Posted on 10/03/2005 9:19:26 AM PDT by West Coast Conservative
IF ALL GOES WELL, Harriet Miers will turn out to be a less impressive version of John Roberts: that is, a judicial conservative, or constitutionalist, who will cause the ideological balance on the Supreme Court to shift to the right. She's not likely to have Roberts's gift for describing and defending a conservative judicial philosophy, dodging questions on current issues, and toying with frustrated Democrats. All she needs to do is come off as a credible mainstream conservative, avoid the questions that Democrats will try to trick her on, and persuade senators she's not merely a Bush crony. That accomplished, she should be confirmed.
She'd better be able to do this. If she can't--if she's not really a conservative--the political effect will be to shatter President Bush's still-strong relationship with his base. The love affair will be over. The president will have dashed the hopes cherished by conservatives for a conservative Supreme Court. And he will be far weaker as a national political leader as a result.
Here's what people at the White House told me after Bush announced to nearly everyone's surprise that Miers, 60, now the chief White House legal counsel, was his pick to replace Sandra Day O'Connor: After running the judicial selection process along with Karl Rove--the process that led to the Roberts nomination--she had become a candidate for the high court herself.
The president and others at the White House have had long discussions with her about judges. She and Rove were involved in questioning at least five candidates for the court vacancy Roberts has filled. From those talks over the months, I'm told, it became clear to Bush that she had exactly the philosophy of judicial restraint he favors and that she wouldn't "grow" as a justice and turn into a swing vote or a liberal.
Also, I'm told, the president is fully aware of the stakes in this nomination. Roberts's replacement of William Rehnquist as chief justice was simply a conservative replacing a conservative. But Miers would succeed a swing justice. With her, I'm told further, Bush believes he would be altering the ideological makeup of the court, moving it to the right.
The question is: why pick Miers and not someone with a judicial record as a conservative? Bush had before him a list of roughly two dozen potential nominees with unassailable qualifications and clear conservative leanings on judicial matters. He'd already interviewed at least four of them. Any of them would be likely to win confirmation. No president whose party controls the Senate has lost a Court nomination fight since 1968. And that year, President Lyndon Johnson's selection of his buddy Abe Fortas came late in the term. That made it easy for Republicans to delay and ultimately kill the Fortas nomination.
So why did Bush choose Miers? For him, these nominations are quite personal. He wants to feel comfortable with his nominee, confident his pick will be a conservative now and conservative 20 years from now. Bush picked Roberts after being impressed while interviewing him. His doubts were erased (and there were initial doubts about Roberts). My guess is with Miers his doubts were washed away too.
Conservatives shouldn't throw up their hands in despair, at least yet. They should wait until they hear from Miers as a witness before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It's then that we'll begin to find out if Bush was correct in his view that she's the person to fulfill the dreams of so many conservatives and finally shove the Supreme Court to the right.
"It looks like he flinched," commented Fox News analyst Bill Kristol. "It looks like a capitulation."
I love Fred Barnes' analyses. He and Rush are among the top of my favorites to interpret what is going on for me.
And, I trust President Bush. I just cannot imagine that he would lightly pick a SC justice. He too is fighting for the future of our grandkids.
It is nice when you have a president that you trust, who has the same values that you have. I have seen this president in action in handling our country for years now - don't think he will disappoint us on the SC.
And, what are we going to hear from Miers during confirmation other than the same old BS Roberts dished out?
It will be too late if she's appointed and ends up being another Souter, which is a very real possibility given her extensive ties to Democrats like Algore.
There was absolutely no reason not to nominate an known originalist to the court.
It's very likely the court will move to the left thanks the two nominations with Roberts being more liberal than Reinquist and Miers being further to the lef than O'Connor. If that happens, the Republican party will pay the price.
You jest.
McCain does what McCain wants and needs to get what he wants.
McCain is not stable.
McCain is known to turn and stab you in the back.
And, you think that is what you want for President?
How would you ever trust him with your country?
"Hmmmm, McCain, as crazy as it seems, might have made a more conservative President than Bush."
Except for one thing: McCain is soft on Abu Graib. Although maybe one can forgive him that.
What happened to that "over30brain"?
WOT? Where is the boondoggle?
Spending? How do you not spend with an attack on American soil, two hurricanes wiping out thousands, and an ongoing War on Terror as there are terrorists who intend to kill us?
Slept walked through a hurricane? Did you not realize that the federal government does not go in until 72 hours after a catastrophe after being asked by the local government? That local government did not ask but played politics with the lives of thousands.
Helping the liberals? They hate him.
The only thing he has given liberals is a total hatred of himself.
You might want to look at the President we elected.
Any that would trust McCain with this country are really not looking at how he has sold us down the river at least three times.
Campaign finance
The elite 14 trying to gain control of nominations
And, you sit there and say Bush can not be trusted. I question your sanity.
Andy, your idea is too clever by at least half.
The old bat will be lucky to still be able to walk 20 years from now. She's too old, in addition to not being as good as the 10 or so on the short list.
who is this woman Ms. Miers?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1495772/posts
Huh?! You might have misunderstood my post. I believe it's Bush's ultimate rope-a-dope, sleeper sucker punch ON THE LEFT and THE RATS!
We agree that many around here immediately start reaching for the koolaid and wanting to commit hari-kari at the drop of a hat.
That's right. Because IF
Bush had lost THEN this might be
a Supreme Court judge . . .
"They didn't even know what hit them." Suckers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yep! I smell Rove...
This could well be a Rove-orchestrated sucker punch on the Dems.
Time will tell...
Thank you for that post....
I am starting to think that I have slipped into DU sometimes today...yikes!!!
go read the bio on Judge Clarence Thomas then tell me what is in it that makes you think he was a sure coming of Scalia or any conservative. Thomas and Miers are in the same boat, Thomas had one year on the bench before he was moved up and before that all of his work had been politics - with a short time at Monsanto. I don't mind having a born again woman that made senior partner of a 200 person law firm.
You want to remember that Miers was born in Texas in 1945, and it was really only in 1994 that the post-Civil War Democratic "solid South" turned decisively Republican.And that Al Gore was prolife until it began to limit his national aspirations in the Democratic Party - and that he would have won the WH if he had carried his home state of Tennesee in '00.
And that Bush knows that
Miers has been a member of Valley View Christian Church in Dallas for 25 years, where Hecht has been an elder. He calls it a "conservative evangelical church... in the vernacular, fundamentalist, but the media have used that word to tar us." He says she was on the missions committee for ten years, taught children in Sunday School, made coffee, brought donuts: "Nothing she's asked to do in church is beneath her." On abortion, choosing his words carefully for an on-the-record statement, he says "her personal views are consistent with that of evangelical Christians... You can tell a lot about her from her decade of service in a conservative church." Posted by Olasky on Oct 3, 05 08:23 AMHarriet Miers -- pro, part 3
Hecht says about Miers' judicial philosophy: "She's an orginalist -- that's the way she takes the Bible," and that's her approach to the Constitution as well -- "Originalist -- it means what it says." He notes that her legal practice involved writing contracts rather than tort law, so she was always looking at the plain meaning of the words: "Originalist." He also says she's not a social butterfly who will be swayed by Washington dinner table conversation: "She goes to the dinners she's supposed to go to. She's not on the social circuit." Posted by Olasky on Oct 3, 05 08:22 AM
Olasky reports on Meirs - some good inside info, a few encouraging points...
World Mag ^
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