Liar: Bush Doesn't Really Want To Ban Abortion

End Of Roe v. Wade Would Mean GOP Defeat

Democratic strategist, Bob Shrum, had a provocative theory on President Bush's Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers during today's Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Shrum, the man who seemingly advised Al Gore how to lose to George W. Bush in 2000 and has had a hand in the last seven Democrat defeats, thinks many should dispel the idea that Bush is in the dark with his nominees political beliefs, especially regarding Roe vs. Wade.

Miers, who is currently the White House legal counsel and former personal lawyer for Bush in the 90's, should be well-known to this president who is especially fond of close and loyal friendship, or so we're told.

Shrum believes that if Miers becomes a so-called "stealth" nominee such as David Souter famously was when the elder Bush picked him in 1990 it will be because Bush wants a liberal to moderate justice on the court to actually preserve the Roe vs. Wade decision.

What? Bush would pick someone from the liberal darkside (we tend to think of it as the illuminating side)?

Shrum's statement seems ludicrous at first glance. Why would the momentous choice of radically changing the nation's Supreme Court be squandered over a choice as neutral as Miers?

The dwindling support of the war in Iraq, a laughable handling of a national disaster and the frequent occurrence of impropriety from a laundry list of Republicans, seems to be sucking the energy out of the GOP's aim to swallow America whole.

Like no time since 9/11 has Bush had to play from the position of weakness. This pick of blatant cronyism is a capitulation due in large part to a chorus of Republican legislators who find the prospect of running on Bush's tails from here to November 2006 as perilous.

What makes Shrum's statement so interesting, though, is that it cuts to the conspiratorial spirit of the Bush and Karl Rove plan for holding power.

If conservatives had their druthers and a pro-life jurist like Harvie Wilkinson or Michael Luttig was nominated by Bush, the prospects of Roe vs. Wade being overturned would be high. The question is: "What then?"

The mighty conundrum with Republican politics lies in this smokescreen. The GOP cares little about the entire abortion question. Instead, it milks the controversy to divide the public and uses its volatile nature to turn attention from the real problems for which they have scant answers.

Bluntly, Bush and Rove have no desire to elevate a pro-life justice to the high court. The ramifications of overturning Roe vs. Wade would be catastrophic. Not only would they lose one of the three greatest smokescreen tools (the others are gays and guns), they would also lose elections all over the country. Despite their calls for repealing the legality of abortion, the majority of Americans still support its practice.

It is and will always be solely about holding onto power at any cost for this administration.