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.
That would be because she is a conservative... not a republican.
As well they should.
Ann turns out to be an elitist Washington insider.
Frankly I am tickled pink that Bush nominated someone with Miers qualifications (or lack of them thereof). Personally I would have preferred that Bush nominate someone who did not even go to Law School, much less one who went to an Ivy League Law school. But if he had to appoint someone who graduated from Law School, SMU is better than most, but I think a former Janitor or Fast Food manager who graduated from a non-accredited Evenings only Law School would have been a better pick.
Miers has all the qualifications she needs. She's an American, she is more intelligent than me, and she teaches Sunday School at an Independent Fundamentalist/Evangelical Come-to-Jesus Altar-Calling Church.
Hallelujah.
I think you're missing something, though. We're not afraid that Bush is trying to find a Scalia, and messing up without our help. Many of us are afraid that he doesn't give a d--n about picking a Scalia, and is purposely picking justices who will prove to be "moderates". It's not that we don't trust him to get it right; we don't even trust his intentions.
In the sort of error that results from trying to sound "Ivy League"
And then she goes and misspells "Advise". LOL.
What's ironic is her own adoration for Ivy Leaguers shows when she insists that only Ivy Leaguers can sit on the Bench.
You should read her book "Treason" to get the real scoop on McCarthy. She has done an excellent job of researching that era, complete with copious footnotes, and I think you'll be very surprised - and cheered - to hear that there is another side to the story. It ain't like the Left tells it, but it happened back before there were alternative sources of information (e.g. the Internet, or right-wing talk radio) to counter their distortions of history.
Ah, but he does Ann. He was voted into office and that office includes the right to nominate candidates to the SCOTUS.
And he has confirmed that trust with numerous conservative appointments to the federal judiciary.
Your arguments just don't hold water.
Sure, Bush gets to pick. He is the pres. But Ann and I also voted for the guy. And he made promises to all of us that he would nominate a Scalia or a Thomas. We got stiffed.
Only if someone dies. The libs on the court aren't going to quit while Bush is the President.
Yes, it was still the truth.
Bingo. Thanks, I needed to read that.
What are you, her dentist? Nice Ad Hominem you got there buddy.
Ann attended Cornell for her undergrad degree, and the University of Michigan for her law degree.
ANd that is what you have yourself partaken in. I have yet to see you reply, other than this one or to somebody whom you agree with, without an insult.
So you have gone on to insult everybody who has come upon an individual decvision to independently review and support this choice, or at least withhold judgement of her, as being Bush-bots, Kool-Aid drinkers and the like. When you yourself turn the opposite direction of what you proclaim this site is about. You refuse to partake in intelligent discussion of her, but prefer to fall upon insults and dry sarcasm and to fall upon a fervor of support of your p.o.v as pure gospel even when many points continuosly get shot down, on there merits. All because of one thing and one thing only, you guys wanted a fight. Well as a great man once said, "You wanted a fight well now you got it".
While Ann, and many of the conservative elite, have engaged in personal attacks against Miers and President Bush, there is no need to respond in kind. Ann is just wrong on this issue, and her weak arguments are not persuasive.
That is essentially what Scalia said in his rebuttal of the Lawrence vs Texas case.
That is a outright falsehood.
Bush said he admired Scalia and Thomas the most of any SCOTUS justices. Maybe it's minutia but I am tired of the inaccuaries flying around here constantly
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.
This is the core of Ann's argument, and a core that Meiers' opponents need to refute. Most Supreme Court cases do not involve vital constitutiional issues like free speech. Instead, they often involve arcane, but very significant, Federal statutory issues such as ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Secutiry Act of 1974) and patent/copyright (Sony fair use case involving legality of individuals' taping of TV programs) law interpretation that require a great deal of general legal knowledge. Those cases, and similar ones, constitute a majority of the cases decided by the Supreme Court, often with divisions between the justices that are not concurrent with the generally prevailing liberal/conservative split. Right now there's no substantial evidence that Ms. Meyers is qualified to decide this large group of cases.
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