Just in case you missed Robert H. Bork's column ("Slouching Towards Miers") in this past Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, I think it's worth providing a few excerpts. As I wrote on Thursday, the Republican Party appears to be self destructing over Harriet Miers, the Katrina fiasco, Iraq, budget deficits, scandals, and many other issues. Now comes Federalist Society co-chairman and arch-conservative Robert Bork, blasting away with both barrels at President Bush, he of the 39% approval rating. Just keep in mind when reading these attacks by a STRONG REPUBLICAN on George W. Bush that Jerry Kilgore considers Bush to be a role model (big government, big deficit "conservative?") having extolled Bush's "great" leadership on numerous occasions.
So, with no more delay (or DeLay!), here's Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan's 1987 nominee to the Supreme Court, on George W. Bush (bolding added for emphasis):
With a single stroke -- the nomination of Harriet Miers -- the president has damaged the prospects for reform of a left-leaning and imperialistic Supreme Court, taken the heart out of a rising generation of constitutional scholars, and widened the fissures within the conservative movement. That's not a bad day's work -- for liberals.[...]
But that is only part of the damage Mr. Bush has done. For the past 20 years conservatives have been articulating the philosophy of originalism, the only approach that can make judicial review democratically legitimate.
And finally, the brutal climax of Bork's tirade against Bush:
Finally, this nomination has split the fragile conservative coalition on social issues into those appalled by the administration's cynicism and those still anxious, for a variety of reasons, to support or at least placate the president. Anger is growing between the two groups. The supporters should rethink. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aside, George W. Bush has not governed as a conservative (amnesty for illegal immigrants, reckless spending that will ultimately undo his tax cuts, signing a campaign finance bill even while maintaining its unconstitutionality). This George Bush, like his father, is showing himself to be indifferent, if not actively hostile, to conservative values.
In other words, if you're a conservative Republican, and you just LOVE what George W. Bush is doing, then by all means vote for Jerry W. Kilgore. That's right, vote for the guy who has: 1) said that abortion is a "hypothetical" question; 2) refused to sign the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR); 3) been slammed by the Virginia Club for Growth for "trying to play both sides of the issue [on taxes];" 4) refused to take a stand on Confederate History and Heritage Month; 5) refused to make Virginia's Meth Watch program mandatory; 6) bragged about how it was a "positive day for the Virginia Department of Corrections" when there wasn't an escape in "the entire day!" (he was Virginia's Secretary of Public Safety at the time), etc. , etc.
That's right, Virginians. George W. Bush=Jerry W. Kilgore. If you like the direction the country's taking, then I strongly urge you to vote for more of the same here in Virginia. If not, then you have a great option - keep moving forward with the leadership of Tim Kaine, the loyal lieutenant the past four years to Mark "76% popularity rating/"best managed state in the country" Warner.
Even Robert Bork might agree that this is not a difficult choice.