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.
On issues "other than civil rights issues"
besides, the guy did have a judicial record and Miers does not.
Your victim act is embarrassing.
Why Ann, because those "who went to elite universities" stolen our Constitution from us, forcing unvoted laws down our throats on the Death Penalty, Abortion, Pornography, Sodomy, Eminent Domain, etc. ?
Ann takes herself, and her purported intelligence, too seriously ...
Ummm, the jury's still out on Roberts, and will be for the next couple of years (think Souter).
Oh .. then do listen to this, where she calls for the President to be impeached
Ann Coulter's interview (audio link) from the Mike Rosen show - 10/04/05 (Harriet Miers)
Yes, it is true that the President was a drinker 20 years ago. But to make her point she didn't have to use the "boozing it up" phrase. She could have said "20 years ago" or "when his father was vice president" or "when his twins were babies" or any one of a number of time markers. Using the booze comment was deliberate, malicious, and unnecessary.
Then you missed the first sentence in her last paragraph:
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.
Ann has no idea of Miers' qualifications and no idea what Miers has done (except to cluelessly repeat and mock what she's heard about the 'Texas Lottery'). Does Coulter know Miers holds a degree in Mathematics? I'd say one has to have "giant brains" (that's Ann's phrase being cutesy smart and saying Miers doesn't have them) to obtain such.
She has really made a fool of herself with this "piece".
As to SMU's standing, I read yesterday that in the sixties when Miers attended it was well-respected. How foolish of Ann to cite current US News and World Report's current rating to dismiss the establishment.
Thank you. Excellent gif, too!
"doubt Bush thinks we are idiots. I do think he has made an error in this nomination. He made it to appease the left. What ever his reasons ... he ain't sayin. We've called him on it. It's now time to show his cards."
You people slay me....what evidence have you seen that leads you to believe Miers is anything but what Bush says she is. I was disappointed even pi$$ed at first but the more I have learned about Miers the better I feel about this nomination. What information do you have that I don't??
You're the one who brought up the Christian angle. Don't whine when it gets tossed back in your face in ways you didn't intend.
Ann is getting more hyperbolic with each passing year. I don't think she is much of a credit to conservatives any more - she seems more interested in generating heat than light.
One of the responsiblities of the president is to represent his party.
That is why he has the right to say "Trust me."
For all her edumikkkkkattttion........Ann doesn't know much about the role of the president.
Since all branches of government are controlled by his party, the SCOTUS pick mostly needs to be justified to his party members.
That is why he can say "Trust me."
If the Dems were in control of the Senate, it would be another matter.
I think Ann will be a liberal by the time she is 60. She is the type we need to watch out for.
History repeats itself:
United Press International
July 8, 1981, Wednesday, AM cycle
SECTION: Washington News
BYLINE: By WESLEY G. PIPPERT
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
In Texas, television evangelist James Robison expressed his support for Mrs. [Sandra Day] O'Connor based on a conversation Tuesday with presidential counselor Edwin Meese.
A Robison aide said Meese told the evangelist:
''Sandra O'Connor thinks abortion is abhorrent and is not in favor of it. She agrees with the president on abortion. There was a time when she was sympathetic toward the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) movement, but the more she studied and found out about it, the more she changed her mind.
''She is very conservative ... Sandra O'Connor assured the president that she was in agreement with him and she totally supports pro-family issues and the Republican platform.''
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1497224/posts#6
Ann has become the dowd of the conservatives...she's way out to lunch on this one...
All three of them are surely rolling in their grave.
Pssssssst.
Come closer...I have a secret.
Bush is not conservative. He threw his base under the bus becasue he is willing to fight for nothing.
Is their anything the defenders of this President will critique him on...CFR, Illegal immigration, not vetoing spending bills...
Buehler...Buehler.....Buehler
I've heard all that in the last three days. George Bush is not Superman. In case you haven't noticed, he's been a litlle busy lately with things like:
The War On Terror
War in Afghanistan
War in Iraq
Katrina & Rita
Nominations to the Court
Homeland Security
9/11 Commission
Senate Intelligence Committe on WMD
Abu Ghraid
John Bolton
Apellate Judges
Give it a rest.
The booze comment is the hyperbole that Ann is famous for. The hyperbole is to get a reaction ... and based on the reaction, it worked. Ann is ticked off. Sorry you don't like her target.
Right, they think he is Souteresk on all other issues besides civil rights. That's a pretty strong indictment. And it shows as I stated that the right had some serious skepticism concerning his judicial philosphy.
Here here! That's certainly what I was hoping for, not such a meek display from the President. The weakness of this nomination will only embolden the Dems.
I guess the real source of my unease over Miers is my disappointment in the President. Granted she ia a hard-working, loyal-to-the-President lawyer. Is that all it takes to be on the highest court? No editor of the law review, no arguing cases before the Supreme Court or any of the Federal appeals courts? Yes a nerd like Roberts, who hopefully will vindicate the President's faith in him, is exactly what you want. He's brilliant, but the fact that he aimed his entire career toward this appointment (my impression anyway) makes me a little uneasy.
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