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.
Neither managing partner or bar president qualify one for anything on the federal bench. WH secretary? Maybe that would qualify one for SC secretary. WH counsel? Maybe. How long has she been in that position?
It should be but the bullet in the head wing of the conservative movement will never see it as that, this is the wing that would literally take up arms and cause a second civil rather than to accept anything but an out and out Senate fight.
Nothing like seeing people downplay one of the most prestigious legal jobs in the country.
What are you talking about?
The fact is-and this is an inexorable fact, whether you choose to admit so or not-that there is an enormous chasm between us and you folks.
Call me crazy, but I don't think that driving a stake into the heart of the conservative movement is the most auspicious manner in which to inaugurate the confirmation process for a new Supreme Court vacancy.
John, I thnk you need to read a bit more. Miers practiced quite a bit of law. She is quite adept at cross-examination. She wasn't some sort of "office manager". My sister-in-law is a partner in a firm, and I can guarantee you that the head of the firm isn't the "office manager."
Working your ass off is now a criteria for the Supreme Court?
Does it have to be in the law or can a hard working waitress apply?
GOP majority myth -bump-
I disagree with your conclusion. Push hasn't come to shove, and it should on this matter.
Principle is the same.
I used to admired Ann, but her blistering insults and personal attacks laced with so much poisonous comments against Miers are more reminiscent of an angry spinster in heat than a civilized conservative lawyer.
She was wrong about Roberts, I'm sure she's wrong about Miers as well. And just for our amusement, here is Ann's comments regarding Judge John Roberts:
July 21, 2005
Souter In Roberts' clothingBy: Ann Coulter
After pretending to consider various women and minorities for the Supreme Court these past few weeks, President Bush decided to disappoint all the groups he had just ginned up and nominate a white male.
So all we know about him for sure is that he can't dance and he probably doesn't know who Jay-Z is. Other than that, he is a blank slate. Tabula rasa. Big zippo. Nada. Oh, yeah ... we also know he's argued cases before the Supreme Court. Big deal; so has Larry Flynt's attorney.
But unfortunately, other than that, we don't know much about John Roberts. Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Never. Not ever. LINK
Go to post 558 and then read my post again, you seemed to have lumped every single Miers supporter into a Bush-bot column which is plain silly, and its the same attack that you say the bush supporters are partaking in.
Good post, by the way.
Yup. Anyone who plays the "woof-woof" card of Arsenio Hall's dog pound the way she does deserves whatever she gets.
Her communicative style is generally that of a brawler. That's entertaining for some, I suppose, as she intends it to be. But I long ago stopped taking her opinions seriously because of the manner in which she expresses them. I've complained often enough about it, only to have her supporters say that she's not really trying to convince anyone in the middle. She's just trying to energize those who already agree with her.
So, if you happen to disagree with her, I see nothing wrong with returning the scorn she's heaping on you. Preferably accompanied by a few truckloads of double cheeseburgers.
Unfair to attack her for her appearance, you say? Well, she certainly tries to use her appearance when it benefits her, doesn't she? And if she tossing her looks into the ring, they're fair game too.
Nice selective quotations. Never mind the fact that people here are calling Coulter a wacko idiot, just like the Left, and that Coulter is chastising the President for not appointing someone like Brown. Don't hear that much from DUers.
You can prove anything with selective quotations, can't you?
Nothing like peeling off qualifications one at a time to attack them.
Go suck eggs. I have no desire to deal with your grade of deliberate stupidity here.
That's it.
Yep. Avenging Robert Bork (even though Bork is not worth avenging, given his 2nd amendment views) is all they think about.
Yeah, like the president of the United States is a slouch.
Are you and SabraAmerican tag-teaming your own grade of idiocy here?
Seems to me, in my view, we are protecting the conservative movement from committing hare kare. You guys think a full out battle at this time in history would be good when in reality it would set everything back 12 years.
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