Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting and Oversight, is up for re-election in less than a year. McCaskill’s in a statistical dead heat with a Republican challenger, and riding President Obama’s coattails may well amount to a one-way trip to the unemployment office. As a result, McCaskill could be motivated to create some daylight between her re-election campaign and the administration.

From the Daily Caller:

Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, has asked The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to review the Obama administration’s award of a $443 million sole-source contract to a company owned by a major Democratic donor.

The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that the Obama administration has taken unusual steps to procure an experimental smallpox vaccine from a company owned by a major Democratic donor despite concerns from some experts that such a drug was unnecessary and would not be effective.

You mean there are some Democrats in Congress who might not willingly throw themselves on the crony capitalism grenade and sacrifice their political careers for the greater good of the beneficiaries of Hope & Change?

We may see more of this from Senate Dems up for re-election. Here’s why:

In every major race next year featuring a Senate Democratic incumbent, Obama is polling worse than the incumbent — in some cases, by a substantial margin — according to publicly released surveys.

So rather than running for reelection on Obama’s coattails, these Senate Democrats may end up facing questions over whether they can win with the president on the ballot.

If Democrats up for re-election don’t start seeing their odds improving soon, how long will it be until they start calling for Eric Holder to resign, demand a widening of the Solyndra investigation and maybe even place a 3 a.m. phone call to Hillary?

(h/t Red State)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Proposed new rule: Government officials who “invest” taxpayer money in speculative ventures must include $100 of their own cash per million taxpayer dollars. It’s an approach that would be similar to airline mechanics who ride on the planes they’ve maintained — and you’ll notice that airliners crash far less frequently than government backed “green energy” start-ups.

From Business Week:

Employees fired by Solyndra LLC, the solar-panel maker that failed after receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee, were certified for U.S. aid under a program for workers hurt by overseas competition.

The Labor Department decided to award trade-adjustment assistance on Nov. 18, according to a posting today on the agency’s website. Solyndra ceased operations on Aug. 31 amid cheaper imports from China.

According to Investors Business, all of Solyndra’s 1,100 employees are eligible for “job retraining and income assistance” packages averaging $13,000 per person, which would tack on another $14.3 million to Solyndra’s previous $535 million price tag — a “loan” that will never be recovered.

The administration asking Solyndra to keep layoffs quiet until after the 2010 election doesn’t really imply that “overseas competition” was the main concern during Solyndra’s rapid fall. But maybe they were referring to the elections in China.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

On the PBS program Inside Washington, the topic of Solyndra arose. I’ll give Nina Totenberg credit for at least addressing the issue (albeit laughably) and not suddenly clamming up in a fit of bias-induced laryngitis like some people did the other day over at MSNBC. However, Totenberg is of the opinion that there was absolutely nothing political about the decision process that culminated in $535 million taxpayer dollars being poured down the eco-friendly venture socialism port-o-pot.

Totenberg actually believed what was coming out of her mouth until Charles Krauthammer mentioned the timing of the layoffs, to which Totenberg essentially responded “well, except for that…”

Video by way of Newsbusters:

In a world where politicians and political appointees direct “investments” using large amounts of money that isn’t theirs, the odds that these kinds of decisions don’t contain even a hint of politics are between incredibly slim and none, no matter who is in office. To paraphrase a famous quote about equality, “some government decisions are more non-political than others.” The more opportunities for favoritism offered, the more favoritism we’ll see, which is why the whole Department of Energy loan program was a bad idea.

It’s also worth mentioning that news of Joe Biden’s office becoming nearly orgasmic over taxpayer backing of Solyndra isn’t the best evidence that the loan was completely non-political either. You don’t force a politician to “think about baseball” unless something self-serving is in the works.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu testified to a House Committee on Thursday, and the veracity of his testimony earned a “three Pinnochios” rating from the Washington Post fact check. Why the need to bend the truth and make misleading statements over a totally honest non-political mistake that crosses presidential administration boundaries?

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The Obama administration was preparing to toss another very expensive life preserver, but Solyndra had already forever slipped beneath the rolling, green waves.

From the Washington Post:

The Obama administration’s Department of Energy was poised last summer to give Solyndra a second major taxpayer loan of $469 million, even as the company’s financial situation was growing more dire.

The Energy Department was actively pushing to provide the second loan guarantee to the troubled solar-panel manufacturer in April and May 2010, when Solyndra’s auditors warned the company was in danger of closing due to its rapidly mounting debts and expenses, according to complete e-mails just released by a House committee investigating the original loan.

That would of course have been on top of the original $535 million loan.

Emails the WaPo cites show that at least one OMB analyist joked about the situation:

“Possible to close and default on one before closing on a second??? Could be a new record.”

I can’t help but wonder what the existing record is. But it doesn’t matter, because in Washington these days, hindsight is 20/20. Foresight is nonexistent.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

My syndicated column today takes on racial demagogue and crony of color Maxine Waters, whose crooked ways I’ve covered since my first days at the L.A. Daily News. It’s about time the rest of the media put her under the microscope. Wait ’til she starts beating them over the head with the race card. It’s worked for decades. Now, she’ll just have to scream louder. I am looking forward to watching the Democrats try to ignore this most beastly example of the culture of corruption in their fold.

(Reminder: Go back and look at my liveblogging of the TARP debate. Note how aggressive Waters was in taking a lead role pushing congressional black caucus members to swallow the crap sandwich. No disclosure of her own self interest in the matter. She’s just a Champion of The People, speaking Truth to Power. And here’s another reminder of minority racketeers pushing for their bailout cut with Waters’ assistance. Business as usual, rainbow coalition shakedown-style.)

I think we should start referring to Waters as “Bank of OneUnited,” the same way she referred to bank execs by their company name.

***
Maxine Waters: Banking on hypocrisy
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

At a flail-and-wail House hearing last month, California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters melted down in front of big banking CEOs. “Raise your hand! Raise your hand!” she shrieked as she harangued the executives on their business practices and management of federal bailout money. Sneering at the “captains of the universe” whom she refused to address by name (“You, Bank of America!”), Rep. Waters excoriated the corporate heads for their greed. ” All of my political life,” Waters bragged, “I have been in disagreement with the banking and mostly financial services community because of practices that I have believed to be not in the best interest always of the very people that they claim to serve.”

As you’ll soon see, however, the ethically conflicted Rep. Waters has her own special definition of what’s in “the best interest” of the people she claims to serve. While she crusades against crony pseudo-capitalism, she is one of its most hypocritical beneficiaries and advocates. Cronyism comes in all colors. Waters has once again earned her title as one of the “Most Corrupt” members of Congress from the left-leaning (yes, left-leaning) Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

The bank CEOs sat meekly during Waters’ verbal flogging. But as she frothed at the mouth, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Franks covered up the microphone and chastised her briefly. To no avail. Waters’ motor mouth kept on running. Did the banks raise interest rates on credit card customers after they took Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money, she thundered? Thumping her fists on the table, she then railed about their loan modification policies (“How many require that you have to be behind by two months!?”). Blustering about underwriting fees they paid themselves on government-backed bond sales, she yelled: “You made money off the TARP money!” One of her fellow Democrats finally ended the diatribe: “I’m going to have to calm you down because when the Chairman gets back he’s going to have to penalize me.”

Fast-forward a month later. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the high-and-mighty Waters had a personal and financial stake in Boston-based OneUnited, a minority bank that received $12 million in TARP money under smelly circumstances. The banks’ executives donated $12,500 to her congressional campaigns. Her husband, Sidney Williams, was an investor in one of the banks that merged into One United. They’ve profited handsomely from their relationship with the bank:

“Congressional financial-disclosure forms show Ms. Waters acquired OneUnited stock worth between $250,000 and $500,000 in March 2004, as did Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams joined the board of OneUnited that year. Each sold shares in September 2004 — including Ms. Waters’s entire stake — but Mr. Williams continued to hold varying amount of the company’s stock. In the lawmaker’s most recent financial-disclosure form, dated May 2008 and covering the prior year, Ms. Waters reported that her husband held between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of the bank’s stock. Mr. Williams also received interest payments from a separate holding at the bank, also worth between $250,000 and $500,000. The 2008 form doesn’t specify what that is. Mr. Williams stepped down from the bank’s board last spring. It couldn’t be learned whether he still owns stock in the bank. Mr. Williams didn’t return calls seeking comment.”

Waters (along with Rep. Frank) participated directly in pressuring the feds for OneUnited’s piece of the bailout pie. She personally contacted the Treasury Department last December requesting $50 million for the company– and failed to disclose her ties to the bank to them. The government ended up coughing up $12 million in TARP funding for OneUnited — despite another government agency rapping the bank in October 2008 for “operating without effective underwriting standards and practices,” “operating without an effective loan documentation program” and “engaging in speculative investment practices.”

Oh, and get this: The favored bank of Maxine Waters was also penalized for alleged excessive executive compensation. The FDIC ordered the bank to “sell all bank-owned automobiles,” require reimbursement for executives’ car purchases (according to the Boston Business Journal, OneUnited CEO Kevin Cohee was cruising around in a 2008 Porsche SUV), and cease payments on a $6 million Santa Monica beachfront home purchased by Cohee, his wife who served as bank president, and others.

Responding to scrutiny of the bank’s special treatment, Cohee is now accusing critics of — yep, you guessed it — racism.

Now, who is sick of Democrat shakedown artists sanctimoniously lecturing others about the culture of corruption? Raise your hand! Raise your hand!

As you may have heard, ICE chief Julie Myers is in trouble over her stupid Halloween costume flap:

Just when it appeared Julie Myers had cleared every hurdle in her quest to officially become the nation’s top immigration official, a dreadlocked wig and a prisoner’s outfit could cost her the job.

Myers, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ran into trouble earlier this month after she and two other agency managers gave the “most original” costume award to a white employee who came to the agency’s Halloween party dressed as an escaped prisoner with dreadlocks and darkened skin.

The incident drew complaints of racial insensitivity and an apology from Myers. It also cast doubt on whether she’ll get a confirmation vote before the end of the year, when her original appointment expires.

It would be a stunning collapse for Myers, 38, a native of Shawnee, Kan., who worked hard over the past two years to convince skeptical lawmakers that someone with little immigration experience was up to the task of running the government’s second largest investigative force.

With just a few more weeks to go before the end of the session, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has not scheduled a vote on Myers. Spokesman Jim Manley said this week that Reid has “serious concerns” with the nomination and is consulting with other lawmakers about how to proceed.

I can’t say I have much sympathy for Ms. Myers. She didn’t deserve the job in the first place, as I’ve said repeatedly. Even setting aside the Halloween brouhaha, she represents so much of why DHS is a mess. And however much she might have tried to compensate for her inexperience the last two years, she reinforces the perception (and reality) that the White House still doesn’t take immigration enforcement seriously enough.

Sorry, no tears.

***

Related: Have you heard about the new breast milk loophole? Check out the ICE lactation memo.

From Potfry at The Nose on Your Face…

And from DelosWorld:

Satirist Scott Ott has a sneak peek at FEMA’s fabricated folly to come: Next, FEMA Plans to Stage “Natural” Disasters. Wouldn’t put it past them.

Update 8:07pm Eastern 10/28. Another FEMA photoshop submission from Common Sense Journal…

Update 9:43am 10/28: Rob at Peenie Wallie sends some more new FEMA logos. Heh:

Update: Mike Chertoff works himself up into a strong lather over the FEMA FUBAR:

The homeland security chief on Saturday tore into his own employees for staging a phony news conference at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I’ve seen since I’ve been in government,” Michael Chertoff said.

“I have made unambiguously clear, in Anglo-Saxon prose, that it is not to ever happen again and there will be appropriate disciplinary action taken against those people who exhibited what I regard as extraordinarily poor judgment,” he added.

Asked specifically if he planned to fire anyone at FEMA, which is part of his department, Chertoff declined to say, citing personnel rules.

“There will be appropriate discipline,” he told reporters at a news conference with New York’s governor where they announced an agreement on a driver’s license plan.

Yes, Chertoff has the nerve to call FEMA dumb while he was striking a DHS deal with New York to allow illegal aliens to get driver’s licenses.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More: FEMA official grovels.

Update: Reader Ron R. sends his FEMA logo Photoshop. I like:

***

What does FEMA stand for?

Fake Emergency Media Actors.

Fraudulent Emergency Mismanagement Asshats.

Flabbergastingly Exposed Mendacious Artifice.

Send me your suggestions or leave comments below.

And if you’re better at Photoshop than me, send me your FEMA logo redesigns.

Allah has the video of the nation’s stupidest bureaucracy faking a news conference.

Watch it!

More:

The U.S. government’s main disaster-response agency apologized on Friday for having its employees pose as reporters in a hastily called news conference on California’s wildfires that no news organizations attended.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, still struggling to restore its image after the bungled handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, issued the apology after The Washington Post published details of the Tuesday briefing.

“We can and must do better, and apologize for this error in judgment,” FEMA deputy administrator Harvey Johnson, who conducted the briefing, said in a statement. “Our intent was to provide useful information and be responsive to the many questions we have received.”

No actual reporter attended the news conference in person, agency spokesman Aaron Walker said.

A spokeswoman for Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who has authority over FEMA, called the incident “inexcusable and offensive to the secretary.”

“We have made it clear that stunts such as this will not be tolerated or repeated,” spokeswoman Laura Keehner said. She said the department was looking at the possibility of reprimanding those responsible.

Unbelievable.

No, entirely believable. The spirit of Michael Brown lives on. Remember?

Xinhua Online:

Julie Myers, the head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), is set to deliver tonight’s keynote address in Dearborn, Mich., to a group that honors lax judges – including ones who interfere with enforcement of our immigration laws. What’s worse, the head of the group – the Michigan American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee – is a suspected former terrorist who repeatedly violated U.S. immigration laws, then used political ties to avoid deportation.

The venue: a place known to local cops and federal agents as “The Hezbollah Social Club.” Yes, Dearborn, Mich.’s Bint Jebail Cultural Center is named after the village in south Lebanon that sheltered the terror group’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, during last year’s Hezbollah-Israel war. Rockets are shot from Bint Jebail into Israel even today.

The Dearborn center has hosted many pro-Hezbollah rallies featuring fiery anti-Semitic, anti-Christian and anti-American speeches. (At one rally I attended last year, Haj Mohammed Turfe, the center’s founding chairman, won raucous applause for saying he looked forward to Armageddon because “only a few thousand Jews will survive.”) Federal agents tell me it has also been the site of gatherings of Hezbollah agents and money launderers.

But it’s the man who’s hosting Myers that has ICE agents aghast. The head of the Michigan ADC is Imad Hamad – who, while living in California, allegedly recruited, organized and fund-raised for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). More, federal officials fought for almost two decades to deport him.

What the hell?

Credit: David Lunde

As I note in today’s Vent, this still-unfolding tale underscores what a joke the Department of Homeland Security is. The mess involving the Shirlington Limousine company, the alleged prostitute shuttle service which got millions in government contracts despite a shady financial record and an even shadier top executive, is very damning, IMO.

Interestingly, anti-Bush liberals now seem to be crying foul over the minority preferential treatment the company received.

Always glad to have new allies in the fight against both color-coded cronyism and plain-vanilla cronyism that undermine homeland security.

***

Allah is on top of the CIA replacement news (with a bonus Star Wars photoshop). WaPo coverage of Hayden announcement.

While we’re on the subject of Washington’s culture of corruption, don’t miss the update on Democrat Rep. Alan Mollohan at Roll Call:

Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), his wife and two top aides took a five-day trip to Spain in June 2004 that was paid for by a group of government contractors for whom Mollohan steered tens of millions of dollars in earmarked funds, according to travel records and other documents.

The trip sponsor listed on travel disclosure forms is the “West Virginia (WV)-01 Trade Delegation,” which Mollohan’s office described as an “ad hoc group” of 19 government contractors and West Virginia-based nonprofits that came together to pay for the trip. The total cost of the trip for Mollohan, his wife and aides was $7,874.

Mollohan’s trip to Spain was arranged by the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation, a nonprofit organization Mollohan created back in 1990. Mollohan has helped steer more than $30 million in federal funds to the foundation as part of his overall effort to revitalize West Virginia’s economy.

In a statement, Mollohan said his trip to Spain was proper and in accordance with House ethics regulations…

…Mollohan has been under fire during the past month for various financial dealings, including those with a network of five nonprofit organizations he set up or exerts influence over, including the high-tech foundation. Mollohan had funneled more than $250 million in federal funds to these organizations. Officials with these nonprofit groups, in turn, donated nearly $400,000 to his re-election campaigns from 1997 to this year, according to The New York Times.

Questions about Mollohan’s relationship with these organizations were first raised in a complaint filed with the Justice Department by the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group, back in late February.

The NLPC also alleged that Mollohan has failed to accurately disclose his personal wealth in annual reports. Mollohan’s net worth soared from 2000 to 2004, which he has stated was the result of canny investments in real estate and his inheritance of assets from his father, who also served in the House.

The FBI is preparing to issue “informational subpoenas” to at least three of the nonprofits with ties to the West Virginia Democrat, including one run by a former Mollohan aide who has invested in real estate deals with the Congressman and his wife, according to media reports.

Mollohan — who relinquished his post as ranking member on the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct recently due to the controversy — has hired Squier Knapp Dunn, a Democratic media firm, to help with his image.

The firm, which has been paid $30,000 so far from Mollohan’s re-election campaign, was hired before the onslaught of negative stories about the West Virginian began appearing earlier this month, said Anita Dunn, one the firm’s partners.

But the details of the Bilbao trip fully illustrate the political and potential legal challenges Mollohan now faces.

West Virginia companies and organizations that rely on Mollohan and his seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee paid for the trip and sent representatives along to accompany him. Those organizations, through their employees, then donated more than $160,000 to his re-election campaign or political action committee during the 2003-04 election cycle.

One of those companies, a West Virginia high-tech firm called TMC Technologies, issued a July 28, 2004, press release stating that it “was invited by Congressman Alan B. Mollohan to participate in a trade mission to the Biscay region of Spain,” which includes Bilbao.

Under House regulations for privately funded travel, Members are specifically prohibited from soliciting sponsored trips.

Just a month before the trip, TMC Technologies announced that it had received a $5 million contract from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration thanks to a Mollohan earmark. In 2003, TMC Technologies received a $2 million NOAA contact, also via a Mollohan earmark.

TMC, which had a $50,000 contract in 2003 with a nonprofit run by one of Mollohan’s former aides and current business partners, has contributed heavily to his political committees. TMC officials and its employees donated more than $39,000 to Mollohan’s re-election campaign and leadership PAC during the 2003-04 election cycle.

Like TMC, many of the companies that paid for the Spain trip are also sponsors of the Robert T. Mollohan Family Charitable Foundation, named after the Congressman’s late father.

More Mollohan background here.

“This administration is reaching out to companies of all sizes, especially minority-owned enterprises, to guarantee that those seeking to join the rebuilding efforts can navigate federal agencies and bid for contracts with ease,” said Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez.

“We’re looking to improve to make participation stronger,” Gutierrez said. He said that would include the setting of numerical targets for minority participation, although a specific number had not yet been set.

I’ve written before on the embrace of federally-funded racial bean-counting programs by the GOP. See, for example, “Racial Profiling for Dollar$” and this 1999 column on W.’s squishiness on the issue. (And here on Asian-Americans and the University of Michigan case.) We expect this from the quota-mongering Left.

Now, we are supposed to swallow unconstitutional “numerical targets” for minority business hurricane contracts from a Republican White House in the name of party unity?

This is what it means to be a conservative?

Here’s the latest Capitol Hill press release:

WASHINGTON, DC– Senator Susan Collins, Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, announced that the Committee is scheduled to consider the nomination of Julie Myers to be Assistance Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday, October 7, 10 AM in SD 342.

My sources tell me that despite vocal opposition to the nomination from rank-and-file ICE agents, 9/11 family members, and many staunch conservative supporters of immigration enforcement, it looks like Myers’ nomination will go through.

Unless, that is, Republican senators grow spines and Democrat senators grow brains.

Oh, never mind.

***
Debbie Schlussel has the latest ICE-capade.

***
Previous:

Julie Myers on thin ice
Withdraw Myers
Not another homeland security hack
No more cronyism: Bush DHS nominee doesn’t deserve the job

Related:

Shakeup at DHS Pt I Pt II
Bush’s open-borders nominees
Asa Hutchinson meets hot talk
Not another clueless banker

What Julie Myers is to the Department of Homeland Security, Harriet Miers is to the Supreme Court. (Video of the announcement here via NYT).) It’s not just that Miers has zero judicial experience. It’s that she’s so transparently a crony/”diversity” pick while so many other vastly more qualified and impressive candidates went to waste. If this is President Bush’s bright idea to buck up his sagging popularity–among conservatives as well as the nation at large–one wonders whom he would have picked in rosier times. Shudder.

Reax around the right side of the blogosphere is mostly negative–and brutally so…

John Hinderaker at Power Line: “A disappointment.”

David Frum at NRO:

I worked with Harriet Miers. She’s a lovely person: intelligent, honest, capable, loyal, discreet, dedicated … I could pile on the praise all morning. But nobody would describe her as one of the outstanding lawyers in the United States. And there is no reason at all to believe either that she is a legal conservative or – and more importantly – that she has the spine and steel necessary to resist the pressures that constantly bend the American legal system toward the left.

I am not saying that she is not a legal conservative. I am not saying that she is not steely. I am saying only that there is no good reason to believe either of these things. Not even her closest associates on the job have [any] good reason to believe either of these things. In other words, we are being asked by this president to take this appointment purely on trust, without any independent reason to support it. And that is not a request conservatives can safely grant.

Glenn Reynolds: “Perhaps they’ll change my mind, but so far I’m underwhelmed.”

PoliPundit: “I’m not thrilled with this pick, but can live with it.” He adds a thought about confirmability.

Mike Krempasky at Red State: “A promise kept? Who the hell knows?” Mike supplies a, uh, diverse list of Miers’ political donations to the likes of Al Gore and the DNC and writes: “Mr. President, you’ve got some explaining to do. And please remember – we’ve been defending you these five years because of this moment.”

Lawblogger Feddie at Southern Appeal:

Harriet Miers? Are you freakin’ kidding me?!

Can someone–anyone–make the case for Justice Miers on the merits? Seriously, this is the best the president could do?

And what really sticks in my craw is the president’s unwillingness to have a national debate about the proper method of interpreting the Constitution. I suppose I should have seen this coming when White House staffers freaked out over Chief Justice Roberts’s ties to the Federalist Society.

Thanks for nothing, Mr. President. You had better pray that Justice Miers is a staunch judicial conservative, because if she turns out to be another O’Connor then the Republican Party is in for a world of hurt.

Un-freakin’-believable.

David Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy lists a few positive things about Miers, but writes:

“[M]y initial reaction is that it’s unfortunate (but not surprising) that for both Supreme Court nominations, the president has chosen well-connected insiders with ties to the executive branch, rather than individuals who are more likely to bring a more “independent” perspective to issues of government and especially presidential power. And appointing his “personal lawyer” from Texas seems very Lyndon Johnsonish, and is hardly likely to repel recent charges of Bush Administration cronyism.”

Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSblog has a prediction based on the current political dynamic:

I have no view on whether she should be confirmed (it’s simply too early to say), but will go out on a limb and predict that she will be rejected by the Senate. In my view, Justice O’Connor will still be sitting on the Court on January 1, 2006.

Confederate Yankee on Bush’s skills as a uniter: “It seems that President Bush has managed to do what many would have though[t] was almost impossible: he achieved a near-consensus from political bloggers on both the right and left, who overwhelmingly seem to agree that Harriet Miers was an underwhelming selection to replace Sandra Day O’Connor…”

Manny Miranda:

“The reaction of many conservatives today will be that the president has made possibly the most unqualified choice since Abe Fortas, who had been the president’s lawyer. The nomination of a nominee with no judicial record is a significant failure for the advisers that the White House gathered around it.”

Bob Byers also makes the Myers/Miers connection.

Ramesh Ponnuru–snarkalicious.

John Hawkins at Right Wing News: Disaster, thy name is Harriet Miers.

Mary Katherine Ham at TownHall has a round-up, with a few positive reax, including Hugh Hewitt’s.

Mark Levin:

Miers was chosen for two reasons and two reasons alone: 1. she’s a she; 2. she’s a long-time Bush friend. Otherwise, there’s nothing to distinguish her from thousands of other lawyers. And holding a high post in the Bar, which the White House seems to be touting, is like holding a high position in any professional organization. But it reveals nothing about the nominee’s judicial philosophy. There are many top officials in the Bar who I wouldn’t trust to handle a fender-bender. Also, early in his term, the president singled out the Bar for its partisan agenda and excluded it from a formal role in judicial selection. The president said he would pick a candidate like Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, and he did not. We all know of outstanding individuals who fit that bill, and they were once again passed over. Even David Souter had a more compelling resume that Miers.

Ankle Biting Pundits: Ugh!

And in case you missed it, here’s Diana West’s excellent column on how another close Texas female confidante of the president’s is faring in her new job. Blechh.

***

Marvin Olasky is blogging in support of the Miers’ nomination over at the World Magazine blog.

Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters (happy 2nd blogiversary!) is mystified.

Stephen Bainbridge: Count me appalled.

Gerry Daly and The Five Stages.

***
Background:

WaPo profile of Miers.
NYT coverage.
10/29/04 online transcript: Harriet Miers hosts “Ask the White House”
Nov 2004 White House announcement of Miers as Counsel to the President

President Bush’s nominee to head U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has drawn the ire of several ICE supervisors and agents who say she is “unqualified” because she has never held a law-enforcement management position.

The nomination of Julie L. Myers “just doesn’t pass the smell test and is another indication that this administration created the Department of Homeland Security as window dressing and does not care whether ICE is successful,” said Matthew Issman, national legislative vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA).

“What we need is a strong, law-enforcement leader, not another inexperienced, well-connected lawyer with friends in the White House.”

The confirmation remains pending. Debbie Schlussel notes a CQ report on a meeting between Myers and GOP Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee overseeing Myers’ nomination.

The longer it takes, the worse it looks.

***
Previous:

Withdraw Myers
Not another homeland security hack
No more cronyism: Bush DHS nominee doesn’t deserve the job

Related:

Shakeup at DHS Pt I Pt II
Bush’s open-borders nominees
Asa Hutchinson meets hot talk

Given the importance of the position and a history of mismanagement in the immigration service, Congress took the unusual step of inserting a statutory requirement that nominees have a minimum of five years of experience in both management and law enforcement. Even a cursory reading of her resume reveals that the well-connected 36-year-old attorney’s background fails to comply with this legal requirement; in fact, she meets the bare minimum only by counting her current stint as head of White House Personnel, where she manages, by her own account, “up to three deputies as well as support staff and interns.”

“…Her nomination highlights the administration’s desire to keep immigration enforcement on a short leash, lest some rogue official embarrass the White House by actually enforcing the immigration law. It exposes the administration to yet another Michael Brown fiasco if, as is eventually likely, a terrorist eludes the demoralized immigration agents at ICE on his way to killing Americans.”

“…The response of House Republicans to any talk of new immigration programs has been “Enforcement First.” Replacing Myers with a more suitable candidate would signal that the White House takes these concerns seriously. Obstinately sticking to the nomination would send the opposite message.”

Your move, White House.

***

The 9/11 Families for a Secure America group has also come out in opposition to the Myers nomination:

The members of 9/11 Families for a Secure America are appalled by President Bush’s nomination of Julie Myers to head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Ms Myers is completely unqualified to lead the agency that is supposed to keep illegal aliens and the unknown terrorists among them from entering the United States.

With this nomination Mr. Bush continues his record of appointing unqualified individuals to positions of importance in America’s immigration bureaucracy.

The purpose of our immigration laws is to prevent dangerous aliens from entering our country. Failure of our government to enforce immigration laws played a large role in permitting 19 Arab terrorists to murder our loved ones on September 11, 2001. The 9/11 attacks should have enlightened Mr. Bush on the need to staff our immigration agency only with people who have demonstrated the ability and willingness to enforce immigration law.

9/11FSA recommends Michael Cutler, former senior special agent who recently retired after three decades at INS, to head ICE. (More on Cutler at The Counterterrorism Blog. See left sidebar for bio info.) He or Pete Nunez would make excellent, seasoned, pro-enforcement choices.

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Not another homeland security hack
No more cronyism: Bush DHS nominee doesn’t deserve the job

The Roanoke Times weighs in against the nomination.

Maureen Dowd tries to do her best impression of a liberal who cares about border security. No need to pay or register. Just look at the headline and summary.

And via AP, there’s this news of how dense Democrats are. Sen. Carl Levin is on some tangent about terrorist interrogations and using it as an excuse to block Myers’ nomination. As if her abysmal lack of experience in immigration and customs enforcement isn’t enough to disqualify her from the top spot at the the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Debbie Schlussel, who has been on top of the story from the beginning, has a new column: Desperate ICE-wives: Who is Julie Myers?

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Here’s a list of the members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

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Update…

RedState weighs in: Myers not qualified.

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No more cronyism: Bush DHS nominee doesn’t deserve the job