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.
I have no idea. I'm sure there are many cases Warren weighed in on....but maybe it wasn't his opinions but other aspects of the way he exercised his career...ask Ms. Meirs.
But tell me this....why would anyone think it was due to his pro-roe vote if Ms. Meirs was active in the pro-life movement?
What qualifications does the US Constitution say she needs? Anything else is your opinion and subjective.
This should get it's own thread. If we could avoid the vitriol, there could be a good discussion of the meaning of this testimony, which we have to assume accurately reflected her opinions in 1990 since she was under oath.
I agree with some of what she said (I imagine I would get disgreement with some here), and disagree with other parts.
However, supporting something as a councilman is not the same as ruling on it as a judge. You might push for something in court that you wouldn't call a right.
Someone needs to ask her about this, and what she now thinks, at the hearings. Add this to the list of questions...
---it's just damned sour to have to drink down this crap after so many years and so many elections and campaigns---
And so, so many promises.
"Just wait until we have control of the senate..."
Yea, too bad Reagan didn't pick a person he had a personal relationship of 10 years with in order to really know, rather than having to take a guess after a 1-hour meeting.
Oh, I'm sorry. You posted this for the anti-harriet side. It's rude of me to steal it. Go on, nothing to see here....
Yer showin' yer colors, newbie!!!
I have read all the Federalist and studied extensively the life of its principal author. There is not a thing in either which contradicts any thing I have espoused. Hamilton is revered by me and I have fought many a battle here with some of your allies over him. But the fact is that his life is a story of using the influence of powerful people he attached himself to in order to further his career. This started as early as his days in St. Croix where the Governor started a private subscription to fund his education in New York.
Hamilton was completely opposed to the arbitrary appointment of unqualified people as was often done in Great Britain. He was not opposed to the appointment of qualified people no matter the relation to the appointer. I mean, my God, look at the politics of New York state at that time it was completely dominated by the great families like the Livingstons, his father in law, and the Clintons. For the most part they were competent. He was opposed to the incompetent ones.
The way the Antis are carrying on is as though in #76 Hamilton had not warned of the impractibility of having such appointments made by "...the people at large..."
"Premising this, I proceed to lay it down as a rule, that one man of discernment is better fitted to analise (sic)and estimate the peculiar qualities adapted to particular offices, than a body of men of equal, or perhaps even of superior discernment."
Hamilton cannot be enlisted in the anti-Harriet jihad.
As a strong christian, this doesn't bother me much, not having seen the cards in question.
It bothers me some that a person working in a chain of command would, having been asked by a superior to fix something, would not only refuse, but would go not just to the next level, but rather around, and through, and outside, in an attempt to, what, embarrass the superior into doing "the right thing"?
The "I sent it to the jew and he wasn't upset" I guess was what sent me over the edge. I'd love to here Ken's side of this. Asking a jew if a christmas card is too "christian" is just something that to me seems over the top.
Just my opinion.
I recall the same being said of the Thomas nomination.
yeah...and i think that to answer those questions you should do a little more to educate yourself on Ms.Meirs fruit before you call your sister in Christ to the carpet in front of others and do harm in other's eyes to what could be a very strong ally.
but....Thomas has very strong documented conservatism...which is why he went thru hell.
no bunny...we have to have a 100 seat majority in the Senate ...remember?
Why? Hasn't everyone complained about Kennedy, Souter, and O'Conner all being consevatives who turned? Why so much confidence in a conservative all of a sudden?
Yep, but it happens to be opinion validated by actual practice. Theoretically, I suppose being illiterate is no bar to the court, though saying that the constitution doesn't require you to have any qualifications won't get you far if you're that guy.
She is nominated to be a Supreme Court Justice.
I know of nothing in the Bible that considers it a sin to ask questions to deteremine if she is the best choice to hold that seat.
If your analogy is intended to silence my Constitutional right by tossing biblical platitudes at me you are doomed to defeat. I have not questioned her allegiance to Christ, nor I have I attacked the woman's character.
You, though, have attacked mine.
If she was active in the pro-life movement, why would she pick him? His pro-Roe vote has to be one of the most well-known events of his tenure, if not the most well-known.
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