Miers, Mehlman, and Comedy Central.

First, from a friend:
http://www.dudedesign.com/blog/
"Why does it take a comedy show to point out to the American public that what the President is telling the people is the EXACT OPPOSITE ofwhat his Generals are telling him?? ...and Rumsfeld's mastery of avoiding the question is really worth noting. have fun with the video..."
http://tinyurl.com/9ctws

this is a "blow coffee on your keyboard" funny, I think. Sort of.

Next, about an e-mail message sent from the RNC:

"Dear (right wing nut job),
Today, President Bush announced his choice to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as the next Supreme Court Justice: Harriet Miers. Ms. Miers is the third woman to be nominated for the Supreme Court, and like Justice O'Connor is a legal trailblazer. Ms. Miers is an extremely well-qualified and fair-minded individual who is committed to interpreting the law instead of legislating from the bench.
President Bush selected Ms. Miers after embarking on a thorough and deliberate thought process. This confirmation however promises to be much more contentious than the confirmation of Judge John Roberts. Before Ms. Miers was even announced many Democrat groups said they would oppose her. They have no interest in giving Ms. Miers a fair hearing or vote. They are promising to throw every punch, make every accusation and pressure every Senator to oppose this nominee no matter what her qualifications may be. We have to be prepared to counter their actions and that is why Harriet Miers needs your help."

Fortunately FactCheck.org was on the ball, as usual.

'RNC's False EmailMehlman claims,"Before Ms. Miers was even announced many Democrat groups said they would oppose her." Actually, none did.
October 3, 2005
Modified:October 3, 2005
Summary

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman sent out a mass "Dear Republican" email urging support for Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, saying: "Before Ms. Miers was even announced many Democrat groups said they would oppose her."
That's false. Some groups said they might oppose Bush's next nominee, and we have little doubt that some will. But the RNC couldn't some up with a single group had said they would oppose Miers.
To the contrary, the nomination brought quick praise from Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader. There was opposition all right – but it was mostly from conservatives, not Democrats.

Analysis

This one is another example of how facts matter little to partisan groups intent on scoring points against their opponents.
"Many?" Try "None."
The Republican National Committee wasted no time. The President announced his choice of Miers at 8:01 am, and by 10:16 am we had received our first copy of RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman's "Dear Republican" email . (We sign up to get mailings from both parties, just to see what they are saying to the faithful.)
Mehlman urged party loyalists to call senators, sign a petition, call talk-radio hosts and write letters to newspapers pushing for Miers to be confirmed.
To motivate the partisan base, Mehlman's message predicted a hard fight and accused the other side of "promising to throw every punch, make every accusation" to stop Miers from being confirmed, adding: "They have no interest in giving Ms. Miers a fair hearing or vote.""

Hmmm, it appears to me it is mostly the right wing that is upset by this nomination.

As far as FactCheck.org goes, it is an excellent source. I disagreed with their taking a liberal group to task for saying that Bush lied about the reasons to go to war in Iraq; they claim that Bush was merely relying on bad intelligence.

Baloney. There are many ways to lie. One way to lie is to cherry pick the data in order to justify what you want to do. Some of the stuff that Bush spouted in his state of the Union speech where he talked about going to war had been widely debunked (example: it was widely known that the alumnium tubes that Bush spoke about were unsuited for nuclear uses).