't ask if she's pro-life but her church is universally pro-life and she's active in that church therefore wink, nod, nudge and she's one of us and that's okay. This is the Rosetta stone sort of her political philosophy. But, you know, I give Gary Bauer, the conservative past Republican presidential candidate president credit - he says -- what's the point? They bring up her religion and say it's a credential and then Scott McClellan, the president's press secretary, stands up there and says her religion doesn't matter. JIM LEHRER: He just accused the media of doing it. MARK SHIELDS: The media of doing it. I guess what it comes down to is there is no religious test unless it can be helpful to a conservative who is in trouble for confirmation. DAVID BROOKS: Well to me it's also - I mean, it's just as illegitimate as being part of any group. We should have a woman seat; we should have a minority seat, you should judge people by the individual, not by whatever, you know, political group they fall into. And the problem here, of course, is she has so little actual substance to her individual resume, at least constitutionally. JIM LEHRER: Well, that's the question. Is it working? It is working for the White House? Is emphasizing the church she goes to, is it helping her with conservative senators, with conservative groups who are down on her? DAVID BROOKS: I think all the arguments in her favor have hurt her because they tend to look weak, and I think a lot of the people who are defending her are doing so halfheartedly. I think there is a clear momentum away from her confirmation. Last week I would have said almost no chance she wouldn't get confirmed. Now I think it's a very significant chance. JIM LEHRER: Mark, in fact, there is an increasing talk, at least, that the heat is on for her to withdraw, in other words, she would do it on her own. She would go to the president and say, Mr. President, I'm a distraction. You have got many other things to do. Let me withdraw. I will go quietly. Is that likely to happen? MARK SHIELDS: You know, I don't know if it's likely to happen, Jim. JIM LEHRER: Have you heard the same thing? MARK SHIELDS: I have heard the same thing. There is open discussion of it. You know, it strikes me as unfair. It truly does. I mean, I think this is someone who has been treated shabbily... JIM LEHRER: You're talking about Harriet Miers? MARK SHIELDS: Harriet Miers. She isn't somebody who has spent her career angling for this appointment. This appointment came to her quite out of the blue. I mean, she wasn't writing op-ed page pieces and joining the Federalist Society and going through all the chairs and the handshakes and all the baloney to get on that list -- junior varsity list of who is successful... JIM LEHRER: She was, in fact, in charge of the list. MARK SHIELDS: She was in charge of appointing John Roberts. I mean, the irony is that John Roberts, because he was so good and she was one of the people that endorsed him, has set a standard that's going to be tough for her. But I mean, Jim, she's not a crony of George Bush's. I mean, she's a loyal worker of George Bush's. I mean, a crony is someone who comes from the same social and economic background. She's the anti-Bush. She didn't have a family legacy at Andover Academy, Yale or Harvard Business School with the admissions mat -- welcome mat being rolled out for her. She had to scrape and scrimp and save to get through SMU and SMU Law School, first in her family to do it. I mean, this is somebody, for goodness sakes, who, you know, has worked hard. They're treating her shabbily at this point, and their supporters have dropped her like a bad habit. Every time that Bush puts his foot in it further, I mean it's just - I mean, Karl Rove calling Jim Dobson? JIM LEHRER: I think he's talking about you, David. DAVID BROOKS: Well, first, I don't think writing op-ed's is such a bad thing except that some disqualify you from - you know, the shabby thing was nominating her in the first place. She's not up to this job. That doesn't mean she's not a very smart person or a very good person, which she obviously is. I'm not up to the job. A lot of us aren't up to being Supreme Court justices, but when the president nominated her, he put her up at a certain level and set certain standards upon her. And when you go back and read her writing and her... the quality of thought you see there, she just has shown no evidence that she's up to this extremely high level. And so I think the president sort of set her up to fail by nominating her. JIM LEHRER: What have you heard, same question I asked Mark about whether or not she may quietly go away? DAVID BROOKS: Well, I still think the president's pretty firm; once he makes a decision, he really likes to stick with it. But, you know, there has been a lot of talk about the staff members on the Senate Judiciary Committee, almost open revolt. In the White House there is a lot of tepid reaction in the low levels. We'll really know more next week when the senators themselves come back into town. JIM LEHRER: What about the way the Democrats are praying that? They've been laying back. Are they having any influence on this at this point? DAVID BROOKS: Well, they will because at some point you have to think how does she get through committee if she loses a few Republicans, do all the Democrats support her? Do the Democrats think, well, if we get rid of her, the next person will probably be worse from our point of view, so you... they're doing their own thing. JIM LEHRER: Take us through the Democratic thinking on this. Right now - and correct me if I'm wrong, I couldn't find in the record today one Democrat who has come out in favor of her nomination. MARK SHIELDS: If he or she did, they probably ought to have their town tongue plucked out of their mouth. Let's be honest, this is a leper colony the other side. They're constantly -- this is watching the Bickersons go at it. You're not going to step into that family squabble at this point. It's ugly. This is not a populist insurrection. I mean, Republicans like to say they're a populist movement. It's an elitist movement. The opposition to her is not coming from the field. It's not coming from the grassroots. In fact, the Wall Street Journal poll shows a plurality of people still back her nomination. It's coming from, ironically, women, conservative women, Peggy Noonan - JIM LEHRER: Conservative intellectuals like David Brooks. MARK SHIELDS: Exactly. He's not a woman. JIM LEHRER: I said conservative intellectuals. MARK SHIELDS: That's right. I wouldn't even call him an intellectual. He's too good for that. JIM LEHRER: Okay. MARK SHIELDS: Of course, when other women come to her defense, like Marsha Greenberg of the Woman's Legal Center and Eleanor Smeal, the former president of NOW, that even hurts her case more. But, I mean, there was no question it was the woman seat that she was nominated for. DAVID BROOKS: I wouldn't say it's only an elitist movement. First of all in the polls, she's not doing well in the polls compared to where John Roberts was at this point, compared to where Clarence Thomas was at this point. Her support is well below that publicly. But, second, as to the rift on the right, to me it's a rift between Republicans who are not that intellectual but who are loyal to their party and conservatives whose entire movement is based on the idea that you take ideas from the wilderness and win the argument of ideas. And that's why the Federalist Society was founded. That's why all these magazines are found and think tanks are founded. Conservatives used to differentiate themselves in the past as they do now. It was conservatives against Republicans. Republicans were the stupid party. Conservatives were the people who believed in a set of principles and ideas. And that rift is reopening. It's closed for the past ten years, but it's reopening, and the conservatives tend to be against her, the Republicans who are more into team loyalty tend to be for her. JIM LEHRER: Mark, much has been made that one of the president's polls continue to go down, Harriet Miers is part of that, Iraq, there are all kinds of reason, Katrina, et cetera. But now they're saying one of the reasons he's doing so poorly right now is because Karl Rove is out of commission a little bit because of the CIA operative thing. He testified for the fourth time today before a federal grand jury. Do you buy that? MARK SHIELDS: Jim, I don't know who is calling the shots in the White House, but the president -- for the past 18 months, the president has been flirting just above or just below 50 percent, and what's sustained him, what kept him up there were the personal scores he had on strong leadership, on decisiveness, honesty and straightforwardness. And all of those have left him. And they left him months ago. They've been dropping. So he's dropping. He's now into the 30s. I don't think Karl Rove deserves credit for his having been at 50; I don't think he deserves blame for his being in the 30s. JIM LEHRER: How do you read the Karl Rove factor? DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think if the second term is not a good term. People will look back and say one of the big mistakes the president made was not bringing in more fresh blood because you, you know, you look at what happened -- he just promoted from within to either the cabinet or up within the White House. He stayed within a very narrow circle. And as a result, I think what you had --first, people want a sense that something new is going to happen. And the second thing you want, a connection again with the American people. And to me what's happened over the last few months is the president is out of touch with the instinctive reaction of the American people on the Schiavo case, on Social Security, on this, as well, I would say -- sort of a lack of connection, you know, organic connection with what the American people want. JIM LEHRER: Going back to the discussion that Ray had at the beginning of the program about the Iraq referendum tomorrow, he and his guests talked about what it meant for the Iraqis. What does it mean for President Bush and the United States? DAVID BROOKS: It means quite a lot. If it goes down and we have another... it's all pushed back a year, it will be very bad for Iraq and therefore bad for Bush. Bush is going to be judged on Iraq. I think so far he has to give Zalmay Khalilzad, our ambassador there, a lot of credit for hammering through this last-minute deal with some of the Sunni organizations. JIM LEHRER: What do you think, Mark? How important is this? MARK SHIELDS: The 412th corner was turned, Jim. This will be the 412th corner by actual count, turn in Iraq. The elections in December probably more important than the elections this weekend, but Jim, the American people and the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll drives this home, as do the other surveys, they've made up their minds; they think Iraq -- it's not a question of if we get out, it's a question of when and how. They're pessimistic about the outcome. Less than one-third think it's going to be a successful outcome. That's been declining. You can just chart that right out. JIM LEHRER: So it doesn't really matter that much what happens tomorrow? MARK SHIELDS: No, I really don't think it does. I mean, I hope it's successful. I hope it brings some order, some tranquility, some decency to the people of Iraq who, Lord knows, have suffered enough. But I don't think this is going to change what is the long-range involvement of the United States as far as Iraq is concerned. JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with Mark that for most of the American people this whole thing is just kind of - it's over? DAVID BROOKS: People are exhausted by it as anybody would be after three years of this kind of war. But I still think if we can look back ten years hence and say Iraq really was changed, and maybe some other things in the Middle East went well, I think ten years hence we'll still say it was a good thing. MARK SHIELDS: We're not saying that. It's interesting, the president made his big speech last week. It isn't the great vision of democratizing the Middle East any longer. Now, it's if we don't fight them there, we'll fight them over here. They're going to be in New Jersey and Nantucket if we don't stop them. That's a different message. JIM LEHRER: If I don't stop you, they're going to fight me right here. Thank you both very much. |
