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.
lol...great spit ball, A.H! I'll accept your obtuse answer, as a measure of your slow-witted fact ball.
President Bush is an enemy of Free Republic?
You need to rethink your little theory there.
Three senators would definitely vote against that candidate: Cheffee, Snowe, Collins. Right there you have gone from 55-45 to 52-48. Now subtract the support of the cowards, Voinovich and DeWine. That brings you to 50-50.
At that point, all you would need is to lose the vote of Hagel, McCain, or Spector, and the candidate would not be confirmed.
Name those democrats who might vote "Yes." I am damn sure it isn't going to be Bayh, who is my senator.
Good idea bowing out honey.
You're in over your head.
What a gal! Love her writing style, wit and arguments.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
She should be attacked for such an outlandish and non-reality based assertion.
This is the norm for her, not the exception. She is a better looking Michael Savage, and has only gotten worse as she continues to feed on her own political ideology without checkpointing it with the real world.<<<<<<<<<<<<
TORTOISE, shame on you for making such a cheap statement !
Ann Coulter is not Mike Savage ! Even Bernard Goldberg of 100 PEOPLE WHO ARE SCREWING UP AMERICA would reject that .
As Goldberg pointed out, she is caustic, but she allways injects humor into her criticisms . This is just the extreme exception .
And she has a right to complain ! Too many times Dubya has sold out conservatives and our causes for democrat approval, like we need it anymore .
What is Bush so afraid of, A scathing review by the New York Times ? A gangstercrat filibuster ?
George Bush has given us little reason to trust him and alot of reason not to .
In the end, Miers or any nominee for the Highest Court in the Land, must have experience as an Ajudicator before she considered for the U.S. Supreme Court . .
Right, just keep telling yourself that.
LOL
You've got quite a few things wrong here. First off, I haven't been told she's a bad pick. I've read the opinions of the other actually qualified candidates for this position. If you or anyone else can find any actual documentation, including the President that establishes this woman's ability to make judicial interpretations or her philosophy for doing so, please post them. Also, I haven't liked many of the President's other appointees. Julie Meyers, for one. Another buddy pick to a rather important position at ICE. But then, we also know how seriously this President takes border security, so we shouldn't be surprised.
Also.....do you think an appropriate question for Ms. Miers by someone on the Judiciary committee might question her competence as White House Counsel since she's apparently been stonewalling a request regarding an accounting of Karl Rove's activities during the campaign? Maybe she was too busy detailing her judicial philosophy to the President. You know.....that talk we're supposed to be so trusting about that never covered minor issues like abortion. They must have gotten bogged down in a discussion of substantive versus procedural implications of the commerce clause. Oh, since we know her judicial interpretation, how does she fall on this issue? It's a really important one and is something that will impact a lot of lives.
Julie Meyers is not a judicial nomination. Lets hear the judicial nominations that Bush (and Miers) have put in front of you that you have not like. (chirp chirp chirp)
I'll point out that Condi Rice is also a "crony". I'll wager that Conservatives have been less often under-served by Cabinet-appointments the President made on "recommendation" rather than personal experience.
Secondly, I'm quite comfortable that you have not seen all the rulings on whomever is your favorite choice, let alone read his FBI-bio, interviewed his friends and enemies, or even spoken to him. You also don't have the skinny on the Senate landscape to know whether (given all the above listed), your favorite candidate has a cream puff's chance in a blender to actually pass.
Rove??? Rove???? Are you on vacation from DU? Why would you expect a WHC to provide ammunition to Moveon.org and the ACLU for a fishing expedition in one of their paranoid smear fantasies??
Maybe she was too busy detailing her judicial philosophy to the President. You know.....that talk we're supposed to be so trusting about that never covered minor issues like abortion. They must have gotten bogged down in a discussion of substantive versus procedural implications of the commerce clause. Oh, since we know her judicial interpretation, how does she fall on this issue? It's a really important one and is something that will impact a lot of lives.
????
Everyone who knows her seems to be pretty damn comfortable about her position on abortion. You are flailing now. My kids have never asked my position on abortion either, but I'm sure they know what it is. If you are looking for an elected candidate to make promises that she will deliver on specific issues, I'd say Miers is as close as you are going to get. She's probably the near equivalent of sending Dubya to the SC. But you SHOULDN'T be looking for that. From what I've read (she hasn't spoken for herself yet), she's an Originalist. Like Bork.
IF you are really a conservative, you have ZERO to complain about in this nomination.
As to the Rove matter, the President's counsel is required by law to respond to requests regarding legal matters. There is now a dispute as to whether Karl Rove, during the 2004 election, obeyed federal law (5-USC-7321 - in case you're from Rio Linda, that refers to the United States Code)and properly allocated the time he spent in the White House on political activity, the resources he spent in the White House on political activity from his taxpayer funded role as special assistant to the President, performing duties that are well defined. She has failed to respond to requests for this information as she is required to do by statute. This is important since, we're being told to trust the President and that Harriet Miers is competent for the Supreme Court because she is so good at what she does legally for the President. However, she seems to be incompetent in this regard. Also, today, we see that Ms. Miers employed a rather expansive interpretation of the 12th Amendment in trying to defend a lawsuit against the Vice-President challenging his Wyoming residency. Now, on the one hand we're told that her lack of experience in judicial doesn't matter because she believes the Constitution should be interpreted as written. Yet here, she's trying to broaden the original intent. The White House defense is, yet again, that she's just working for a client and so, like with John Roberts we can't discern judicial philosophy from that. Well, this is what you get with a stealth candidate. The White House, sadly, seems to want it both ways.....they cite her work as White House counsel as a qualification to prove that she's capable of interpreting the Constitution, but then says we can't use it because it doesn't tell us anything about how she's interpret the Constitution. Now, to anyone but a Bushbot, that would seem a bit of a contradiction.
Yet again, you offer third hand testimony to reassure us that Harriet Miers is qualified. I've actually heard that the people who know her are actually anywhere from evenly divided for and against or somewhat against her. But, what I've been saying over and over and over again to you is that such testimony is worthless. It is biased either for or against her. We can go back and cite just as much testimony swearing that O'Connor and Souter and Kennedy were rock-ribbed conservatives.
I am not looking for an elected candidate who will promise that she will deliver on specific issues. That seems to be what you're focused on. (And George W. Bush is also not qualified to be on the Supreme Court. He has no experience in interpreting the Constitution and his little catchphrase that he repeats from time to time that he "doesn't believe in legislating from the bench" isn't informative. Not to mention that he's already violated his oath to uphold the Constitution by signing McCain-Feingold into law.) That's why her judicial philosophy is so important. With an originalist philosophy, her political opinions, whether she's conservative or liberal don't matter because that isn't how she would decide cases at law. She would decide cases based on how her record demonstrates that she interprets the Constitution. You state that, from what you've read she's an originalist like Bork. Could you cite some information to support that.....and don't include personal testimonies, since they are worthless in determining a judicial philosophy. And I am hardly the only Conservative that is appalled at the stupidity of this nomination. Perhaps you need to rephrase that to a Bush conservative.....but then, they aren't really conservative, based on his policies for the last 5 years.
Are you referring to his promise to appoint judges in the mold of Scalia and Thomas? Because neither of them claim to be Originalists. In the case of Scalia himself, I could cite opinions showing that he is not.
is required to do by statute
Well, gosh, why isn't she in jail? *cough*(DUmoonbat)
Ms. Miers employed a rather expansive interpretation of the 12th Amendment in trying to defend a lawsuit against the Vice-President challenging his Wyoming residency
hmmm....how did the courts end up ruling on that case?
Your assessment of Miers's legal activity seems to suggest that you think YOU are on the SC and the only member. The SC backed the most controversial claims in the McCain-Feingold act as constitutional. I don't think Congress should have passed the act, and I don't think having done so the President should have signed it. But my only option is to vote them out of office. I'm not going to make indefensible claims about failing to defend the Constitution.
Your claims about her lack of qualification reminds me of almost IDENTICAL statements by Democrats during the Thomas hearings. Based on history, I don't see how you have a leg to stand on.
I don't have to produce the results of Miers's Originalist DNA test, because it is not me --and certainly not you--that must be satisfied on that matter. Only the President does, on whom the decision is given. It is for you to show that he has been derelict in his selection which your above arguments certainly do not. Based on what I've seen in your paper trail, I doubt the President could have pleased you with any viable or worthwhile nomination other than one that you (lacking information on the candidates background or recently affirmed judicial philosophy) made yourself. It is a relief to me that the President hasn't undermined his decision-making by running back and forth to get in front of ideological loose cannons like yourself.
Both are correct. One is the noun form, the other the verb form.
The senate's responsibility is to advise and consent. What they are to provide is advice and consent.
I wouldn't think her ability to "relate" to you would be of any importance....unless you were looking for an activist nominee.
I wouldn't think her ability to "relate" to you would be of any importance....unless you were looking for an activist nominee.
Not only that, but doesn't that apply to Ann Coulter?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.