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.
Ann Coulter thinks the Constitution of the United States requires that someone graduate from an Ivy League school in order to serve on the Supreme Court. Wrong, the Supreme Court is far too lacking in common sense more often found at places like SMU.
Ivy League schools are festering cauldrons of boiling liberal sewage. Sometimes, as in Ann's case, bright people recognize fallacy that infests those places and they adopt a good conservative philosophy. Usually, the blue-state bastions of liberal brainwashing produce dolts.
The dumbest people I know graduated from the Ivy League. And yankee elitism is so not becoming Ann Coulter.
Bush may be bad on spending and bad on the border issue, prescription drugs. But one area he has done very well in is the Judiciary, off the top of my head I cannot think of one terrible pick for the bench yet(mostly because they were chosen by Miers, but we didnt know that) yet she is nominated some people cry foul, and its ironic.
Thanks for the explanation. I totally agree.
"It's not that we don't trust him to get it right; we don't even trust his intentions."
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Sounds as if you are abandoning ship.... Have you truly loss faith in our President? He was given the power to make these decisions by the people...he has made them. No one said everyone is going to like any or all of them.
His only requirement is to do what he thinks is best for the American People. He won't deliberately and with malice of forethought make a mistake. Let this play out.
We need to continue to pray for him.
I don't tolerate extremism on either end of the spectrum. The Libertairians and Constitutionalist combined can't get 5% of the vote. That should give you a bit of perspective as to how much "power" the fringe wields.
Again, "they started it" is not a Christian defense when it comes to personal attacks.
Either act like a christian or don't say you are one. That's the issue.
But it's little more than a side attraction... and interesting behavior pattern to note.
In other word, "Trust Bush."
Thanks for nothing.
Alot of us are saying the same thing. Bush's defenders are tone deaf. To quote El Rushbo ... I can't wait for the "See I told you so" when this is over.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
The analogy fits!
She is a close associate of this President. Bush has not let us down with his Court of Appeal appointees and he did not let us down with John Roberts. Bush knows this lady like none of us do. I think we owe it to Bush to give him the benefit of the doubt. He is the one who is consitutionally charged with making this appointment. He knew he'd take a lot of heat over it. She will be confirmed. So you and Ann need to get over it. Go eat a twinkie.
It is obvious that Republications feel that they do not need Conservatives to retain power and have taken over this site.
Most of them probably never heard of Ross Perot or remember how the Reform party ensured the loss of Bob Dole and gave us 8 years of Clinton.
See what happens when the "fringe", as you call it - the republican base - becomes demotivated because the party abandons them.
You don't have to theorize that one - it's happened over and over again.
Hint: It's not a pretty site.
Yes! And who better than a trial lawyer to know how to deal with them? I think it's very interesting that for the first time in 25 years, Bush is appointing somebody with actual courtroom experience.
Don't forget that much of the "law" that proceeds from the Supreme Court comes from cases conducted by trial lawyers. We have had "scholars" in charge for a long time, and you all see where that has gotten us.
As for Anne Coulter, I think she's said a few good things, many stupid things, and I certainly don't think she's sacred. But then, I'm not a guy, so perhaps the magic is wasted on me.
She quit smoking!
Just a slight left-leaning bias. ;)
In any case, it's ADVISE and consent.
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