[Criminal Number 18F]

How is she "third string"?

Fair question. Here's a few reasons:

1. Not a good law school (second-string, maybe-third, SMU)

2. Not a Law Review member even there (the *thinking* students edit the Law Review)

3. Went to a second-class firm in a second-class city

4. Did not litigate any significant case as lead!!!!

This doesn't mean she's a bad person or a bad lawyer, it just means she's thoroughly mediocre.

As far as the Bar Association is, being a wheel in the TBA is like being a wheel in the teachers' union -- because that's all a Bar is, a lawyers' union, and the committees and what not attract the hacks and those who seek to make connexions and advance themselved by cronyism. Which is a pretty effective way to get ahead with this President. Unfortunately.

Even in the White House, she didn't lead on those cases she worked on (i.e. Bush v. Gore.)

This is what many of us supported Bush for, and he give us his worst. Appointment. Ever.

Worse than Julie Myers at ICE (cause you know this Administration is feeble on border enforcement, even if they don't put a twentysomething bimbo in charge of messing it up).

Worse than Brownie and the hackerama at FEMA (they handled four 'canes in Florida fine last year, they were just not ready for a situation with a 90-IQ mayor and a governor who collapsed into blubbering inutility when the people looked for leadership).

Good God, this person was not the best woman (by any means) for the job, she wasn't even in the top 20.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Yellow Rose of Texas]

Just cleaning up the original post without the stuff in it.

Record of Harriet Miers?

1970—Graduated from Southern Methodist University Law School

1970-1972—Clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Joe Estes

1972-2001—Joined Texas law firm, Locke, Purnell

1985—Elected president of the Dallas Bar Association

1986-1989—Member of the State Bar board of directors

1989-1991—Elected and served one term on the Dallas City Council

1992—Elected president of the Texas State Bar

1993-1994—Worked as counsel for Bush's gubernatorial campaign

1995-2000—Appointed chairwoman of Texas Lottery Commission by Gov. George Bush

1996—Became president of Locke, Purnell, and the first woman to lead a major Texas law firm

1998—Presided over the merger of Locke, Purnell with another big Texas firm, Liddell, Sapp, Zivley, Hill & LaBoon, and became co-managing partner of the resulting megafirm, Locke Liddell & Sapp

2000—Represented Bush and Chaney in a lawsuit stemming from their dual residency in Texas while running in the Presidential primary - ???????? Bush was and is a TEXAS, Chaney was and is a citizen of Wyoming, not Montana as is often said.

2001—Selected as staff secretary for President Bush

2003—Promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy

2004—Selected as White House Counsel

2005 - Appointed to supreme Court?

There are many important questions that need to be addressed, including:

What policies did she advocate for on the Dallas City Council?

What was her record at the head of the scandal-ridden Texas Lottery Commission? She cleaned it up!

What cases did she take on while working as a corporate lawyer in private practice, and what positions did she fight for?

What has she written or said in and outside of her law practice about her views on constitutional issues like privacy, the "commerce clause" or equal protection As White
House council Alberto Gonzales played a pivotal role in softening America's stance on torture. Flat out lie about Gonzales.

What positions has Harriet Miers advocated for in the same role?

Has she ever publicly distanced herself from George W. Bush? I certainly hope not

It's important that we move quickly in answering these questions.

We need to make sure the facts about her views are known.

This kind of decentralized research may never have been tried before at this scale. Yes it has, FR wrote a report on Clinton's illegal sale of technology to China which is in the Congressional Record. Go look it up.

But a Supreme Court nominee with a record only the president really knows is a new national challenge. If we act quickly, we can meet that challenge together. Yes we can, we can support the President in his selections for the courts.

Please pitch in by taking some time to research today, and post what you find.

Just had to answer a few of the questions and the record. I do not know if the record is true as posted here, but my answers are true and factual.

[Bonaparte]

There have been SC Justices who have satisfied all of the criteria you cite in 53 but have nonetheless failed to fulfill their oath to support the Constitution.

A case in point would be Louis Brandeis.

He graduated first in his class from an elite law school (Harvard) and was lead counsel in many important cases in a highly respected Boston law firm. But as SC Justice, he gave birth to such novel and insupportable judicial notions as a "constitutional right to privacy" and application of the federal commerce clause powers so broad and vague as to imply a constitutional requirement for command economy rather than free enterprise.

He was the Harry Houdini of judicial opinion, contorting himself into elaborate rhetorical knots in support of his lifelong conviction that America was intended to be a socialist paradise rather than a constitutional republic.

He jumped through all the hoops you require in your post but his subsequent performance on the court did massive injury to the Constitution he swore to uphold.

There are non-lawyers here in this forum whose understanding and support for our Constitution put Brandeis in the shade. Meirs couldn't botch the job as bad as Brandeis did even if she tried to do so.