Posted on 10/06/2005 7:15:47 PM PDT by jdhljc169
Today's Chronicle of Higher Education has a story that describes Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' involvement with a lecture series at her alma mater, SMU Law School. The inaugural lecturer? Gloria Steinem. I've played these games in law schools, and this story sends up red flags for me. Here's my take on it ...
I was reserving judgment, but after having read the Chronicle article (and given conservatives' skittishness about her already), I think she's a non-starter. Miers may be a very nice person - and by all accounts she is. But she has never served as a judge, and while I do not think that an attorney must have been a judge in order to be an excellent justice, I do think that if you want to be certain of a nominee's views on the proper role of the judiciary, you better have seen them in action as a judge.
We haven't. And absent that, we must look to other events in Miers' professional life to ascertain her perspective. To that end, the Chronicle article is instructive:
In the late 1990s, as a member of the advisory board for Southern Methodist University's law school, Ms. Miers pushed for the creation of an endowed lecture series in women's studies named for Louise B. Raggio, one of the first women to rise to prominence in the Texas legal community ...Ms. Miers, whom President Bush announced on Monday as his choice to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, not only advocated for the lecture series, but also gave money and solicited donations to help get it off the ground ... A feminist icon, Gloria Steinem, delivered the series's first lecture, in 1998. In the following two years, the speakers were Patricia S. Schroeder, the former Democratic congresswoman widely associated with women's causes, and Susan Faludi, the author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991). Ann W. Richards, the Democrat whom George W. Bush unseated as governor of Texas in 1994, delivered the lecture in 2003.
Having served on the faculties of three law schools, I can tell you that if you are an academic of the conservative political persuasion, this is the way you play the game: you call things by the terms the liberal academic establishment uses ("Gender Studies," "Women's Studies," etc.) and then you bring in lecturers and provide content that challenges their prevailing "wisdom."
There must be dozens -- hundreds -- thousands -- of conservative female attorneys, politicians, pundits and successful business owners in this country who would be wonderful role models for female SMU law students. If Miers pushed for the creation of a lecture series to honor Texas' first and finest female attorneys, and the series brought in the likes of Steinem and Faludi, then I know as much as I need to know about this woman.
Stick a fork in her. She's done.
ok.
I was hoping Bush would select someone about Roberts' age, but Miers' mother is still alive at 93, so she could be around a long time. Miers is about the age Ginsburg was when she was named to the Court in 1993.
JLS made this intesting point on another thread:
A thread that goes through Bush's two appointments to SCOTUS is they currently live in DC. His reasoning might well be, if they were likely to go native, they would have by now. This more than anything else has been the GOP problem with SCOTUS appointments, people from Arizona, Minnesota, New Hampshire, even Boston going native when the start working inside the beltway.
This is not a job that depends on personality (Peggy Noonan, referred to this aspect earlier today.) This woman clearly lacks credentials, ain't got nothing on the resume to show she's qualified. We should all be so lucky when applying for a dream job. Me, I'd luv to direct a movie. I did play the lottery once and I'm willing to convert to the Church of the Holy Roller! I promise to be against abortion and gun control too!
There is a boogie man in your closet.
Are you saying Janice Rogers Brown is not a Libertarian?
It's a source of pride for me to belong to a party that speaks it's mind freely on issues and opens up debate. Sheeple we are not. However.....
Judging a nominee on qualifications before hearings even take place are beneath us. Wait for the hearings and THEN debate it. Where she got her law degree or who she did/ didn't clerk for tell us nothing. She will speak very soon. Until then she deserves the benefit of the doubt.
To begin with, I wouldn't trust the spin from CHE as it has been a notorious organ of leftwing distortion. If this author wants to be seen as such a self-important law school teacher she ought to know enough to check out the accuracy of the details. Being one member of an advisory board, for example, is probably far different than being responsible for deciding who gets picked for a speakers' series.
There are a lot of little things that are adding up to make me more ill at ease with her nomination.
Like her vetoing the white house christmas card one year because they were 'too christian'.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1498078/posts
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I worked with Miers at the White House. Though my interaction with her was limited, since I was merely a Presidential Writer and she was the Staff Secretary, I had a unique experience with her. In 2001, I was given the task of writing the President’s Christmas message to the nation. After researching Reagan, Bush, and Clinton’s previous Christmas messages, I wrote something that was well within the bounds of what had been previously written (and in case you are wondering, Clinton’s messages were far more evangelical than the elder Bush’s).
The director of correspondence and the deputy of correspondence edited and approved the message and it was sent to the Staff Secretary’s office for the final vetting. Miers emailed me and told me that the message might offend people of other faiths, i.e., that the message was too Christian. She wanted me to change it. I refused to change the message (In my poor benighted reasoning, I actually think that Christmas is an overtly Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Christ and the beginning of the redemption of man.).
The director and deputy of correspondence supported me. I even emailed Ken Mehlman (then the Political Director at the White House, now the Republican National Committee Chairman), to see what he thought about the message. He was not offended by it in the least. Miers insisted that I change the tone of the message. I again refused, and after several weeks, the assignment was taken out of my hands. I was later encouraged to apologize to Miers. I did not apologize.
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"In an initial chat with Miers (Leahy), according to several people with knowledge of the exchange, Leahy asked her to name her favorite Supreme Court justices. Miers responded with "Warren" -- which led Leahy to ask her whether she meant former Chief Justice Earl Warren, a liberal icon, or former Chief Justice Warren Burger, a conservative who voted for Roe v. Wade . Miers said she meant Warren Burger, the sources said."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100601713.html?nav=rss_nation/special
I can open my closet and check if I'm really that concerned. How the hell do I check on Harriet Miers?
This concerns me too:
"In an initial chat with Miers, according to several people with knowledge of the exchange, Leahy asked her to name her favorite Supreme Court justices. Miers responded with "Warren" -- which led Leahy to ask her whether she meant former Chief Justice Earl Warren, a liberal icon, or former Chief Justice Warren Burger, a conservative who voted for Roe v. Wade . Miers said she meant Warren Burger, the sources said."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100601713.html?nav=rss_nation/special
Fur Shur, Ms. Miers isn't going to be poisoning her husband.
Please, I have a hard enough time putting up with Commie Katie's regular disrepectful ways of addressing the President. Can't we at least have enough respect for the office on this board to refer to him as President Bush?
Constitutional law, which I teach as my first intelllectual love, demands a commitment to first principles, not to results. If the principles lead to a result one does not like, one stays with the principles, one does not ignore the settled, established,, and known principles of the law to reach the desired result.
Nope, she will be confirmed easily. While I'm sure most senators wouldn't have any qualms about beating up a little old lady, they know it wouldn't look good.
Ridiculous. That is a specific spot in the Division of Labor which requires skills not translatable to the Supreme Court anymore than a Justice could run a company.
"Well he can hit a baseball so why don't we make him an offensive lineman." makes as much sense.
No, dipsh*t, he didn't. He made his horse Emporer. But he could have done worse. He could have annointed you.
Correct, and if she fails to meet the challenge I will not favor her appointment.
I can't imagine anyone here expecting less or not feeling insulted if the selection was one of them.
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