Posted on 10/04/2005 7:33:33 PM PDT by jdm
Edited on 10/04/2005 7:41:50 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Harry Blackmun "voted the right way" while Nixon was President; Justice O'Connor "voted the right way" and was FAR more conservative during the first few years after she was appointed,and even David Souter largely "voted the right way" on a number of cases during his first term on the Court while Bush Sr. was still in office.
The President may indeed believe that "in his heart" Harriet Miers is conservative; However, perhaps as some have speculated she has just been telling him what he wants to hear; Further, she is insufficiently qualified (Imagine if President Clinton appointed someone with her background?), and has in no way demonstrated over the course of her legal career that she is indeed a judicial conservative. If anything, her contributions to Al Gore, change of religion, involvement in the ABA instead of the Federalist Society, etc seems to indicate that she is a woman of few firm convictions - making her a HUGE risk to drift to the Left the longer she is on the Court.
Well I don't think I disagree with that, and I'm sure W is judging her on her professional demeanor. But we all know that as soon as a person gets onto a place like the Supreme Court where no one can force you to be accountable to anybody, there's a big temptation to let your whims have rein. Blackmun, Kennedy, Souter, and others all started out as reasonably conservative in their first year, just as they appeared to others before confirmation, but with no one to answer to they all soon enough discovered the bleeding heart that was always within them.
The danger in a nominee like Miers is that there's no evidence she's thought deeply about why she's a conservative, what it means to be a conservative, or what any of that means when it comes to interpretation of the constitution. With someone like her, there's a big danger that her personal beliefs are all that matter. There is no reason to think she has any objective philosophy of jurisprudence to fall back on.
I don't know about you, but I don't want someone making decisions based on what they "feel" about a given situation. I want them making decisions based on the law, what it actually says, what the original intent was. The consitution is a very short document. It doesn't take a law degree to understand it, but it does take a good mind to understand the babblings of the various lawyers who present their case. I don't want someone basing a decision on which lawyer made the best "legal" case, I want it based on what the constitution says about how it applies in this situation.
Track record means nothing. Character and judicial philosophy mean everything. W knows those things about her, we won't until the hearings. Of course, that is provided the committee actually asks questions instead of expounding on their favorite issue for ten minutes until their time is up and the next one starts pontificating.
Who knows, maybe one of the best things that will come out of this nomination is that the judiciary committee will actually begin to ask questions again.
On that I disagree. No one knows for a fact what Harriet Miers's character and judicial philosophy is except for herself. Not even Dubya. The best we can do is judge her by her actions and writings, and boy if there ain't much to go on.
Judicial track records sure mean a heck of a lot more than nothing. At once, it might tell us not to support her; it could also give us reason to. But there are no reasons to support her, other than that George W. Bush is fond of her. That's what's so frustrating about all this.
Once they go into those hallowed halls, don that black robe, look at themselves in the mirror and say "I have a job for life, nobody can stop me now" we have no say in the matter.
Souter was an unknown, but he had a judicial record that was deemed acceptable. Look how he turned out, quite possibly one of the worst Justices the Supreme Court has ever known.
Dubya comes closest to knowing those things about her since he has worked closely with her for years, first as his council in Texas and then in the WH. He has also had the opportunity to get a very close look at her judicial philosophy as she argued her position on the various judges that were vetted by her.
Dubya is also very well aware of how his father's legacy was tarnished by Souter and there is NO way he is going to make the same mistake.
Too bad. Really puts Presidents in a bind. But if there's no alternative, I'm sanguine with it. :|
" I would consider it quite strange than the only totally free speech medium be one that the Founders did not know of. I suppose even then, should FreeRepublic become a subscription service, I'd be in trouble for paying money to insert my promotion into Jim Robinson's media."
I share that concern. If this law is abused to limit speech that is not political advertising I will have to concede I was wrong.
"We may just have to continue to disagree. My position is that the government should make no law limiting how or how much or how often political speech occurs."
Lots of good discussions end that when both parties are sincere. And I agree with your statement, I just don't think that money is speech and that these are spending limits not speech limits.
Maybe the PResident can pull of the impossible.
Thank you for affirming what I have been saying. I might add, that if it were not for hurricanes Katrina and Rita, President Bush might have opted for a fight that might have lasted through to January. With these disasters, there is much on his plate and we cannot let the DemonRATs put this country through that. We still have more things such as the continuing Iraq war, a boarder policy, the energy crisis, Social Security, and, if you can believe it, an emerging Bird Flu catastrophe (if it mutates to be transmitted through human to human contact).
Wait until the hearings. I am sure that Harriet Miers will do the Conservative Cause proud.
I wrote that there were 51 Republican U.S. Senators. My mistake: There are 55 Republican U.S. Senators.
Because he is my guy, I just want him to behave. and keep his word. Close the borders, cut spending, and send me a lot of money.<(•¿•)>
Whereas I think money goes directly to the how much and now often part of freedom of the press. (Just a note to further clarify differences).
I totally agree.
LOL! Good for you! My brother is a senior partner in a very large firm. He graduated from The University of Toledo, or Toledo University, whatever, for his graduate school. No Ivy League there, but he is a brilliant corporate attorney who handles cases for national and international companies. He was an assistant district attorney before he went with that law firm many years ago. I don't like elitist snobs, either.
You're correcr because they do and they are
You are a real Koolaide drinker. I was only joking about sending me money.
The oath to be taken by the president on first entering office is specified in Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Now for a list of those things in the Constitution he is supposed to preserve and protect. http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html
Actually, by definition she is a "Souter" since she is an "unknown quantity" as Jeff writes. It doesn't matter which way she eventually goes.
The Democrats would have lost the fight, even if they had succeeded in filibustering a nominee. That bill would have come due at the ballot box in November 2006.
The same thing happened in 1991 when Democrats tried to sink Thomas's nomination. Many Americans resented the Democrats' small-mindedness and hypocrisy, and that helped sweep the Republicans to a majority in the House for first the time in decades.
By ducking the fight this time out, Bush allowed the Democrats to win by forfeit.
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