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.
Thanks for the vodka on my monitor and a good laugh, but not in that order.
or how Ford gave us carter.
Or how Ohio bacame a swing state because a rino like Taft was running it, along with the senate rinos.
Or countless other examples from around the country.
The thing is they will campaign like conservatives and govern like RINOs. They know that campaigning that way will get them votes, but make excuses as to why they can't actually govern that way once in power.
"That is baloney. Everyone knew Thomas was a conservative. Why in the hell do you think the democrats dredged Anita Hill up out of the sewer to attack him?"
OH really....here's a quote from NRO in 1991 on Thomas
"Truth be told, however, his public record on issues other than civil rights is still more Souteresque than Borkian"
NRO Editors
here's the article if you choose to verify:
http://nationalreview.com/flashback/editors200510040807.asp
Stiffed?
Not yet...unless you have a crystall ball in your pocket.
Hang tough...the bulldog in size 6 shoes has not had a chance to apeak to us. She may politely wipe the floor with some of the senators who regularly lead with the BUTT in the air.
The Prez may have picked a ringer...time will tell.
Yeah. I'll just bet he's laying awake at night, worrying about what you constipationists think.
Sheesh.
Taft had more to do with it than Voinowimp and DeWhine combined....
That is absolutely right. Bush should have known better. He must think all of us are idiots. I cringe when I hear him say "I found the most qualified nominee in the whole nation, and golly, she just happened to be working for me right in my own office."
"I could accept .... I could accept .... But I can't accept ...."
Luckily, no one who matters really gives a ratsass what you can accept.
Although it sounds like alot of fun.
I tend to agree with you. No guarantees that Bush will have another seat to fill. In fact, I suspect Stevens and Ginsburg will do all they can to hold on until after 2008.
I am taking a wait and see attitude on Ms. Miers for now, and will be following the committee hearings with interest. She may well be qualified for the court, but there is no doubt that cronyism played a role in her selection. I am dismayed, though, at the signal it sends to young conservative judges/attorneys who aspire to be on the court someday. That to be considered by a Republican president (with a Republican senate majority!) you have to be fly under the radar, keeping your strong conservative credentials as low profile as possible.
While I supported Roberts going on the court, I would have preferred that Bush not move him into Rehnquist's position as CJ, and promoted Scalia instead to CJ. At this point in time, it seems that replacing Renhquist and O'Connor with Roberts and Miers will have little impact on the overall makeup of the court, while promoting Scalia to Chief, replacing O'Connor with Roberts, and selecting a solid proven conservative (JRB, Owen, Luttig) to fill the open seat would have definitely moved the court to the right. This was one big reason why I voted for Bush, because he promised to appoint judges in the Scalia/Thomas mold. Miers may or may not be in that mold, but we shouldn't have to wait ten years to find out.
Yes. Please see my post #244.
Ann has pretty much distilled my frustration into this article.
It hurts to hear her talk about the President like this but the President doesn't care and now that my two favorite conservative 'babes' [Peggy Noonan & Ann Coulter] have ripped him to shreds I guess I will have to get used to home team slapping the coach.
Yeah.....just put some ice on it!!
Good Lord! Did Coulter really make that comparison?
Coulter only knows how to "march" from her stool at the bar to the cigarette machine, and back.
Go ahead and edit it, Wikipedia is a user-edited encyclopedia, so if you see something wrong change it.
Just an aside on Sandy Berger... it just came across on local radio here in the DC area that he was cited for reckless driving in Fairfax County today, ninety in a fifty-five mph zone, and will have to go back before the Judge!
Please clarify....just WHY should Conservatives have to be Miss Cleo to KNOW WHAT THEY ARE GETTING for all their hard work?
Sorry, a wink and a nod from ANY politician, and I start counting the silver!
"Read my lips...she's another Scalia/Thomas!"
Does THIS make you feel comfortable?
What will happen?...My guess they will find a home somewhere and be devoid of power for eternity.
So he called the press conference today out of fondness for the press?
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