This is the most compelling criticism of the Meiers nomination to date. She will probably have to recuse herself from deciding any case involving national security issues on which she advised President Bush, like the question of whether the Geneva Convention should apply to illegal combatants. Hence, a justice who would otherwise be vital to preventing the ACLU and others from sabotaging the WOT will be indefinitely sidelined.
Quite a horrific thought.
Maybe all we can hope is for:
Bush-Clinton-Bush-Bush
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1497734/posts
Previous thread
Is this true that Harry Reid suggested her?
Unfortunately, this might be the most conservative administration that we're going to have for awhile. That's a sobering thought.
What is doubly horrifying about this is the fact it is HER job to expose and explore any such conflicts with Supreme Court Justice nominees and the White House. This doesn't bolster the idea that she has a particularly nimble legal mind or she has a problem with ethics. Either one is tragic.
I'm amazed at how the paper conservatives are reacting to a Supreme Court nominee. All of them look like they are on the verge of tears. Miers is very much like O'Conner. That breaks the heart of the paper conservatives because,like the lefties, they want some Founding Daddy wannabe to shield them from the unwashed masses. Tom Wolfe just wrote a great novel- "I am Charlotte Simmons." You could call this Supreme Court saga- "I am Harriet Miers." Dallas City Council? Eeooowwww... get her sexiled from the Supreme Court!
I've commented negatively on the Meirs nomination mostly because of her age and also because I really wanted the fight but ... The notion that few know here is not necessarily bad. No one knows me. I didn't go to an Ivy and I'm not even a lawyer, but except for the very left of my friends few who know me would be upset if I were nominated. I really think that we need non-lawyers on the Court. The Constitution is really a much simpler document than the pointy-headed-intellectuals would have one believe. Their belief that all these issues are too complicated for the unwashed is one of the most important problems we have with the Court. If issues were really decided upon the law almost all decisions would be 9-0 or 8-1. They're not. Krauthamer and Coulter are just wrong. I can read briefs, read the law, and take the advice of clerks who are lawyers. That's enough. The rest has much more to do with whether one can put his/her personal beliefs aside.
ML/NJ
Forgive my ignorance
Can you explain this a little more? Does the constitution say she must recuse herself? Does some law say she must recuse herself?
Who's going to make her recuse herself?
This, say her advocates: We are now at war and therefore the great issue of our time is the Article II powers of the president to wage war. For four years, Miers has been immersed in war-and-peace decisions and therefore will have a deep familiarity with the tough constitutional issues regarding detention, prisoner treatment and war powers.
Perhaps. We have no idea what her role in these decisions was. But to the extent that there was any role, it becomes a liability. For years -- crucial years in the war on terror -- she will have to recuse herself from judging the constitutionality of these decisions because she will have been a party to having made them in the first place. The Supreme Court will be left with an absent chair on precisely the laws-of-war issues on which she is supposed to bring so much.
This is actually a fairly straightforward issue. If they are illegal combatants, they are not protected. If you are at all familiar with the Geneva Conventions, the media and the ACLU would not be able to confuse you.