Posted on 10/24/2005 2:56:10 PM PDT by Conservative Coulter Fan
WASHINGTON -- Such is the perfect perversity of the nomination of Harriet Miers, it discredits, and even degrades, all who toil at justifying it. Many of their justifications cannot be dignified as arguments. Of those that can be, some reveal a deficit of constitutional understanding commensurate with that which it is, unfortunately, reasonable to impute to Miers. Other arguments betray a gross misunderstanding of conservatism on the part of persons masquerading as its defenders.
Miers' advocates, sensing the poverty of other possibilities, began by cynically calling her critics sexist snobs who disdain women with less than Ivy League degrees. Her advocates certainly know that her critics revere Margaret Thatcher almost as much as they revere the memory of the president who was educated at Eureka College.
Next, Miers' advocates managed, remarkably, to organize injurious testimonials. Sensible people cringed when one of the former Texas Supreme Court justices summoned to the White House offered this reason for putting her on the nation's highest tribunal: ``I can vouch for her ability to analyze and to strategize.'' Another said: ``When we were on the lottery commission together, a lot of the problems that we had there were legal in nature. And she was just very, very insistent that we always get all the facts together.''
Miers' advocates tried the incense defense: Miers is pious. But that is irrelevant to her aptitude for constitutional reasoning. The crude people who crudely invoked it probably were sending a crude signal to conservatives who, the invokers evidently believe, are so crudely obsessed with abortion that they have an anti-constitutional willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade with an unreasoned act of judicial willfulness as raw as the 1973 decision itself.
In their unseemly eagerness to assure Miers' conservative detractors that she will reach the ``right'' results, her advocates betray complete incomprehension of this: Thoughtful conservatives' highest aim is not to achieve this or that particular outcome concerning this or that controversy. Rather, their aim for the Supreme Court is to replace semi-legislative reasoning with genuine constitutional reasoning about the Constitution's meaning as derived from close consideration of its text and structure. Such conservatives understand that how you get to a result is as important as the result. Indeed, in an important sense, the path the Supreme Court takes to the result often is the result.
As Miers' confirmation hearings draw near, her advocates will make an argument that is always false but that they, especially, must make, considering the unusual nature of their nominee. The argument is that it is somehow inappropriate for senators to ask a nominee -- a nominee for a lifetime position making unappealable decisions of enormous social impact -- searching questions about specific Supreme Court decisions and the principles of constitutional law that these decisions have propelled into America's present, and future.
To that argument, the obvious and sufficient refutation is: Why, then, have hearings? What, then, remains of the Senate's constitutional role in consenting to nominees?
It is not merely permissible, it is imperative that senators give Miers ample opportunity to refute skeptics by demonstrating her analytic powers and jurisprudential inclinations by discussing recent cases concerning, for example, the scope of federal power under the commerce clause, the compatibility of the First Amendment with campaign regulations, and privacy -- including Roe v. Wade.
Can Miers' confirmation be blocked? It is easy to get a senatorial majority to take a stand in defense of this or that concrete interest, but it is surpassingly difficult to get a majority anywhere to rise in defense of mere excellence.
Still, Miers must begin with 22 Democratic votes against her. Surely no Democrat can retain a shred of self-respect if, having voted against John Roberts, he or she then declares Miers fit for the court. All Democrats who so declare will forfeit a right and an issue -- their right to criticize the administration's cronyism.
And Democrats, with their zest for gender politics, need this reminder: To give a woman a seat on a crowded bus because she is a woman is gallantry. To give a woman a seat on the Supreme Court because she is a woman is a dereliction of senatorial duty. It also is an affront to mature feminism, which may bridle at gallantry but should recoil from condescension.
As for Republicans, any who vote for Miers will thereafter be ineligible to argue that it is important to elect Republicans because they are conscientious conservers of the judicial branch's invaluable dignity. Finally, any Republican senator who supinely acquiesces in President Bush's reckless abuse of presidential discretion -- or who does not recognize the Miers nomination as such -- can never be considered presidential material.
At the risk of being automatically discredited, or even degraded....
I think Will writes well. But when he starts by saying that anybody that disagrees with him is either discredited or sullied, I didn't see any reason to read further (although I did because I hate myself).
Russert (I think it was Russert) Asked Senator Allen about this column by Will, specifically about how anybody who voted for Miers would be judged.
Rush dealt with this on his show, and said he really LIKED Allen's answer, which basically said that it wasn't pundits who would be judged, the senators have a real task to do and he would do it.
Puleeeeze. No one has said this. Ugly hyperbole.
And what Republican can retain any self-respect if, having voted for Ruth Ginsberg, he or she then declars Miers unfit for the court?
Got a link for that?
They are just silly poo poo heads -- G. Will.
I have to ask, was Miers proposing set asides and affirmative action in federal funded schools and programs, was she asking the Federal Government to step and enforce or impose affirmative action?
While others totally miss the mark and place all their eggs in the basket of Constitutional legalism rather in its moral and ethical message that frees man from oppressive government and enables the right to 'life, liberty and persuit of happiness'.
Brilliant Constitutional 'scholars' sitting on the SCOTUS bench have over the past 33 years exacted from this hallowed Document such wonderful exercises of 'freedoms' like abortion, suppression of religious expression in public, Affirmative Action, feminism, homosexual rights, increased police powers over citizens and reduced property ownership rights.
Enough of this insanity, the whole notion underlying our Constitution was that we live under the rule of our Creator, that government should never again innappropriately intrude into people's lives, that religion should be expressed freely. I'll take a Harriet Miers, (if she really is a faithful Christian), over your Constitutional 'scholar' whose political acumen and 'moderate' views will win over both sides of the Senate. We don't need these types anymore, we need leaders who fear God, not men.
Well said.
Her religion should be irrelevant, but, even though I'm not evangelical, I would take exception to Will's suggestion that Evangelicals are "crude". Also, abortion is an important issue if one believes a fetus is a human life. Will seems to be slighting the important issue of Roe v. Wade. And it will only be overturned if there are judges willing to defend the true conception of the Constitution rather than deference to precedent.
Bull-oney. Democrats never forfeit anything. If previous comments prove inconventient, they simply deny having ever made them and get a free pass in the press. Democrats are never in any way required to be consistent or rational.
That's a new one.
So far all I have come across as far as "pro-Miers" goes is a trust in the POTUS to make the decisions he is placed in office to make via support that has brought this opportunity to him.
Few, if any support Miers as a confirmed Supreme Court Justice with what they know of her, however are willing to weigh the outcome of the hearings on her with a trust in the POTUS.
Miers opinions on quotas are out-of-bounds. Senators are not to judge the politics of the nominee, but only if she's qualified to serve.
The Lunatic Right
constantly disgraces us.
I'm reminded that
the feminist nuts
within the Lunatic Left
stood solidly with
Bill Clinton even
when it was clear that Clinton
man-handled women.
The Lunatic Left
understood that politics
is about team work
and you don't piss on
the guy you put in office!
Politics isn't
an academic
exercise and it isn't
computer programs
where you control all
the variables. It's life,
and sometimes it's tough.
The Lunatic Left
acted like adults and kept
the faith with Clinton.
The Lunatic Right
acted like lunatic jerks
and sold out George Bush.
I hope that someday
the Republican Party
somehow makes them pay.
Will is a consummate snob, he reeks snobbery. The fantasy that Miers is "not qualified" is naturally embraced by a bow tie wearing geek like George Will. Bush is about to be further weakened and we can kiss goodbye any chance of getting a new nominee who is AS conservative as Miers. But a bunch of the pundits have staked their pathetic careers on killing this nomination. When their work is done, the real victim will be a republican presidency. Say hello to president Hilary.
You, on the other hand, hysterically exagerrated the point that Miers had Reagan like qualities into the hyperbole..."greatest conservative since Reagan." Now one made such a claim.
This is so elementary it's tough to say it again.
The people have the right to ask political questions. I'm trying to determine whether Miers said that the Federal Government should allow Affirmative Action, racial quotas, and set asides in it's funded programs. Or, was Miers referring to a private organization with which she was associated. There is a BIG difference, the USOC has no business telling a private organization what hiring practices they might have.
If Miers sees that it is not for the Federal Government to support quotas then that is a good thing.
You could have Fallujah and Mecca nuked to glass. You could have the clintons in prison for selling national secrets to the Chinese. You could have the UN exposed for its' corruption.
But you don't...
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