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.
It won't take any writings to cast Miers as someone who will overturn Roe v. Wade. There is ample meat out there to have a legitimate basis for inquiry, and how she responds will be the key. Can she sell herself as someone who can't be read on the subject of abortion, as well as Roberts did?
If not, this may well turn into something that resembles a one issue debate in the committee, broadcast throughout the country, and then the scenarios you point out to deny her confirmation are likely to occur.
Miers has been doing "solid work", with whom?
Dead accurate though, wasn't it?
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.
I think it has been a while since anyone went to Coulter for legal service, but what you imply about Miers does not seem to be fact.
What baffles me about these proceedings is how seldom the text of the Constitution is brought before the nominee along with the questions 1.) who wrote these words? 2.) what does their author mean? and 3.) how would you apply these words in view of the current mileu? As it is, Biden likes to show his prose, Kennedy his belly, etc. while the nominee is subjected to questions over every tittle except what matters most: original intent.
That's to throw you off. : )
And this from a woman who earned her JD from Michigan. Last I checked, that's not exactly Ivy League. So what gives Ann the legal expertise to judge who is and isn't qualified to be on the high court? By her own admission, it isn't her non-Ivy League degree.
Dead accurate though, wasn't it?
It is straight out of DU-land. It makes me question Coulter's conservative credentials more than it does Miers's.
She "totally committed her life to Jesus," and tithed 15 percent of her after- tax income to her church. "Nothing she's asked to do in church is beneath her," he writes, citing an interview with Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, who attended the Valley View Christian Church in Dallas with Miers. "She's an originalist - that's the way she takes the Bible and that's her approach to the Constitution as well."
Source: Christian Science Monitor
"Personally attacking Republicans is her style? Well, her style sucks."
If a Republican is deserving of attack, then why not attack?
If she had said it just once, I would have stood up from my big fat Barc-o-lounger and pointed at the TV and said "ah-HA!" :)
Coulter sure isn't behaving like a conservative, and I seriously question her intellect. She's become only occasionally entertaining, and that's all.
I have no problem with a non-Ivy League justice. In my experience, the best qualities of a judge are good judgement and good temperament.
It doesn't take a lifetime of dedication to the intracacies of constitutional law to demonstrate good judgement, but it probably does take such dedication to be able to back up that good judgement with a writing that stands the test of time. Ivy League help will be there for the taking if she makes it to the bench.
Part of me thinks the left is convinced Bush actually overplayed his hand by appointing someone so close to him that they can cast as a real threat to Roe v. Wade. Howard Mean made the comment tonight that sometimes those who talk the most know the least.
Food for thought.
Sounds more like Olsen.
It's probably not a gamble in Bush's eyes, but we aren't him. He knew this would be a controversial pick, and he will have to live with the controversy. It comes with the plane.
She is bound to be better than O'Connor. Twenty years from now historians will be rdeading her stuff and wondering what the heck O'
Connor meant.
Since the Dems scorched Thomas, the Republicans have done quite well. Thats not the ONLY reason, but every little bit helps.
For the record, I hope we are getting an originalist, but all I have to go on is hope.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.