I'm convinced that B* chose this nominee to divide; not to unite, so he could deflect public attention from the much more serious criminal matter of ROVE not ROE vs Wade. Let's keep focused on this.
He could have easily chosen a more moderate choice for SCOTUS but did not precisely because of the divisiveness that this nomination would cause; and the more inflammatory the choice, the greater the diversion from the major elephants in the room...Criminality. Rove. Iraq War. Election Fraud. War Profiteering. AND SO ON.
I'm reasonably certain that this article has been posted on DU, but if you've not read it, please do!!
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer_071905Q.shtmlWhy "White House v. Wilson/Plame" Matters By Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | Perspective Tuesday 19 July 2005
<snip>
The key issue in the affair has little directly to do with former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson; or his wife, Valerie Plame; or Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; or even President George W. Bush's alter ego, Karl Rove. White House v. Wilson/Plame is about Iraq, where our sons and daughters - and many others - are daily meeting violent death in an unwinnable war. And it's about manipulation. It's about how our elected representatives were deceived into voting for an unprovoked war and what happened when one man stood up and called the administration's bluff. And it's about the perfect storm now gathering, as:
more lies are exposed (whether in journalists' e-mails or in the minutes of high-level meetings at 10 Downing Street), the guerrilla war escalates in Iraq, and more and more Americans find themselves agreeing with Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., that administration leaders seem to be "making it up as they go along." <snip>
The Big Lie The Bush administration needed to assert that Iraq was on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Taking that line posed a huge challenge. On the one hand, a new threat had to be created/hyped out of thin air; and, on the other, the pundits had to be too lazy to refresh their memories on what senior U.S. officials had said about Iraq's military capability before 9/11.
"Saddam Hussein has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." (Colin Powell, Feb. 24, 2001)
"We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." (Condoleezza Rice, July 29, 2001)
These statements went quickly down the memory hole. Immediately after 9/11, administration officials, with Vice President Dick Cheney in the lead, began to warn that Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" were just over the horizon.