Posted on 10/03/2005 1:30:05 PM PDT by Irontank
Miers' Qualifications Are 'Non-Existent'
by Patrick J. Buchanan Posted Oct 3, 2005
Handed a once-in-a-generation opportunity to return the Supreme Court to constitutionalism, George W. Bush passed over a dozen of the finest jurists of his day -- to name his personal lawyer.
In a decision deeply disheartening to those who invested such hopes in him, Bush may have tossed away his and our last chance to roll back the social revolution imposed upon us by our judicial dictatorship since the days of Earl Warren.
This is not to disparage Harriet Myers. From all accounts, she is a gracious lady who has spent decades in the law and served ably as Bush’s lawyer in Texas and, for a year, as White House counsel.
But her qualifications for the Supreme Court are non-existent. She is not a brilliant jurist, indeed, has never been a judge. She is not a scholar of the law. Researchers are hard-pressed to dig up an opinion. She has not had a brilliant career in politics, the academy, the corporate world or public forum. Were she not a friend of Bush, and female, she would never have even been considered.
What commended her to the White House, in the phrase of the hour, is that she “has no paper trail.” So far as one can see, this is Harriet Miers’ principal qualification for the U.S. Supreme Court.
What is depressing here is not what the nomination tells us of her, but what it tells us of the president who appointed her. For in selecting her, Bush capitulated to the diversity-mongers, used a critical Supreme Court seat to reward a crony, and revealed that he lacks the desire to engage the Senate in fierce combat to carry out his now-suspect commitment to remake the court in the image of Scalia and Thomas. In picking her, Bush ran from a fight. The conservative movement has been had -- and not for the first time by a president by the name of Bush.
Choosing Miers, the president passed over outstanding judges and proven constitutionalists like Michael Luttig of the 4th Circuit and Sam Alito of the 3rd. And if he could not take the heat from the First Lady, and had to name a woman, what was wrong with U.S. appellate court judges Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owens and Edith Jones?
What must these jurists think today about their president today? How does Bush explain to his people why Brown, Owens and Jones were passed over for Miers?
Where was Karl Rove in all of this? Is he so distracted by the Valerie Plame investigation he could not warn the president against what he would be doing to his reputation and coalition?
Reshaping the Supreme Court is an issue that unites Republicans and conservatives And with his White House and party on the defensive for months over Cindy Sheehan and Katrina, Iraq and New Orleans, Delay and Frist, gas prices and immigration, here was the great opportunity to draw all together for a battle of philosophies, by throwing the gauntlet down to the Left, sending up the name of a Luttig, and declaring, “Go ahead and do your worst. We shall do our best.”
Do the Bushites not understand that “conservative judges” is one of those issues where the national majority is still with them?
What does it tell us that White House, in selling her to the party and press, is pointing out that Miers “has no paper trial.” What does that mean, other than that she is not a Rehnquist, a Bork, a Scalia or a Thomas?
Conservative cherish justices and judges who have paper trails. For that means these men and women have articulated and defended their convictions. They have written in magazines and law journals about what is wrong with the courts and how to make it right. They had stood up to the prevailing winds. They have argued for the Constitution as the firm and fixed document the Founding Fathers wrote, not some thing of wax.
A paper trail is the mark of a lawyer, a scholar or a judge who has shared the action and passion of his or her time, taken a stand on the great questions, accepted public abuse for articulating convictions.
Why is a judicial cipher like Harriet Miers to be preferred to a judicial conservative like Edith Jones?
One reason: Because the White House fears nominees “with a paper trail” will be rejected by the Senate, and this White House fears, above all else, losing. So, it has chosen not to fight.
Bush had a chance for greatness in remaking the Supreme Court, a chance to succeed where his Republican precedessors from Nixon to his father all failed. He instinctively recoiled from it. He blew it. His only hope now is that Harriet Miers, if confirmed, will not vote like the lady she replaced, or, worse, like his father’s choice who also had “no paper trail,” David Souter.
Another great article by PAT. He nails it and tells it like it is.
A note to the Pat Buchanan Haters.
We know you hate him because of his views on the Middle East - but why don't you read his column and respond to his comments instead of just hurling insults and abuse?
I don't like Buchanan either. But the point he made was dead on- he had the opportunity to name a real solid established constitutionalist like Luttig or Edith Jones- and instead he names his own lawyer to the Supreme Court. Conservative who wanted to change the court fought hard to see him re-elected and to see a Republican Senate re-elected. We deserve better.
The nominee is qualified for the USSC.
That is it? How about sticking to the Constitution. There isn't any justification other than Bush gave someone a hook up.
The GOP is weak. We need to be strong or we will die.
That is it? How about sticking to the Constitution. There isn't any justification other than Bush gave someone a hook up.
The GOP is weak. We need to be strong or we will die.
The nominee meets Constitutional requirements.
Wow, you have such depth. I rest my case.
Please educate us on the nominee. I am completely in the dark on her.
Phew. An easy break from my osessive compulsive thread reading.
Obsessive.
So your view is that we should not be fighting the war on terror? That is one view. Sorry if I don't subscribe to it.
You're far more likely to be a "moonbat" if you don't see this nomination as cronyism (which it clearly is) and a terrible lost opportunity for the conservative movement.
You are right of course and I was somewhat kidding. But Buchannan is a big government tax increaser which his followers somehow seem to miss.
P.S. I don't read Andrew Sullivan, so you're wrong again.
I rarely agree with Pat, but I do today.
This was not just another bureaucratic slot being filled in by a party regular.
This was our grand moment, the coup de grâce, what a disappointment.
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