Posted on 10/06/2005 6:13:22 AM PDT by ejdrapes
OCT. 6, 2005: RESPONSES Hugh Hewitt asks whether there isn't some personal animus or motive behind my comments on the Miers nomination. A number of readers have raised the same concern. I suppose it's a natural question. So let me answer for the record that my relations with Miers were always professional and correct when we worked together. I always thought she was a fine and decent person, and I have no personal animus or motive of any kind in this matter. And though this is probably unnecessary let me add here also: I have been and remain a supporter of this administration and this president. For the past three years, I have been speaking and writing in defense of this administration's goals and this president's character, not just in this country but around the world, most recently in for example The Financial Times. This summer I even proposed to do a documentary about decision-making inside the Bush administration, in hope of refuting once and for all the unfair stereotypes about the way in which it does its work. So if I don't dislike Miers and want the president to succeed, why am I speaking out? Aside from all the substantial reasons I have cited to date, I am speaking out because there are so many others who want to speak but cannot. I have spent many hours of the past three days listening to conservative jurists on this topic - people who have devoted their lives to fighting battles for constitutionalism, for tort reform, for color-blind justice, people who fought the good fight to get Bork, Scalia, Thomas, and now Roberts onto the high Court. Their reaction to the nomination has been almost perfectly unanimous: Disappointment at best, dismay and anger at worst. Here's the tough truth, and it will become more and more important as the debate continues: There is scarcely a single knowledgeable legal conservative in Washington who supports this nomination. There are many who are prepared to accept, reluctantly, as the president's choice. Some still hope that maybe it won't turn out as bad as it looks. But ask them: "Well what if the president had consulted you on this choice," and the answer is almost always some version of: "I would have thought he was joking." Why do so many fine conservative lawyers object to Miers? This oped by John Yoo gives a hint. John was one of the most brilliant lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice in the first Bush term. He was a stalwart defender of the president's war powers - and he has taken his share of abuse in the press for fighting for his conservative principles. Yoo's piece is very carefully phrased. Indeed, given the heavy hints that the administration has been throwing out recently, it must have taken strong courage for this man who is himself eminently qualified for an appellate judgeship, to have gone even as far as he did. But listen: "[A]ccording to press reports, she did not win a reputation as a forceful conservative on issues such as the administration's position on stem cell research or affirmative action." Yoo is referring here to the case of Grutter v. Bollinger, a challenge to the constitutionality of preferential treatment for minorities in education. Many in the administration wanted to take a strong stand in favor of color-blindness. In the end, the administration faltered and argued that racial preferences are okay, up to a point. It is hard to imagine a more central issue to modern legal conservatives. Where was Miers? On the wrong side. Inside the White House, Miers was best known, not as a conservative, not as a legal thinker, but as a petty bureaucrat. Read this article from a December 2004 article in the Legal Times about Miers' promotion to general counsel: "Her critics say the problem goes beyond what Miers does or doesn't know about policy -- and right back to a near-obsession with detail and process. "'There's a stalemate there,' says one person familiar with the chief of staff's office. 'The process can't move forward because you have to get every conceivable piece of background before you can move onto the next level. People are talking about a focus on process that is so intense it gets in the way of substance.' "One former White House official familiar with both the counsel's office and Miers is more blunt. "'She failed in Card's office for two reasons,' the official says. 'First, because she can't make a decision, and second, because she can't delegate, she can't let anything go. And having failed for those two reasons, they move her to be the counsel for the president, which requires exactly those two talents.'" The Washington Post reports that as staff secretary she was notorious for personally correcting the punctuation in White House memos. This is sadly true - and it is also true that in 14 months of working with her on punctuation, I never heard her say anything substantive about any policy issue, with one exception. Yoo again: "Another red flag for conservatives may be what is regarded as Miers's strongest credential: her work with the organized bar. Miers was elected president of the Texas bar and was a mover and shaker in the American Bar Association. Republicans have long criticized the ABA for politicizing the professional bar by taking positions on controversial social issues such as abortion and providing politically biased evaluations against Reagan-Bush judicial nominees. To be sure, Miers reportedly fought to allow the general membership to vote on the ABA's position supporting the right to abortion, a fact much trumpeted by Bush administration supporters yesterday. But she also apparently urged that the White House preserve the ABA's privileged role in reviewing the qualifications of judicial nominees." Some NRO readers have challenged me: Why should we trust you when you say that Miers is not qualified rather than trust the president when he says she is? My answer is: Don't trust me. Trust your own eyes. The woman is 61 years old, a lawyer for more than three decades. Can you see any instance in this long life and career where Miers ever took a risk on behalf of conservative principle? Can you see any indication of intellectual excellence? Did she ever do anything brave, anything that took backbone? Did anyone before this week ever describe her as oustanding in any way at all? If the answers to these questions is No, as it is, then you have to ask yourself: Why is a Republican president bypassing so many dozens of superb legal conservatives to choose Harriet Miers for the highest court in the land? I am not saying she is a Michael Brown. But I am saying she is being chosen for her next job in exactly the same way and for the same reasons that Michael Brown was chosen for FEMA. And that is not good enough for me. Is it good enough for you? Hugh Hewitt, you are a lawyer: Is it really good enough for you?
I totally agree. The pro Bush folks keep hammering on us saying that we have no choice and could never win that fight.
Maybe. (Of course if we had a Senate Majority Leader we could be a bit more confident...but that again goes back to Frist being teh White House's man). But...being true is sometimes better than winning. So we put up Luttig and lose. I think that's a fight we could be proud of and we can know that the legacy of losing that fight is further energizing to us down the road...geez...it's been 20 years since Bork and we are still fired up about that!!!
We shouldn't forget that Reagan attempted something great with a minority in the Senate.
Another point has been brewing with me today. There have been several books over the last two or 3 years which talk about "trust" and "credibility" as a character trait a CEO must have. GWB is supposed to be the consummate CEO, Harvard MBA and all that. Maybe he's not that much of a genius after all, b/c he or someone has failed to see that their abandonment of the conservative positions domestically has left him looking very, very untrustworthy, to put it politely. And it appears that he didn't know that that would spill over into this selection.
In that regard, this whole mess demonstrates a huge miscalculation and a big failure of leadership - or, rather, the logical result of an ongoing failure. Of course if the rocket scientists in the White House had understood this, they could have gone for a fight and got back a lot of that value. The timing would have been perfect.
Imagine...nominate JRB only a few weeks after a speech on Katrina that will live in infamy. ("institutional racism" and all that). Now THAT would have been brilliant.
And talk about uniting the conservative movement and leading them into battle.....that would have been fun, and would have helped us in 2006.
BTTT
Ah yes, Johnny Cockroach types of lawyers.
he left out leads with her chin...Frum is a sexist..lol
What is all this give let's hear more about her talk?
This is a done deal folks. Harry Reid nominated her first for Chrissakes.
I'm with you, for sure. I'm trying to settle in with the idea that perhaps the president just felt he didn't have a majority to get one of the names mentioned confirmed. Further more he didn't feel he had a majority leader with a fire in his belly that would scream and hoot and holler about it.
Not trying to plug anything here, I started a blog on Saturday night (just for myself honestly and to send to a friend, here or there) and I wrote about my desire to see Brown nominated.
http://buckeyeblogsite.blogspot.com/
I wrote about something similar you mentioned regarding Brown only I took the path that it would silence those who were screaming for a woman or a minority (the left) and it would make all or most conservatives happy. Now, when I say it would silence them, only in a 'surface' way, of course they would blow up D.C. if he had done that...
"BTTT"
Forgive me, but I don't know what that means.
That could be so...but you haven't convinced me it is so.
Bump To The Top
It means ....what you said....and in the old days kept a thread alive
Perhaps this is hearsay. But it is disturbing that so many people who have worked with Miers seem to be shaking their heads right now.
Perhaps this is hearsay. But it is disturbing that so many people who have worked with Miers seem to be shaking their heads right now.
No kidding. Can't even listen to Laura Ingraham today, unbearable in the trashing of the president and Miers.
Fact: Frum supports abortion.
Fact: Miers does not.
If Frum is not conservative on the most basic principle, I find his reasoning on what is or is not acceptable to conservatives suspect, in much the same way that I would not trust Katrina van den Heuvel's opinion on trade policy.
I like and have supported this president. But let's be honest: he's made mistakes. He's spent money wrekclessly on domestic spending. He's proposed an amnesty instead of fixing the border. And so on.
He's also done many good things. Including appointing a very solid cadre of lower court judges.
There's a general presumption of trust, but it oughtn't be absolute. This isn't an undersecretary cabinet position. It's a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. And we've been burned by Republican Supreme Court picks before.
Maybe some of us are hyperventilating a little too much. Maybe also those sticking up for the Prez might pause and consider, momentarily, whether maybe there might be just a slight bit of justification for the concerns being expressed about this nomination.
Are you listening to the same show I am? I've listened to her show every morning since the day Kerry picked "blow-hair" boy as his Veep. I haven't heard her rip the president or Miers, directly. She's been very reasoned in her argument and I certainly haven't heard her rip Miers schooling or anything. In fact, she started the show off today playing the clips from the Hume show last night and responding in her usual clever way (sound clips and all).
I did miss part of the second hour today though because the affiliate that I listen to dumped out of her show and jip'd President Bush's speech.
Did I miss something crucial?
I was thinking more along the lines of his hiring Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, Ashcroft, Goss, and Paige.
You've said this before. I'm not sure this is really saying anything, Sink. Most of what goes on at agencies like FEMA goes on regardless of who is in charge.
The real question is why a fired head of an Arabian horse breeder's association with no previous experience in relief efforts was qualified and selected to head a major government agency like FEMA.
It is indeed possible to ask this question while recognizing that a)Nagin and Blanco are incompetent stiffs and b) that FEMA failures in Katrina were considerably exaggerated.
Anyone who has relied on the judgment of a commanding officer in combat knows this is true. Once you trust the person's overall judgment you can move ahead. Without that trust the mission is never completed.
I have not always agreed with the President also; however, I do believe we should support him. Conditional loyalty is like conditional love--bound to be ephemeral and lacking in satisfaction.
It seems like Miers is Bush's replacement for Al Gonzales. . .he knows he can't nominate him because conservatives won't let him, EVEN THOUGH HE WOULD LIKE TO VERY VERY BADLY.
And if Al Gonzalez is Bush's kind of judge, why would anyone place blind faith in Bush that Miers is the kind of judge we want?
If you're really inclined to trust Bush on this, go back and look at some of his horrible personnel decisions. . .and don't forget that he thinks Alberto Gonzales should be on the court as well.
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