Posted on 10/04/2005 3:35:22 PM PDT by maximusaurelius
3) unless Miers demonstrates in her hearing that she has "hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court's role," the Senate has a duty to reject the nomination to prevent this or any other president "from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends"; 4) the Miers nomination vindicates the principle of tokenism under the rubric of diversity; writes Will, "for this we need a conservative president?"
(Excerpt) Read more at citizenjournal.com ...
You don't know that her friendship with Bush is a proximate cause of her nomination.
It is definitely true that, because of their relationship, he feels he can trust her to not change her views on the bench.
But the idea that you should appoint only enemies or people you don't know is just silly.
And anyway, it isn't that in general, promoting friends is unseemly. Our government is set up to provide a Senate confirmation in order to prevent the appointment of people who have no qualifications EXCEPT that they are friends.
Contrary to popular opinion here, it is not the case that Miers has no qualifications to be appointed to the court. She has a solid resume. She wouldn't be noticed if she wasn't close to Bush, but Bush has a lot of friends he ISN'T appointing to the court.
An unpublished lawyer at a not prominent firm who is not well known at all in legal circles? Of course the only reason she was nominated was her friendship with Bush.
I was as taken aback as any yesterday when Miers was announced, but I've done some study on her and feel more positive. Also, I agree with you that there's a lot of ugly elitism in the D.C. conservative pundits hostile reaction. You can kind of understand where they're coming from: The nomination of someone from outside of their network and pedigrees suggests strikes at their sense of insiderism and self-importance.
Hillary might win in '08. What will you say when she nominated Sid Blumenthal?
You say it's a "not prominent law firm." Isn't it one of the biggest in Texas, which is one of the nation's biggest states? Didn't she represent corporate behemoths like Disney in court? She's a far cry from a solo practitioner or an ambulance chaser. Such snobbish tone as in your post - similar to the elitism of other conservative critics of this lady - is helping to make a number of average conservatives (such as myself) reevaluate this lady. It may not be a bad thing to have someone who is not part of the insiders network. Bush, from Midland Texas, is no snob. I think his wife went to the same school as Miers - SMU. Isn't that right?
To a point, yes. He forwards a vision and tries to put it through. If he's honest, the vision that he promised the people and got elected on.
But, at least in America, which has (in theory and largely in practice in most places, I would still say) a tradition of 'best man/woman for the job", he also has a responsibility to put forth the best and most qualified candidate who embodies the principles of his envisioned reforms (or goals) as the candidate.
Now, I am not saying abandon the Republican party. On the contrary, stand by it, hard and true. But that means standing by its principles as well. Promoting a friend, especially one who seems so unqualified, when there are so many other good candidates, who are a) more qualified b) more experienced c) more in keeping with either Republican ideals, or the spirit of the Bush reforms, or conservatism or a combination of all those, is just a bad move that betrays the party.
We can oppose it without either opposing the party, or the President. We are just opposing the choice.
Furthermore, congressmen and senators have a sworn duty to represent their constituents and defend their interests. Therefore, they have a duty to reject a bad choice. Moreover, Americans, and especially American conservatives, have a duty to reject that which will be bad for America, bad for its people and bad for its constitution and the principles upon which the Republic stands.
Of course I believe that we must stand behind the leader, especially the one that we all ostensibly voted for. But, we can do that and still reject Harriet. And by jingo we must, or else we are betraying our country, our compatriots, our party, and even our leader (because if you want to support him, and this could hurt him, don't you have a responsibility to help him out of this mess). We're free men and women, not drones, and citizens, not subjects. Bush has done a lot of great stuff. This candidate was a bad choice, plain and simple.
Look at the liberal silence as proof.
We have a responsibility to be honest with ourelves and with our country. Reject this nominee and demand nothing but the best for America (she may a wonderful woman; she very well could be, I don't have the honor of knowing. But there are certainly better, more experienced candidates).
Questions?
You are missing the point. I don't care what law firm she worked for, or where she went to school. However, the legal community does, and I was simply pointing out that if not for her being a friend of the president, she never would have been considered for nomination.
Are you trying to sound stupid? In 1997 and again in 2000 she was named by the National Law Journal as one of this nation's top 100 most powerful attorneys. Get your facts straight or go away.
But she was never a judge. And that's important. We cannot in good conscience appoint someone without experience as a judge to the highest court in the land to sit as a judge. Furthermore, her lack of positions kinda discomfits me.
I hope you'll agree with me that adequate is not good enough for SCOTUS. And that it is downright irresponsible to appoint someone who -might- make a good judge. Not just a supreme court judge, but a judge in general. Tried and true is the way to go.
I am not saying appoint a part of the insider's network necessarily, or that Bush can't appoint anyone he knows. Just that they have to be an -experienced-, -tried and proven true-, and -very qualified- candidate. Is that so much to ask?
I think most people here will agree with me that it's not.
It's not necessarily being disloyal to Bush either. But we have a duty to demand the best for the country, right? We made that clear in the election; so let the MSM say what they will, since they will anyways. But we need to demand better.
So she is a woman who ran a firm. Big deal.
Look, I'm sure she is at least a reasonably smart, and likely very competent lawyer. But she has no experience as a judge. And she has no judicial decision history we can really judge her on, for good or bad, which would be worrying to most conservatives I would think (to a point at least). :D
In fact, her positions on tough issues seem vague, at best. And can you honestly say she would have been amongst the top 5 candidates if Bush did not know her? Was she amongst hte top 10 most powerful attorneys? Top 5? Top 3? And how many judges got passed over, who had experience and history?
Just think about that.
From NRO Blog noting that in a forthcomding piece, Will goes as far as he can to oppose Miers's nomination without explicitly doing so.
The lead: Senators beginning what ought to be a protracted and exacting scrutiny of Harriet Miers should be guided by three rules. First, it is not important that she be confirmed. Second, it might be very important that she not be.
Third, the presumption -- perhaps rebuttable but certainly in need of rebutting -- should be that her nomination is not a defensible exercise of presidential discretion to which senatorial deference is due.
It is not important that she be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court's tasks. The president's "argument" for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons.
The reasons Will gives are brutal to Bush, and are, in a nutshell, as follows:
1) Bush has no interest or ability to make "sophisticated judgments" about such matters, and it's impossible to believe that anyone who can would have recommended Harriet Miers;
2) Bush "forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution" by calling McCain-Feingold unconstitutional back in 2000, then signing it into law.
3) unless Miers demonstrates in her hearing that she has "hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court's role," the Senate has a duty to reject the nomination to prevent this or any other president "from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends";
4) the Miers nomination vindicates the principle of tokenism under the rubric of diversity; writes Will, "for this we need a conservative president?"
Your previous quote was "An unpublished lawyer at a not prominent firm who is not well known at all in legal circles?" I point out to you that she was twice named as one of the top 100 most powerful attorneys in this nation. I also asked if you were trying to be stupid. Apparently, you don't have to try.
Your post is much too sane for this place, lately.
Rehnquist was never a judge, either.
Excellent synapsis and points.
There are excellent reasons for scrutinizing this decision, however much we all may support Bush on other decisions, or in general. Look at how much damage Souter has done. This one could be worse. At least he had experience.
"PRUNES to all of them. I'm confident the Pres has out foxed 'em again."
Ummm, like he did on Social Security reform? How about that big new entitlement for geezers for prescription medicine. Boy that showed them. And all those vetos of spending bills, he sure outfoxed them on cutting government.
Oh, go twirl your bow tie, George Will!
Here's what someone wrote on another blog:
I fully expect that if Justice Stevens retires, President Bush will nominate his dog Barney to fill that vacant seat. After all, who can a man trust to be loyal more than his dog? I reckon the president knows Barney's heart as well as anybody's, and certainly Barney has no paper trail, unless you count stuff he chewed up when he was a puppy. Besides, if Caligula can put his horse in the Senate...
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