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.
When we get to 100, we will be told we need to amend the constitution to have 3 senators per state.
Thank God that for as bad as the Republican leadership can be, the democratic leadership is at least 5 times worse.
yes.
we are still stuck with these damned RINOs
Are you that dense? I have read them all but more important I understand what I read. Unfortunately for you I also can tell when quotes from it are being used incorrectly and in opposition to the point of the paper.
....whatever....
I refer to the people who actually get on the Supreme Court, and it's absurd of you to say that qualifications don't matter just because the constitution doesn't spell them out. Even Rehnquist and Thomas, who were two of the weaker-credentialed nominees, still had far better and more significant careers than Miers.
I don't have a litmus test, but if she'd either served as a judge, practiced law before the Supreme Court, or written a well-researched book on constitutional law I would have a heck of a lot more respect for her nomination than I actually do. As of now I see nothing to praise.
Without any personal animus, let me just say that I am a strong evangelical christian, and wish to say that I do not personally believe the conservative opposition to Harriet is driven by hatred of christianity.
That is the only way Presidents have made such a choice or COULD make such choices. It all boils down to who the President thinks he should nominate.
Because perhaps she's not as simple as some take her to be and perhaps she's not merely a one trick pony.....
Is it easier for you to judge her motives by her deeds or by an answer to a question....in which the rational behind the answer is unknown?
Pay no heed to justshutupandtakeit-it's not just his name, it's his philosophy.
I'm not sure. But I'm thinking there are two explanations. One is that she is a dottering old woman, in which case that will be clear in the hearings and she will be gone.
The other is that, having spent the last years of her life vetting candidates and preparing them for questioning by the senate, she has a keen sense of what to say to the democrats when they ask her questions. And the "correct" answer to this question for her was really Warren Burger.
I'd love to hear her explain WHY that was her answer. And maybe her explanation would scare me.
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. What your doing is nothing more than gossiping about things you have no concrete evidence of. Your hypothesizing!
You declared me a gossip for referencing a news publication. That is an assault on my character. I wasn't referencing the national Enquirer. I stated factually what was in the article, then acknowledged their reputation as dented. What I did not state was that everything they print is inaccurate, it is not. You seem to sweep aside WAPO as nothing more than the National Enquirer, and that is factually untrue.
Matter of fact, I am not even sceptical of WAPO so much as I am Leahy. Which is why, if untrue, Miers should be given the opportunity to clear her name. Your real argument should be with those that unquestionably accept every word from Leahy's lips.
Further, you accuse me of intending to harm Ms. Meirs before the world. Very much untrue. This position is high profile, so is the confirmation process. It is inevitable these questions are asked in a public forum. I have no control over the environment in which questions are asked.
Thirdly, you claim I an unaware of Ms. Meir's experiences and work product. A falsehood.
Well yes, but the problem with Miers is that what Bush sees in her is apparent to few of those who don't know her. That didn't have to be the case. He could have appointed many others whose fitness for the court would not have been questioned, especially by his own base. The trouble with Miers is that she's vulnerable to attacks on both ideology (murky) and cronyism, which combined may well be enough to kill her.
Hamilton did not go off halfcocked on the basis of Ignorance.
He cannot be enlisted in the anti-Harriet jihad. It is an insult to his name to make believe he would approve of such hysterical overreacting as has greeted this nomination. He would have revered such a leader as President Bush.
I'm looking for anything to judge her. There's nothing!
"and it's absurd of you to say that qualifications don't matter just because the constitution doesn't spell them out. "
WELL! Pftttt! to you! :P
:) I value education....but just as I think working on all those nice projects is nice in certain respects, i think it is equally nice to have a non-achedemic on the squad to add some balance. High thought is good, but I guess the founders didn't think it critical cuz they didn't put it in like they did for other offices...wonder why?
Maybe cuz all that lofty thinking dis-associates one from the masses would be my guess. Would be nice to have one of us on the squad to anchor the rest down....just my opinion.
You mean a qualified and conservative candidate such as Harriet helped the President to nominate as judges?
The important number is 50 pro-life senators. Until we have 50 senators on our side who really want roe-v-wade reversed, we will have to play this kabuki dance.
Maybe Harriet will just go right up there and say "Roe-V-Wade" was bad constitutional law.
I hope she does. It's accurate, shows a good understanding of the constitution, and yet would not reveal how she would vote (after all, there is always super-stare-decisis).
Although I imagine once she said that, she would end up filibuster-bait. And no way the republicans would invoke the nuclear option on her, not with all the evidence from conservatives that she is an obviously unqualified nominee.
The litmus test is only 5% of the population would support her. Anything else is suspect to the Antis.
Considering the gnashing of teeth her nomination has caused on the right (the left has been keeping its lips shut mostly) it had to be the height of foolishness for her to suggest, to anyone, someone like Warren Burger as her favorite justice. If she was worried about offending Democrats, she could have picked Rehnquist, who lacks the scare value of Scalia and Thomas, and is also still enjoying the glow of approval that always follows someone's death.
Honest or dishonest, it doesn't speak well for her.
Setting up a program and being the person who ends up running are two different things. This article lacks information to justify the conclusion made the author.
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