Posted on 10/03/2005 5:19:55 AM PDT by Former Military Chick
Oct. 3, 2005 — Harriet Ellan Miers is White House counsel and was formerly President Bush's personal lawyer in Texas. She first served in the White House as staff secretary and was deputy chief of staff before she was named counsel upon Alberto Gonzales' transition to attorney general.
When he was the governor of Texas, Bush once publicly introduced Miers as a "pit bull in size 6 shoes."
Born and raised in Dallas, Miers earned her undergraduate degree in mathematics and her law degree from Southern Methodist University. In addition to her legal career, she served one term on the Dallas City Council.
Miers, 60, broke barriers for women throughout her career. She reportedly was the first woman hired by the prestigious Dallas law firm Locke Purnell Boren Laney & Neely, where she became a successful commercial litigator. She also became the first female president of the Dallas Bar Association in 1985 and was the first woman elected president of the Texas Bar Association in 1992.
Miers met Bush in the 1980s, according to published reports, and she was counsel for his 1994 campaign for governor. He appointed her chair of the Texas Lottery Commission in 1995.
Miers then was president of Locke, Purnell, Rain & Harrell and co-managing partner of Locke Liddell & Sapp before she joined the White House in 2001.
In addition, Miers was named one of the Top 50 Most Influential Lawyers by the National Law Journal in 1998, and she received numerous other awards from groups including the Dallas Women Lawyers Association, the Anti-Defamation League and the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers.
We can safely assume that President Bush prizes loyalty which means he will defend his friends. Miers must be very loyal to be honored with a Supreme Court nomination. Therefore, I believe Bush will turn into a pit bull when the liberals start trashing Miers. He has full ownership here. This particular process in the Senate has the potential for highly entertaining political theater!
Not all of the bargain for sure, but definitely a large part of it to this point. The overall mentality of the general public has definitely been pulled to the right on most social issues over the past two and half a decades. The change has been incremental and will continue to progress in our favor provided we continue to use the good sense which guided the movement over that extended time frame.
I just don't get the jump to judgement on FR alone on Miers.
Nomination of Harriet Miers to Supreme Court[end snip]"We are concerned about the nomination of Harriet Miers and we demand she answer questions regarding her views of fundamental reproductive and privacy rights," said Karen Pearl, interim president of PPFA. "We expect Miers to make clear her views on reproductive rights during the hearing process, and the Senate should not confirm a nominee who is not willing to do so. Confirming a Supreme Court justice should not be an exercise of partisanship or clever gamesmanship — but rather an honest, thoughtful, thorough examination."
During Miers' tenure as head of the Texas Bar Association she was a leader in the campaign to reverse the American Bar Association's pro-choice position on the right to choose. Had this campaign been successful, which it was not, the ABA would have been returned to its former position of neutrality.
This woman has worked directly with President Bush for ten years. She gave up one of the top positions for any lawyer in Texas, to go to work for Bush. She has worked for Bush as a lawyer in the White House.
In short, though she may be an unknown to the outside world, she is very well known to Bush. She knows that Bush wants a new Justice in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. She will be such a Justice. Though the lib-Dems will have very little to attack her with.
This is another masterstroke (and unexpected) by Bush.
John / Billybob
I HOPE YOU'RE RIGHT BILLYBOB...I REALLY REALLY REALLY DO!!
Meirs follows in the footsteps of O'Connor in bringing a practical experience in government to the court full of people who only have judicial experience.
However, I think it shows that the Senate is very limited in its view and will only approve Washington insiders. That seemed to be the case with Chertoff at DHS, Roberts, and now Meirs. We need to get some of those old goats moving on to retirement.
There's rational caution, and then there's blind faith. What evidence has Bush given so far that he will do the right thing? The fact that he's never vetoed anything? The massive spending increases? The paltry tax cuts? His abandonment of all principle on the topic of rebuilding NO? Amnesty for illegals? Federalizing airport security? Drugs for fogies? "No child left behind", co-authored with the Drunken Kennedy?
This IS a conservative forum.
Why are you surprised to find conservatives expressing their points of view?
Not everyone is willing to drink the kool-aid, some of us will walk away and leave you to the government you deserve.
"Bush just doomed the Republican Party back to minority status. Which may not be a bad thing in the long run. Short run, get ready for the liberal takeover."
I did not vote for Bush just so he could promote his big business cronies. I voted for him as the last chance to put REAL conservatives on the Bench.
As a fellow Tennessean I'm with you, I may just tear up my voter registration.
If the Country Clud Republicans think I'm cannon fodder for Big Business they have a thing coming to them.
And like I have said in so many words, more than once today, no matter who she contributed to in 88, that is then, this is now...who has she been supporting since then?
Lots of us had conversion experiences of a variety of types in nearly 20 years. In 88, I was pro-Gore, but by 95, I had a very different pic of who to vote for and why.
Keep your man bashing tripe to yourself.
I thought she was woman-bashing.
As an aside, I wonder how many of you "this is it, I'm outta here" folks have stopped to consider how much you really owe this lady for her considerable input on a whole slew of appellate judges many of you have been praising.
Seems a whole bunch of you are upset 'cause "who I wanted" wasn't selected. News flash....who you wanted doesn't matter unless one day, you become POTUS.
As I said, it comes down to trust. You either trust GWB or you don't...period.
Once again, you are the voice of reason and sanity in the midst of a fire storm.
Wonderful post.
Sitetest,
I answer your intelligent post by re-posting something I said yesterday in another thread...
"This thread is truly depressing. When a group of committed patriots like the good people of this forum are willing to risk the election of a Left Wing President, someone unwilling to defend this nation at a time of War, then we as a country are probably doomed to be a sad footnote on the scrap heap of history.
The nation is already in deep trouble as some 20-30 percent of the population are European-type COWARDS who will not do what it takes to guarantee the continued existence of this nation. That's bad enough. But when good and decent folk like the posters on this site are unable, or unwilling, to recognize the danger they advocate by supporting a third party candidate at a time like this, then I fear my children will have no future, or at the very least, they will inherit a country that has been beaten into submission by the forces of evil in the Islamic World.
At the risk of sounding dramatic, what will you say to yourselves when Hillary Clinton sits in the White House, and inspired by her retreat in the War on Terror, Islamo-Fascists bring about 1 Million "retroactive abortions" in the form of a nuclear device? Dead men have no principles my friends, and at this time, electing the wrong President could mean catastrophic results for this nation.
Reading this thread has been even more depressing than reading DU or Kos...your inflexibility will eventually lead to the downfall of this nation as you allow 5th Columnists like Hillary and her ilk to run this country!"
I'll keep my mind open about Miers. I'm very skeptical, however. Superficially, the nominations appear s to be more about loyalty and personal trust rather than ideological conviction. What is stopping Miers from maintaining a "strict constructionist" approach as long as GWB is in office, then making a left-wing about face? That's exactly what Souter did. The first few years of his term (while GHWB was still in office), he ruled as one might expect of a Republican nominee.
Your language choices are telling, Mr. Chamberlain.
Thank you so much for your encouragements!
It seems to me that this nominee will be easily confirmed. The Republican Senators will vote for whomever Bush nominates, and it will be very difficult for the Democrats to pin anything on this nominee that they can hang a refusal on.
My guess is a vote of something like 75-25 for confirmation.
The bottom line here is that we don't really know anything much about the nominee. While that will help assure her confirmation, it leaves a bit of a quandary for us all. We won't know how she is going to rule until she has ruled on several important cases.
Areas of concern to me include:
1. No judicial experience. This means that we don't have decisions in past rulings to read.
2. She is a corporate attorney. This means to me that we have no read on her positions on social issues, including abortion, women's issues, gay marriage, and others. She will, obviously, refuse to answer any questions about these things.
3. She is single, and has never been married. This is rather unusual, and will raise some questions, certainly.
4. President Bush is unclear on many issues. The nominee is well known to him, but Bush has suprised us many times, on issues such as CFR, immigration policy, spending, and other issues.
It's going to be interesting to see how she comes down on important issues, once she is confirmed, and she will be confirmed.
Souled_Out,
Yes, I do have one belief that I will never compromise on...
That this nation is the greatest creation the world has ever seen, and I will DO anything, ENDURE anything, to guarantee its continued existence because I know the alternative is to awful to contemplate. I will never compromise on anything that endangers the national security of the United States...nothing.
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