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.
Right on Ann!
Personally, I suspect the higher ranked the law school is, the more likely it is to be chock full of certifiable lunatics (faculty, mostly).
There's nothing wrong with picking a person from a real American school.
The Hildebeast went to Yale and she is qualified to . . . whaaa?
I am a partner in a large law firm. A former president of my state bar association is my friend and neighbor. I am not convinced that service as either a manager of a large firm or president of a large state bar association is either indicative of, or likely to impart, the qualities needed in an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Nope, I dont peruse those threads because here religiosity shouldnt have a bearing on whether or not she would be a good justice.
But it seems to me that you wish to not even partake in any discussion on this matter, you guys immediately began the full frontal insult assault with in seconds of her nomination, and frankly it isnt very becoming of you or any body else on this site. We were supposed to be better than DU but lately many of you guys are no different than them.
ROFLMAO
I generally adore Ann, and I think she went to Colgate if memory serves correctly....
Not to be rude, but can anyone tell me what rank she happens to be?
You're exactly right about the law school rankings.
Thank Pookie18'for that one.
yes, your behavior would be funny, if it wasn't so pathetic.
I agree that she wrote an opinion piece. Of course, so did you, and everyone else here. That's the problem! Bush could have picked someone with facts behind them. Then, we could all discuss facts. But he picked a nobody (in the public record sense). She is not one of the top 100 legal minds in this country, by anyone's standards, and that would seem to be a logical place to start when you are filling a job that only 8 other people in the country do.
A spelling error? Really? LOL. After what she said about the "which" and the "that"?
So much better since she had porcelain veneers put on her old rotten stained teeth.
She makes a living being outrageous. This is not helpful.
Brilliant strategy.
Your latest article has been posted on Free Republic were you will be idolized as long as you think exactly like the posters here. But if you dare to utilize your intellect and your decades mired in the fight to advance the Conservative Cause, you will be treated like a hysterical lunatic or a premenstrual maniac.
So in the future Ms. Coulter, please only publish articles that adhere strictly to the RNC talking points and leave the rest on your legal pad. Because we all know, the only "real" Republicans are those who believe 100% of what they are fed by Ken Melhman, Dan Bartlett and Scott McClellan. There is no room in the "Big Tent" party for people who think (or color) outside the lines.
Warmest Regards, The "Right" Thought Police
You need to come downh off your high horse and stop with the Christianity straw man
I agree with you, and disagree with Ann, on the "ivy league" part (disclaimer: I have an ivy league Sc.B.). But ignoring the ivy league bit, the fact remains that we need someone who will apply the Constitution with knowledge and wisdom, and it's not too much to ask that Bush pick someone with the K&W for the job. There's no evidence that Miers is such a person, and like Ann I can't accept Presdient Bush's "trust me". He's let us down too many times already.
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