He makes a good point. I am waffling on this pick - but I don't think her testimony will reveal much other than how she can defend herself.
So is this the new dodge we get to avoid discussing Roe v. Wade? Let's just pick a good commercial lawyer who never ltigated about abortion! Oh and by the way, that's even better than a lawyer who has argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court! Give me a break.
Prime example of non-Ivy League snobbery.
Appellate work "only barely counts" at the USSC because ... 99.99% of the time they hear appellate cases?
Memo to Jonah: Get mom's permission before writing.
Goldberg is absolutely right about this. I have been a commercial litigator for more than thirty years. I have argued at both the trial and appellate levels all kinds of cases. I have researched and argued constitutional issues when those were germane to the case I was handling. I like to think I am good at explaining arcane points of fact and law and good at simplifying issues. Most successful litigators have these skills. I think Ms. Meirs could be a breath of fresh air to a bench that really needs it. As Goldberg so aptly notes, "No more seven part tests."
This is very true. There are really alot of dumb things being said about this whole thing.
George W. Bush deals with government lawyers all the time. Every lawyer he deals with is brilliant and knows the law really, really well. But Bush has probably found that some of these government lawyers don't really understand how the world works. They just know the law.
George W. Bush has known Miers for 10 years. He knows she's smart. He knows that she understands the law. He knows she has real world experience. He knows how she approaches things.
After working with her for 10 years, he decided she was a better choice for the court than the other people. I've liked his other choices very much. Miers took me by surprise, but I think he made a very smart choice.
She has a degree in advanced mathematics and 30 years' experience as a successful litigator.
She's smarter than the Frumbag - who couldn't hack it as a lawyer - and the rest of her critics.
I second the view of this post. Real world experience counts a great deal in the practice of law--especially 25 years' worth. A lot of cases involve constitutional questions and are litigated by attorneys other than "constitutional lawyers" so the idea that only constitutional attorneys are qualified to deal with constitutional questions is simply not true. I can't think of a single course at law school that didn't involve significant constitutional issues to resolve.
A lot of so-called constitutional attorneys either teach primarily and consult on constitutional issues on the side, are government attorneys, or practice in that rarified atmosphere where they might handle two major constitutional cases a year. Most attorneys are "veterans" if they have handled four or five Supreme Court appeals during their entire careers.
Clarence Thomas, the Best Justice on the Bench, was a career Bureaucrat.
By the accounts I've read, these are fine, conservative judges. If she has been so heavily in on this successful process, then she definitely knows some of the ropes and that's another great point in her favor IMO.
bttt
Commercial litigation in general sometimes involves the operation and interpretation of Federal statutes and regulations, but only very seldom involves Constitutional issues per se. You can't possibly generalize the way this e-mailer is doing that Miers is "qualified" simply by virtue of being a "commercial litigator." This is just another "smoke screen" the 'zoids are throwing up as "boob bait" for the "base."
Weak.........
I am a commercial litigator and from experience I can tell you that two things: (1) we very rarely address Constitutional issues, and (2) the only commercial litigators that are well versed in Constitutional issues are the ones who have made a personal effort to study the Constitution in their spare time. A majority of the commercial litigator patners in my firm are less versed in Constitutional law than the summer interns because the last exposure they had on the topic was in law school.
I say we give this a rest until the hearings. I've had it up to here already.
contract law is all about the concept of property and mutually agreed obligations
Harriet Miers would not have sided with the majority in Kelo and, more than any of the sitting justices, could have articulated the arguments about property inherent in Kelo. Much better than Scalia or Thomas.
Miers pick may be a reaction by Bush, an MBA, to Kelo. That would be very interesting.
I loathe these people who question her intellectual credentials. Her undergrad degree is in mathematics. Mathematicians consider rocket science to be wussy. She is capable of understanding that the Constitution acts in the abstract, she does not need a list of instructions. Unlike Breyer, who I am sure has all the proper credentials.