HARRIET MIERS WRITES -- YEESH

The lovably irascible Beldar, the Texas trial lawyer who is one of the two people on earth hotly defending the Miers nomination (the other being our buddy Hugh Hewitt), has posted a convenient link to articles written by Harriet Miers during one of her stints as a bar association honcho. He did this in part to address a charge I made on Hugh's show that Miers shouldn't be taken seriously because over the past 30 years of hot dispute on matters of constitutional law she hadn't published so much as an op-ed on a single topic of moment. Thank you, Beldar. But you shouldn't have. I mean, for Miers's sake, you really shouldn't have.

Miers's articles here are like all "Letters from the President" in all official publications -- cheery and happy-talky and utterly inane. They offer no reassurance that there is anything other than a perfectly functional but utterly ordinary intellect at work here.

Let me offer you an analogy. I was a talented high-school and college actor. I even considered trying it as a career at one time. As an adult, I've been in community theater productions (favorably reviewed in the Virginia local weekly supplement of the Washington Post, yet!) and spent a year or so performing improv comedy in New York. I'm a more than decent semi-pro. But if you took me today and gave me a leading role in the Royal Shakespeare Company where I would have to stand toe to toe with, say, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Spacey, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and others, I would be hopelessly out of my depth. I would be able to give some kind of performance. But it would be a lousy performance, a nearly unwatchable performance.

Would that be because I hadn't acted at their level for a few decades? Would it be because I don't really have commensurate talent? Who knows? Who cares? I would stink. And based on the words she herself has written -- the clearest independent evidence we have of her capacity to reason and think and argue -- as a Supreme Court justice, Harriet Miers would be about as good.

"You wanted to see me Mr. President?"

"Yes, Harriet. Harry Reid and Lindsey Graham called me this morning and those boys really got me to thinking. It's gonna be tough, I mean REALLY tough, to get anybody past that gang of 14 in the Senate. Any conservative I nominate who has a track record is going to die on the vine. I need to pick someone who doesn't have a track record, and that probably means someone who has never shown any interest at all in the Court, but who might think that it would be pretty cool."

"I don't understand, Mr. President."

"Harriet, I'm going to get right to the point. Harry Reid wants me to nominate you, and I think that's a pretty fine idea."

"Oooo! I'd LOVE to be on the Superior Court."

"Supreme Court."

"Whatever."

Rhenquist's just like Miers bio
http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/100/biography

"World War II erupted before Rehnquist had a chance to complete his education and the future chief justice enlisted in the air force branch of the army as a weather observer. He served in North Africa.

"Like many Americans in his generation, Rehnquist attended college after World War II with the support of scholarship money from the GI Bill. At Stanford, he earned both a bachelor and a master of arts degree in political science. A distinguished student, Rehnquist was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1948. He continued his education at Harvard where he received another master of arts degree -- this time in government -- two years later. Rehnquist returned to Stanford Law School in 1950; he graduated at the top of his class. (Sandra Day O'Connor, who would eventually serve with him on the Supreme Court, graduated third from that same class.)

"At law school, Rehnquist started down the path that would eventually take him to the Supreme Court. Having already established a reputation among his instructors and peers as a brilliant legal thinker and an able scholar, Rehnquist impressed one professor sufficiently to earn a private interview with Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who was visiting the law school. Rehnquist's professor, a former clerk for Jackson, arranged the meeting in hopes that his favored student could convince Jackson of his qualifications for a clerkship. Rehnquist walked away from that meeting feeling he had failed to impress Jackson in the slightest. However, his fears proved false as Jackson eventually selected him for clerkship that year. Rehnquist's clerkship under the moderate Jackson did not alter his conservative beliefs in any noticeable manner. Instead, his exposure to the other clerks may have served only to confirm his conservativism.

"Rehnquist married Natalie Cornell, whom he had met during his law school years, after his completing his clerkship. He also moved to Phoenix, Arizona to work for a law firm there. Rehnquist chose Phoenix for its pleasant weather and favorable political leanings. The next few years passed uneventfully for Rehnquist. He, together with his wife, raised a son and two daughters. Following advice given to him by Justice Felix Frankfurter, Rehnquist began his participation in the Republican Party. He became a Republican Party official and achieved prominence in the Phoenix area as a strong opponent of liberal initiatives such as school integration. Rehnquist campaigned for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater during the 1964 elections. During that time, he befriended Richard Kleindienst, another attorney from Phoenix. When Richard Nixon rose to the presidency a few years later, he appointed Kleindienst deputy attorney general of his administration. Kleindienst sought Rehnquist for the position of deputy attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. When Justice John Marshall Harlan retired in 1971, the Nixon administration chose Rehnquist as Harlan's replacement. A Democratic Senate overwhelmingly confirmed his nomination. On January 7, 1972, Rehnquist -- and fellow nominee, Lewis Powell -- took their oaths of office."

Maybe because it's a Court?

Seriously, not all the Founders (who met in Philadelphia in
1776), were involved in writing the Constitution many years later. (We had the Articles of Confederation in between). I don't have time now to look up the occupations of all the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. But of the eight men involved most closely in drafting it, five--Madison, Hamilton, James Wilson, John Dickinson, and Gouvenor (yes, that's his first name) Morris--were all lawyers by profession. One, George Morris, was largely self-educated, but had read enough law on his own to draft the Virginia Bill of Rights. The other two were Benjamin Franklin--an extraodinary intellect in any age, and George Washington. Does that help?

It seems to me the gist of your response is :

1) let's be like Clintonoids, and say "it's OK, everybody does it>"

This coming from someone spouting DNC talking points?

My point is, there is ample historical precedent of president appointing close associates to the court. And, in the context of what went wrong with Souter, where Papa Bush nominated a man he knew little about to try a stealth nomination, he got burned. So Bush has good reason to nominate someone he knows well under such a circumstance. So it is not cronyism if you look at all the facts and the history.

2)don't worry, as long as it's one of our guys, it'll be OK

Uh, no. I criticize Bush when I think he's wrong. If he was saying "trust me" on immigration, I would say "show me."

But judges are probably the brightest part of his administration. He has given me no reason with his nominations to think he would nominate another Souter - or even another Kennedy.

So in that context, I will be inclined to not pre-judge this nominee the way you have, and wait and see what she is about.

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