Posted on 10/06/2005 8:33:48 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
My favorite supporting character in the legendary strip, “Peanuts,” is Pigpen. His unique trait is raising a cloud of dirt everywhere, even on a clean, dry sidewalk. Pigpen came to mind when I saw the White House Press Corps’ question President Bush Wednesday on his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
First, the status of the nomination. Monday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid held a nearly unprecedented press conference with Harriet Miers, just hours after her nomination. Reid said that she was an “exceptional” candidate, and “the sort of person who should be nominated.” In short, the leader of the opposition all but endorsed the nominee.
What’s the consequence of that? Slam dunk. A home run in the bottom of the ninth. Game, set and match.
When the general of the other side stands down, the battle is over. To be sure, leading Senators is like herding cats. Seldom will members of either caucus follow their leaders unanimously. Continued opposition is to be expected from Senators Kennedy, Schumer and Durbin.
But with Senator Reid withdrawing from the fray, Harriet Miers will be comfortably approved by Judiciary Committee, and confirmed with at least 70 votes in the Senate. Everyone who can walk and chew gum knows that this is true, as of the Reid statements on Tuesday afternoon.
So, how did many reporters react in the President’s press conference the next day? They became political Pigpens, raising clouds of dirt on a dry sidewalk. Questions about the Miers nomination dominated the conference. Here are three representative ones:
“Q: ....Many conservative women lawyers have expressed their extreme distress that you chose as a woman nominee for the court someone whose credentials did not come close, in their view, to the credentials of John Roberts. They feel as though it's, kind of, old-fashioned affirmative action, women don't have the same credentials.”
“Q: You said several times now, sir, that you don't want a justice who will be different 20 years from now than she is today. Given that standard, I wonder in hindsight whether you think the appointment of Justice David Souter then was a mistake.”
“Q: Some conservatives have said that you did not pick someone like Scalia and Thomas because you shied away from a battle with the Democrats. Is there any truth to that? And are you worried about charges of cronyism?”
These and similar questions introduced all of the themes which Democrat Senator outliers began to raise Monday in a speech by Senator Schumer (perhaps prepared in advance). Those themes have continued to date. But after Senator Reid’s comments on Tuesday, they are irrelevant to the outcome.
The press had made much of the opposition of the likes of Eugene Delgadio and Pat Buchanan. I know both these gentlemen who are off the reservation on the hard right. Their remaining supporters, combined, are insufficient to sway the vote of a single Republican Senator. It’s just Pigpen journalism.
The first question above is an insult to all women lawyers, all women judges, and the two women who have served as Justices. It is Pigpen journalism.
The third question assumes Harriet Miers is not like Justices Scalia and Thomas. Yet as the President patiently explained, repeatedly, on Tuesday, he knows Miss Miers well and worked with her on legal issues for ten years. He knows she will “follow the law” and not “legislate from the bench.” Pigpen, again.
The “Souter” and “cronyism” are inversely related. The first President Bush nominated Justice Souter, who turned out the opposite of what he expected, on recommendations by Chief of Staff Sununu and former Senator Warren Rudman. Those recommendations were dead wrong. But this President Bush is not relying on recommendations.
Anyone with an ounce of managerial experience who’s worked with someone for ten years, WILL know their basic philosophy. Miss Mier’s philosophy is that judges should respect and enforce the law, not rewrite it from the bench. And that is the philosophy of Scalia and Thomas. Again, Pigpen.
Last is the cronyism charge, based on the fact that the President has known the nominee a long time. “Crony” is a charged word, one step shy of being a henchman of a burglar. Would one entrust ones money to a crony of Ken Lay of Enron? Of course not. But what about a crony of Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway? That way leads to wealth and success. Again, Pigpen journalism.
Harriet Miers will be comfortably confirmed. She’ll serve with distinction for a generation. And the false sniping of the press will prove meaningless.
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
Outstanding as usual.
There you go. Sometimes the truth is so simple it would not give Harvard alumni anything to blab about so they can't see it.
She's a pro-life vote, Bush knows it, and she's stealth for the Dems in the Senate.
That's smart politics and I don't give a hoot whether she is brilliant or not.
Talk about evidence of "accomplishment". Try this: the empirical data PROVES there is zero correlation between a SCOTUS justice's resume and their ability to read the Constitution.
So here we are, having conniptions over an element that has PROVED to be immaterial.
Thanks, I hope you are right.
Another take on the current rabble running through the 'take our ball and go home crowd'.....
The acknowledged Demo strategy for Bush's swing-vote nomination was going to be instantaneous, full on attack. The Demo strategists felt they were too slow out of the blocks with Roberts and never got any traction to oppose (read falsely vilify) him. What Bush did by choosing Miers was totally disruptive of the Demo plan. He froze them. He sowed confusion in their ranks. They still haven't regained their footing, and it'll probably be too late for them once they do. Congressman BillyBob deftly used a Peanuts character to explain the press pundits. In that vernacular, what Bush did to the Demos was akin to Lucy pulling the football out from Charlie Brown's umpteenth vain attempt to finally make a solid kick. Again, poor Charlie finds himself lying flat on his back, trying to figure out what went wrong, while Lucy smirks in satisfaction.
Snork.
That's right up there with Lilek's comment yesterday about giving Souter a turbo-wedgie.
Congressman Billybob, I appreciate it. It was pretty refreshing to hear someone disagree with those of us that are opposed to [insert term: mediocrity, cronyism, blank-slatism] without calling us names.
I'm hard pressed to think of ONE "conservative" commentator whose opinion I need to make up my own mind.
This is most definitely not confined to the "fringe".
Yes, it is.
Yep. These two nominations do not represent that fundamental a shift in the Court. After all, O'Connor voted the right way with Kelo and Gonzales. And as you said, Roe v. Wade won't be overturned, but instead nibbled to death.
But if we get a chance to replace a retiring liberal ... hoo, boy.
I think that the best answer to this was given by Justice Joseph Story, Chief Justice Madison's great colleague.
In the first place, then, every word employed in the constitution is to be expounded in its plain, obvious, and common sense, unless the context furnishes some ground to control, qualify, or enlarge it. Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercises of philosophical acuteness, or judicial research. They are instruments of a practical nature, founded on the common business of human life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings. The people make them; the people adopt them; the people must be supposed to read them, with the help of common sense; and cannot be presumed to admit in them any recondite meaning, or any extraordinary gloss. --Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, I. V. 451. XV
Despite your correspondent, George Will, Ann Colter, et al., the authentically conservative position on constitutional interpretation is that it ain't nuclear physics, it's a matter of common sense!
Having read your own opinions and books over the years, and knowing that you have argued cases before that Supreme Court, your thoughts on this subject are of far superior value than those of the talk show pundit critics of this nomination.
On another thread on this subject, I wrote the following:
So-called conservative "talking heads" who are attacking this nominee and this President are not displaying loyalty to the Founders' Constitution and to the principles of liberty, but to their own little interpretation of what it means to be labeled a "conservative."
Thomas Jefferson recognized an important fact about his critics:
"When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground," he said.
President Bush may take comfort in Jefferson's observation as he hears harsh criticism of those who, claiming a label of conservatism, fail to "command a view of the whole ground."
You are correct, also, about the knowledge that an executive gains about the strengths and weaknesses of a person gained from working closely with and relying on the judgement of that person over a number of years--particularly when that work involves precise interpretations of the meaning of the Constitution of the United States Constitution, as it applies to real life situations and government. That knowledge is worth far more for decision-making purposes than the recommendations of a thousand politicians and pundits!
Hey, if you need simple, I'm your man :^)
Yeah, that almost made up for all her years of mushyness on social issue-type decisions.
Almost...
BTW! I note that most, if not all, of the sniping from the right comes from blue blood elitist who seem to believe that ANYONE who studied outside the august halls of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Brown are automatically unqualified to serve on the Supreme Court!
So, you would define fringe as:
1/2 of FR, Limbaugh, Will, Krauthammer, Ingrahm, Tony Snow, the editors of National Review?
Would you always have considered them fringe, or is it their actions here tha have you defining them as fringe?
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