Depending on what you read, the GOP is imploding or exploding. My guru, whom I greatly admire in most every aspect, is Hugh Hewitt — and he’s raking everyone over the coals for failing to stand (blindly, in my opinion) behind President Bush in his nomination of Harriet Ellin Miers to the SCOTUS. He has had a website, Beyond the News, augmented to gather specific support for the Miers nomination. He’s keen to rake “regular” callers over the coals for their failure to support Bush’s choice, but is not quite so keen to treat “VIPS” in this fashion — those who write political columns, for example. Overall, I have to express my disappointment with Hugh not in what he’s saying, but how he’s saying it. We all have the right to disagree.

Me too. I also reserve the right to disagree. To the point where I now believe that Harriet Miers may in fact end up stepping down as a nominee. I posted earlier: this might not be a horrible thing. Hugh continues to believe in the president’s nominee and writes today:

Conservatives are deeply split, though the pro-Miers camp is gaining, and the steadiness of the president assures her eventual confirmation. (See this morning’s from R. Emmett Tyrrell). But it is an important debate among friends, not an occasion for the sort of vows of eternal enmity that mark the left in its melt-downs.

The anti-Miers caucus is headquartered at NRO, but these are remarkably talented and honorable conservatives, not destroyers of the Republic. Some of their rhetoric was over the top, but that’s why we call it rhetoric. When I tease them about being a part of the Bos-Wash Axis of Elitism, it is just that teasing, not a call for their banishment. (Well, Peter Robinson. . .)

There’s a big difference between wrong and rotten. David Frum is wrong. Bill Mahr is rotten. K-Lo and Mark Levin are wrong. The DailyKos gang is rotten.

Here’s the good news: The left is riding over the hill to attack Miers on the basis of her religion and the president’s appreciation of it. Now we can all get along, right?

Well, perhaps. Attacking on the basis of religion is wrong. But religion isn’t a valid basis for appointing or disqualifying a potential nominee. Article VI, clause 3 of the US Constitution says “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

I don’t believe the GOP is coming apart at the seams. I think it’s experiencing frustration at having the proverbial Golden Opportunity under the Bush Presidency and then not being allowed to pull out the stops and make a stand. I’m not saying Miers is a bad person or unqualified per se. I’m not an east coast Yale elitist (hell, I barely passed “sandbox” in kindergarten — just ask my Dad) and I don’t think it’s sexist or elitist to express concern in her bonafides. I’m just thinking that there are others more eminently qualified that I would love to place on the SCOTUS bench. You know my choices and my preferences.

Things are coming to a head. Some are bemoaning the end of the GOP as we know it; I don’t think it’s nearly that serious. I’m a loyalist when I can be — but not so one-sided that I won’t verbally disagree with my party, my work, my acquaintances or friends when I believe them to be incorrect.

Folks, if we can’t politely discuss and air out various concerns involving the GOP — well, then, we’ve a bigger problem than the Harriet Miers issue.