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.
http://www.aals.org/validity.html
Here's an analysis of the US NEWS Law School Criteria....and it's NOT positive.
I and many others angry about this aren't angry at Miers. How can we be, we know nothing about her. I am dissapointed with Bush. He picked her over several brilliant, conservative, constructionists, and most distressingly, made HIMSELF look weak in the process. If he is confident of his positions, and conservatism in general, nominate an obvious conservative. Show some stones. It will drive the dems crazy, and that is ALWAYS good for the Republicans.
We have one originalist on the bench, and one in the wings. I thought that's what we liked about Thomas and Scalia.
Please, you are tone deaf. Bush is feeling the heat. You are the minority opinion in this fight.
I agree. I've brought this up before, but I started seriously questioning Coulter's judgment when she compared standing in an airport security line to the Bataan Death March.
The hyperbole gets to be a bit much.
Now she's turned her personal attack guns on President Bush, and I don't find it the slightest bit clever or amusing.
Personal attacks are allowed for Christians only if you're Paul or Jesus.
LOL. That was good. I was going to write something similar but figured someone with better writing skills would hit it out of the park, whereas I would probably hit a chopper to shortstop.
Who cares? It isn't yours or Ann's choice. Miers is still a conservative pick. Try being happy about winning for once.
no, you are not bush bots for supporting her.
Where the "bush bots" comes in is when they attack those who dare question the logic behind her pick.
Seems like the folks willing to trust the president sometimes forget that the idea of a republic relies on public participation--citizens letting their elected officials know what they think. It isn't as if we elect a person into a vacuum where they can never learn their constituents wishes, and have to make decisions without knowing whether they will please the electorate or not. The whole idea of politics revolves around give and take, not just while campaigning, but also while serving.
That said, I disagree with Ann on every word she said. I'm disappointed in the president because he campaigned on Reagan's legacy and fell short of it. But in the case of the supreme court, I trust his character and his intentions. The fact that he chose a person of whom he has deep personal knowledge shows he took the nomination very seriously, and chose expediency over brazenness. I think most of us are just disappointed because we think we're not going to get the fight we've been itching for over the supreme court. We should relax; there's plenty of fighting left to do. We should be smart and aim it at the leftists.
Reagan revisionist religion now eh. It's applicable only when and for whom you deem is worthy.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I like Ann and time will tell if she is right. The SCOTUS is a lousy place to test untried people with lifetime appointments. A lot of people supported Bush this time around with the promise (from him) that he would appoint to the SC people in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. Ann's bio is below for those confused about her credentials to view and make their own decision about her qualifications to comment.
Ann Coulter is the author of four New York Times bestsellers —How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)(October, 2004), Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (June 2003); Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (June 2002); and High Crimes and Misdemeanors:The Case Against Bill Clinton (August 1998).
Coulter is the legal correspondent for Human Events and writes a popular syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate. She is a frequent guest on many TV shows, including Hannity and Colmes, Wolf Blitzer Reports, At Large With Geraldo Rivera, Scarborough Country, HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, The O'Reilly Factor, Good Morning America and has been profiled in numerous publications, including TV Guide, the Guardian (UK), the New York Observer, National Journal, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle magazine, among others. She was named one of the top 100 Public Intellectuals by federal judge Richard Posner in 2001.
Coulter clerked for the Honorable Pasco Bowman II of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and was an attorney in the Department of Justice Honors Program for outstanding law school graduates.
After practicing law in private practice in New York City, Coulter worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she handled crime and immigration issues for Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan. From there, she became a litigator with the Center For Individual Rights in Washington, DC, a public interest law firm dedicated to the defense of individual rights with particular emphasis on freedom of speech, civil rights, and the free exercise of religion.
A Connecticut native, Coulter graduated with honors from Cornell University School of Arts & Sciences, and received her J.D. from University of Michigan Law School, where she was an editor of The Michigan Law Review.
Ann is still throwing red meat out to hype herself. President Bush got John Roberts on the Supreme Court without her help and he will do the same with Harriet Miers. I think that Ann and her elitist friends are revealing their true colors in the way they are trashing and trying to minimize Miers in any way they can. I am quite convinced by the utter ugliness of their attacks on Miers that Pres Bush nominated the right person for the job of SC Justice. I would suspect the recommendations put forth by the spiteful, hateful pundits that admit they know noting about Miers but are so sure their preferred candidates are perfect for the job. What makes any of Miers attackers believe they are mentally equipped to judge her abilities? I am underwhelmed with the lot of them.
I find myself seconding your comments again.
That's an excellent analogy, I just hope Frank doesn't see it!
I agree, I find her petty and rude more often than not.
With Malkin at the wheel, ack. I hope you're right.
You are right. Or to use my own analogy, Bush promised 100% U.S.D.A. Red Meat and he is serving up Crony Balonley sandwiches.
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