Posted on 10/05/2005 2:28:57 AM PDT by Crackingham
Senators beginning what ought to be a protracted and exacting scrutiny of Harriet Miers should be guided by three rules. First, it is not important that she be confirmed. Second, it might be very important that she not be. Third, the presumption -- perhaps rebuttable but certainly in need of rebutting -- should be that her nomination is not a defensible exercise of presidential discretion to which senatorial deference is due.
It is not important that she be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court's tasks. The president's "argument" for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons.
He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections.
Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers's nomination resulted from the president's careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers's name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.
In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
George writes well about baseball..
If Wills is against it, the Dims will rush to do it.
Widsom coming from a guy who parks at ABC. YAWN......
What a sap. I suppose when you work as a writer, you have to write something, even if it is stupid.
As Jimmy Kimmel said, "Only George Will could make a boring subject like baseball even more boring."
My question is: which 'grass-roots' actually that we're talking about?
I doubt that a typical social conservative 'grass-root' completely understands words such as 'originalist', 'textualist', or other terms that are familiar to the legal community. Many of these grass-roots people were concerned with the judges they perceived as 'trying to destroy the American values that are based on Judeo-Christianity'. Their top issues are abortion, rights to bear arms, gay marriage, etc. If the judges rule 'their way', it's considered a good ruling. Do they really care what kind of judicial philosophy that leads to the 'good ruling'? Probably not.
If what we read that Miers is in-fact a 'Christian fundamentalist' like some people have argued is true, and as a judge, she rules 'our way', can we say that the president has betrayed us? Some people will say no.
Good grief, Will sounds like a liberal here with this not "sophisticated" enough argument. Bush knows enough to know that legislation from the bench is bad, very bad. And besides, all of this fuzzy think "sophistication" has gotten us into one helluva mess. Exactly what we need to straighten it out is some clear thinking people.
George Will's twenty or so years as a Washington pundit, and house Conservative at ABC, has had an effect on his world view.
Bush lost an awful lot of credibility when he signed McCain-Feingold -- while apparently believing that the Supreme Court would overturn it.
At least Will openly used the word "sophistication," which is more revealing than some of the more opaque outrage from other nominally conservative professional scribblers. How dare that simplistic cowboy try and bring someone from the flats up to the mansions on the bluff?
bump
This argument is becoming a recurring theme in discussion of Miers. So far the main credentials people claim for her are: that she's a woman; that she'll be good at fetching coffee (see Lifson); and that she lacks any notable discernment concerning the Constitution. That third item is advanced as a positive by attacking anyone as "elitist" who expects a supreme-court justice to demonstrate some actual knowledge relevant to the task.
I started assuming that she's at least not an idiot, but these cries of "elitism" are convincing me that she must be one. Her defenders can't seem to find a shred of evidence that she has thoughts worth sharing on the Constitution, so they all argue that human decency requires us to give the dummy a shot. Wow.
It may well be a poor choice but that is not Will's point.
This article could have been written (and probably was) about both Rhenquist and Thomas, leaving out the gender stuff.
Think what you will about Harriet Miers, but there should no longer be a doubt that George Will is a pompous, arrogant elitist who should be ridiculed and shunned by the Conservative community.
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