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 don't think we should spend our time and energy fighting amongst ourselves.
Look in a mirror, and read your post to yourself- oh witful one...
Barring something crazy, she's going to be confirmed, so it's moot. We should not spend time being uncivil to each other, (although I've seen some of that here) let's save that for our socialist friends, but disagreement is how we hash things out and come up with correct, workable solutions.
Seer, are you? Regardless, I do understand the unintentional savant mispell of "rdeading."
Have a nice day.
uh, sorry, you're assigning me to the wrong group.
I'm in the "there's not enough info" crowd, although I lean more negative since there's no real chance of getting more info.
BTW, if you lump the two most similar responses together, they outnumber the cheerleaders by 2 to 1.
"don't allow yourself to be guilted by this illiterate smuck."
Ah, more fine examples of christian behavior!
I appreciate gifts. Any day in particular- or would my "nice day", be your self anoited choice?
Can I get a validated coupon?
Don't be so sure... Hagel and McCain are running for the GOP nomination. They'd vote the political wind.
"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."
A lot of attorneys believe the University of Michigan's law school may be the best in the country. It certainly is in the top 5 in the country. (And I say that as a rival Buckeye.)
I have to say I side with many here who believe Ann Coulter is often shrill, irritating, and condescending. I agree with her more often than not, but generally dislike her demeanor. In this instance, I agree with the substance of her article completely.
Miers may be a excellent attorney, and she may possess loyalty and a good heart, but the Supreme Court is a special place that should be reserved for established jurists who have demonstrated superior legal analysis. It is no coincidence that the current members of the Court attended the best law schools (Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Northwestern), and all but O'Connor spent at least some time as appellate judges in the federal court system. (O'Connor was a state court judge, if I recall right.) As former Court of Appeals judges, they had plenty of experience analyzing and writing about complex issues, including constitutional issues. Many had distinguished themselves already as possessing sharp legal minds before ascending to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is an intellectual battleground, and a Justice who is not equipped with superior legal acumen will be dwarfed by the more accomplished jurists on that Court.
I understand the point many here have made about appointing someone from "outside" the usual list of suspects. I just don't believe it is wise. It's smart to appoint someone who "shares your views." But that isn't enough. A Supreme Court Justice should be someone who has written judicial opinions, preferably at the appellate level, demonstrating a deep understanding and command of Constitutional legal precedent. The choice of Miers is embarrassing and a sad indication of the poor judgment of this President and his advisors.
The key word is "personally".
I believe President Bush described her as a constructionist.
Miers is an originalist in the mold of Scalia and Thomas.
Oh but when you posted this personal attack about me:
"Don't waste your time on this stalking freak."...you seemed to see yourself as amusing and clever when in actuality it just showed you are a liar.
So much so that you followed Chad Fairbanks over to your beloved anti-freeper site and continued joining him spreading lies about me over there.
I see you are stirring up the pot on this thread with your hypocrisy:
"She didn't have to go there. She did. She deserves every word of criticism she's receiving. Period."
What Coulter did as a political pundit is mild compared to what you do to me and others when some dishonest person feeds you and Fairbanks lies.
You like Biblical references. Why don't you do something about that beam before you continue to rag on other people?
Why do you come back here? Not happy at your AF sites? They seem to work fine for you when people catch on to your self righteous, condecending attitude and you go there and complain about this site.
She's right, Williamson.
No, Stanford would be OK, for example. Meaning: excellence.
This may come as a shock to you, but far more than the text of the Constitution is studied by Supreme Court justices in the performance of their duties, and in the formation of their opinions.
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