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.
One thing this entire thread has shown. We are all passionate about our nation. It is a great nation, and whatever the hell Mier turns out to be, our nation will continue.
Enjoyed the debate and to all good night.
Oh, I see. You're a self-appointed "true conservative", and so is she, and you all know everything about Harriet Miers...and anyone who takes a positive attitude, or even a "wait and see" attitude must be a squishy moderate or a liberal. Gotcha.
How do you know Nominee Miers is an originalist?
Maybe she is Todd. That'd be some kinda twist, huh? LOL
At least we eat and drink, your hero, skin and bones coulter just vomits, in more ways than one.
I don't pretend to be a legal expert. My degree was in the sciences, and although I am quite interested in the Supreme Court appointments, until President Bush nominate the judges that were filibustered, I couldn't have named 5 judges in the whole country other than the Supreme Court.
That is why I have to take the word of someone else about this appointment. I choose to believe those I listed. You can choose to believe Ann Coulter if you like. I bellieve Ken Starr's opinion is as valid as hers.
I don't think so. Bush knows where he is going. The left doesn't have a clue. Bush also happens to understand that he does not serve a single segment of the people of the United States of America, but all of us together, diverse as we are. That requires some latitude. Granted he pisses us off in some ways, but he is NOT AFRAID. In fact, fear is the last thing this nomination evidences.
This is a claim by Marvin Olasky, another Bush advisor who has been talking to people who know her personally. However, I am certain Bush knows what she is. She helped him pick ever judicial nominee that we liked so far. I also know that Bush and Miers know all the pros and cons for every potential nominee.
This is the one Bush felt the most comfortable nominating.
In a word, yes. These two things fulfill what is required not only of us as a people, but also those who hold the offices designed to serve our interests.
I did not say I agreed with Ann Coulter. I was just posing a question.
That's interesting. If she really meant it, it would seem that she's actually out to make a name for herself and not truly married to a political philosphy. I sincerely hope we don't have another Arianna Huffington in the making.
I probably will not live that long, being a little long in the tooth.
So, Our US President does not have to answer or be held accountable by US?! Where in the hell of Constitutional Law is that Royal Right defined, azzhat?
I do not know how Ms Miers career achievements will impact or qualify her for the Supreme Court. My comments re: her work history were in reference to Ann Coulter's selective use of Ms Miers resume...omitting certain facts which in the time period they occurred, showed at the least a strong, capable, and well respected woman. Ann should have acknowledge those qualities, and then continued to tear apart the nomination as best suited her.
Again, I probably would have selected someone else. I'm trusting the President. And has I typed earlier to someone....I'm planning on living long enough (hopefully unless the Lord has other plans) to see how this nomination works out. In truth, from the beginning, I've had a nagging worry about Roberts...so I'm probably just confused all the way around.... I just did not like Ann Coulter being so disrespectful of someone who'd been out there doing solid work for over thirty years...
Could be, but she never ends revelations with the phrase "...BUT GOOD!"
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