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.
I have a feeling he has no interest in doing such.
I should have said her judicial philosphy.
Great qualifications do not guarantee a conservative judge or even a good one.
Or you can just listen to her calling for GWB's impeachment with your own little ears.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1496957/posts
Nice straw man argument, but let's stay on point here....maybe YOU would like to answer the following...
....just WHY should Conservatives have to be Miss Cleo to KNOW WHAT THEY ARE GETTING for all their hard work?
"Read my lips...she's another Scalia/Thomas!"
So...Does THIS make you feel comfortable?
Now, try and answer this WITHOUT diverting attention...if you can.
You are not alone. However, just as the Robert's hearings told you nothing about how he will vote on issues you consider critical, you can expect to learn little of substance on Miers' views. If she is confirmed, you will have to wait to see how she votes.
Bush tells us she will vote the way he wants her to vote. But I don't even know how Bush would vote on most issues. For example, if he were presented with the opportunity to overrule Roe v. Wade, how would he vote? Would Roberts vote to overrule that case?
I admit I don't know. Rummy says there are things you know, things you know you don't know, and things you don't know you don't know. How do Roberts and Miers fall in terms of those categories as regards how they will vote?
Guess you don't have a clue about the mind numbing issues that can come up before the Court.
Guess any truck driver can figure out the minutia of anti trust for example.
Ann jumped the shark when she started demanding that Bush be impeached.
You know .... I have been a huge fan of Ann Coulter but she lost me with that vicious statement. That is disgusting.
I am not a "Bushbot" but I get the feeling that she has some major league bitterness going on and this statement is disgusting.
I can see why the libs (and moderates) don't like her--she has a vitriolic tongue and recently, she is marginalizing herself with every column she writes.
'Wait nevermind, I think I mioght graduate your school of thought. Ok ahemmm its 73.4% in favor or are waiting for more information against your measily 23.2 % against her."
I take it that at your school, you graduated cum laude in eloquence.
No there's not. You have to fantasize that there is so that you'll at least have somebody to fight.
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.
More hyperbole. The apocalyptic handwringing coming from you guys is hilarious.
Boo freakin' hoo. I admit that it is sad how some turn on a dime against some of our most vocal and ardent supporters of conservatism, and Ann has been a wonderful and invaluable tool to both advance conservatism and rally our spirits. But after awhile Ann has indeed crossed too many lines too often lately. If she wants to swing zingers willy nilly at other conservatives, she can't expect not to get some backfire. And in fact she is a professional and tough, she can take criticism. Weak she is not.
Let's be honest, with her nonstop biting wit, and the reality that sooner or later she will disagree with (generic) you, it is easy for most guys to understand why she still isn't married. A good wife knows how to strongly make her point and then cut it off. AC might be wise to take that into consideration.
BTW, you might consider the law of diminishing returns, as in spamming the same message over and over doesn't strengthen it, but numbs your audience, who soon tunes you out. We are well aware of where you stand now on Harriet Miers.
That's absurd. What we KNOW about her is that she is a hand-gun toting, evangelical Christian conservative who has taken adament stands against abortion whenever she was given the option.
We know she is a highly regarded lawyer with a specialty in Contract Law (and if we could somehow get the SC to recognize that the Constitution is a contract and treat it as such we will have won the constitutional debate).
People close to her say she is an originalist (similar to Bork's stance). That fits in with her Contract Law background.
We know she's put before the President every justice he's nominated (which we've liked so much).
Ann Coulter accused the President of trying hand us a Souter during the Roberts nomination. BACK THEN she wanted a sure Conservative Vote on the courts. Now it seems Roberts is the MODEL for ALL justices. I don't recall Ann apologizing or admitting she was wrong about Roberts.
Now what sort of dream candidate were YOU looking for? I can guarantee the President has already seen his/her record. He settled on THIS one. The choice is his...not yours not mine not Ann's. This wouldn't have been my choice but then I haven't seen all the documentation on MY choice either. The President has, he selected THIS one, and there is NOTHING unsuitable (that I've seen so far) about THIS one.
We WON. We got our way. I wish somehow that Conservatives would learn to be happy with victory and not see it as a plot against them.
"Its not worth the argument with you if you do not understand that you are wrong."
Would it be worth the argument if I understood I was right?
Why don't you just say goodnight?
As a matter of fact, I'm listening to the interview you're talking about as I type. She was just making a quick facetious comment. She was telling conservatives not to take their ball and go home. She said, "You can write your Congressman, you can organize local meetings, you can start your own Impeach Bush committee, whatever, just don't give in to defeatism." It's a typical one of her off-beat ironic comments.
He says those who are criticizing do not know her and haven't worked with her. Sean is trying to argue with Starr, which is humorous.
I agree with you. Which is why I want to see Opinions and/or other published works.
I want a sense of how she reasons complicated issues.
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