Posted on 10/05/2005 4:03:47 PM PDT by perfect stranger
I eagerly await the announcement of President Bush's real nominee to the Supreme Court. If the president meant Harriet Miers seriously, I have to assume Bush wants to go back to Crawford and let Dick Cheney run the country.
Unfortunately for Bush, he could nominate his Scottish terrier Barney, and some conservatives would rush to defend him, claiming to be in possession of secret information convincing them that the pooch is a true conservative and listing Barney's many virtues – loyalty, courage, never jumps on the furniture ...
Harriet Miers went to Southern Methodist University Law School, which is not ranked at all by the serious law school reports and ranked No. 52 by US News and World Report. Her greatest legal accomplishment is being the first woman commissioner of the Texas Lottery.
I know conservatives have been trained to hate people who went to elite universities, and generally that's a good rule of thumb. But not when it comes to the Supreme Court.
First, Bush has no right to say "Trust me." He was elected to represent the American people, not to be dictator for eight years. Among the coalitions that elected Bush are people who have been laboring in the trenches for a quarter-century to change the legal order in America. While Bush was still boozing it up in the early '80s, Ed Meese, Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork and all the founders of the Federalist Society began creating a farm team of massive legal talent on the right.
To casually spurn the people who have been taking slings and arrows all these years and instead reward the former commissioner of the Texas Lottery with a Supreme Court appointment is like pinning a medal of honor on some flunky paper-pusher with a desk job at the Pentagon – or on John Kerry – while ignoring your infantrymen doing the fighting and dying.
Second, even if you take seriously William F. Buckley's line about preferring to be governed by the first 200 names in the Boston telephone book than by the Harvard faculty, the Supreme Court is not supposed to govern us. Being a Supreme Court justice ought to be a mind-numbingly tedious job suitable only for super-nerds trained in legal reasoning like John Roberts. Being on the Supreme Court isn't like winning a "Best Employee of the Month" award. It's a real job.
One website defending Bush's choice of a graduate from an undistinguished law school complains that Miers' critics "are playing the Democrats' game," claiming that the "GOP is not the party which idolizes Ivy League acceptability as the criterion of intellectual and mental fitness." (In the sort of error that results from trying to sound "Ivy League" rather than being clear, that sentence uses the grammatically incorrect "which" instead of "that." Websites defending the academically mediocre would be a lot more convincing without all the grammatical errors.)
Actually, all the intellectual firepower in the law is coming from conservatives right now – and thanks for noticing! Liberals got stuck trying to explain Roe vs. Wade and are still at work 30 years later trying to come up with a good argument.
But the main point is: Au contraire! It is conservatives defending Miers' mediocre resume who are playing the Democrats' game. Contrary to recent practice, the job of being a Supreme Court justice is not to be a philosopher-king. Only someone who buys into the liberals' view of Supreme Court justices as philosopher-kings could hold legal training irrelevant to a job on the Supreme Court.
To be sure, if we were looking for philosopher-kings, an SMU law grad would probably be preferable to a graduate from an elite law school. But if we're looking for lawyers with giant brains to memorize obscure legal cases and to compose clearly reasoned opinions about ERISA pre-emption, the doctrine of equivalents in patent law, limitation of liability in admiralty, and supplemental jurisdiction under Section 1367 – I think we want the nerd from an elite law school. Bush may as well appoint his chauffeur head of NASA as put Miers on the Supreme Court.
Third and finally, some jobs are so dirty, you can only send in someone who has the finely honed hatred of liberals acquired at elite universities to do them. The devil is an abstraction for normal, decent Americans living in the red states. By contrast, at the top universities, you come face to face with the devil every day, and you learn all his little tropes and tricks.
Conservatives from elite schools have already been subjected to liberal blandishments and haven't blinked. These are right-wingers who have fought off the best and the brightest the blue states have to offer. The New York Times isn't going to mau-mau them – as it does intellectual lightweights like Jim Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee – by dangling fawning profiles before them. They aren't waiting for a pat on the head from Nina Totenberg or Linda Greenhouse. To paraphrase Archie Bunker, when you find a conservative from an elite law school, you've really got something.
However nice, helpful, prompt and tidy she is, Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on "The West Wing," let alone to be a real one. Both Republicans and Democrats should be alarmed that Bush seems to believe his power to appoint judges is absolute. This is what "advice and consent" means.
I'm sure you'd think it was funny if it was directed at Ted Kennedy and not W. Admit it, you've "fallen in love with a celebrity" as another FReeper said.
You may be correct. President Bush may believe she is as good as any of the other potential nominees. George needs glasses then. And Republican Senators should politely reject the nomination. Ann Coulter was rather caustic in her commentary piece but I believe her accurate when she says, "...Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on 'The West Wing,' let alone to be a real one."
Let's however, pretend that your "independent thought" is actually that and not a weak White House talking point. Ok, so now warm and fuzzy feelings are the basis by which we select Supreme Court Justices as opposed to published judicial opinions by actually qualified people. That may be sufficient standard for you, but not for actual thinking conservatives. The "trust me" argument holds no water.
Conservatives have trusted President Bush for 5 years. He has gotten multiple passes from the conservatives who turned out in droves in 2004 to re-elect him(from the education bill to the first new entitlement program in 40 years to border security that results in borders that leak like sieves) because we counted on him to nominate originalists to the Supreme Court as he had promised to do. He has now has two opportunities to appoint Justices such as he promised to appoint during the campaign. Instead, we have Justice Roberts who, while brilliant, is not an originalist, but at best, a minimalist (as demonstrated again by his questioning during oral arguments yesterday - on the bright side we now only have to wait about 29 years 360 days before we get rid of this stealth nominee and appoint someone with an actual judicial philosophy). And now Harriet Miers, who barely meets the requirements for an Appeals Court Judge, never mind for an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. This is what happens when you appoint people without a judicial philosophy. Someone rooted in a judicial philosophy like originalism doesn't "grow and change" once they are on the Court as have 5 of the last 7 Republican nominees (who undoubtedly met your warm and fuzzy feeling criterion).
The President has blundered badly if he thinks there won't be consequences in 2006 and 2008 for this betrayal of people who have been working for decades for just these opportunities that have now been squandered. For one thing, he won't be getting the automatic support by conservatives for his obscene spending and wealth transfer programs as he once did, since conservatives can now demonstrate to him the same loyalty that he has demonstrated to us. His guest worker/amnesty program is dead. His White House aides got just a sampling of this yesterday in their closed door meetings. This issue won't go away and will become the deciding factor in who conservatives support in 2006 and 2008. A Senator willing to show some backbone and lead the opposition against this boneheaded appointment will certainly generate interest among actual conservatives who still believe in small, less intrusive government and Supreme Court nominees with proven philosophies of interpreting the Constitution in an originalist fashion.
As I said, good but not outstanding. I don't see cum laude or better after either degree. The Mortar Board is for service and leadership, not academic brilliance. One of eight women is impressive, but what was her class rank? There are all kinds of good reasons why brilliant people wind up at second and third tier schools, but if they do, they produce a much more impressive record than this. What this says to me is that she's intelligent and works hard--- and no more than that. Competant, but never influential, never groundbreaking. Add that to absolutely no background in Constitutional law, and you have a pretty poor choice for the highest court in the land.
Excuse me "Idiot Laureate," did I ask for your correspondence?! Go away!!!
The size of this thread would strongly suggest otherwise.
Ann took a header over the cliff and we can't stop gawking.
~smirk~
Just keep telling yourself that.
~eye roll~
You first!
"For one thing, he won't be getting the automatic support by conservatives for his obscene spending and wealth transfer programs as he once did, since conservatives can now demonstrate to him the same loyalty that he has demonstrated to us. "
So, conservatives were agreeing to obscene spending and wealth transfer in exhange for Bush picking who they want on the Supreme Court?
The simple truth is that Bush picked her over others because he thinks that she will produce the most votes over the long run that you and other conservatives are pleased with. He may be wrong, but only time will tell.
Then it's the second of the two options that I listed.
No! We must all worship GW Bush. He is almighty and always right. He has a PLAN!
Huh? What celebrity? WHy do you hate Bush and why are you in this forum?
Hey how are you doing newbie? You're in love with Bush as demonstrated by your posts. I certainly like and have supported the man for a few years now. I rallied with him in Orlando and FReeped John Kerry...twice. Went toe-to-toe with some union thugs at the first FReep. See,the thing is, I'm an American first, a Conservative second and a Republican last. I really do like Bush, but I gotta call 'em as I see 'em.
BTW, I get a real kick out of you newbies who say "why are you in this forum"!
Bushbot.
True, her psychosis is shared...
Elitist snobbery at its finest. Ann is becoming what she once railed against. And the last sentence is a lie - so much for her being against Slander.
By me. Miers does not belong on the Supreme Court and President Bush should not have nominated her. AC hits it right on -- too many other people and are far more deserving of the nomination.
As much as I like Ann, she should put a sock in it.
None of this griping is going to help anyone and it just weakens the President.
Even the Dems are not that dumb!
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