Posted on 10/08/2005 8:52:39 AM PDT by JCEccles
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.
Are you suggesting Miers is to somehow going to become smart, interested, and accomplished in matters of constitutional jurisprudence between now and the hearings?
That doesn't count because he actually talked to her and knew her. The only opinions that count are Rush Limbaugh, Coulter and Ingrahm who never met her.
Pray for W and Harriet Miers
Your tagline is most appropriate for times such as these. Have you any comments about the Redstate.org opinion of the stategy?
And by Shakespeare you mean George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon.
I thought we wanted originalists. (Originalists. That means going by what the constitution says and was originally intended to mean, not what other justices interpreted it as meaning in the past.)
More and more I am thinking that the left is going to overplay their hand in this.
I imagine she will do just fine in the hearings, since she has been a litigator for 30 years.
Any of them is also light years ahead of Miers in terms of intellect, interest, and ability in matters of constitutional jurisprudence.
Any them would likely have given us an additional ten years of SCOTUS tenure too.
No matter how Miers' defenders try to spin it, this was a bad, WEAK choice. That is EXACTLY why Harry Reid made it. Reid deftly neutralized 20 years of conservative effort by appealing to Bush's unfortunate tendency to reward cronies and his fear of taking on the Senate and Gang of 14.
What a waste.
Any President who can get Roberts confirmed as Chief Justice has my support in his choice for Miers.
You also are ignoring the Senate opposition from the liberal GOP members which pretty much stopped Brown from being nominated (please read the Thomas Sowell article if you have not).
I'll bet any of those senators know more about constitional law than Harriet Miers ever will. They will rip her to shreds.
Yes.
The law is complicated -- the Constitution is simple.
Myers has been a lawyer for 33 years. That would suggest that the law is not a complication for her. I would hope to hear more from her about the simple principles of Constitution. That will occur during the hearings.
Originalist doesn't mean ignoring legal precedent. It most definitely does not mean that at all.
Big Easy Leasers upset over cleanup jobs
Someday you Travis may figure out that central planning from the left(lenin, stalin, hillary) or the right(hitler, buchanan) never works.
I think you'll like this better, ping.
The bottom line is either people will get together and demand her withdrawal... haven't seen that; Or we will let the hearings go on and see what's what. This time ALL the senators will be at her throat... not just dems. The choice has been made and Stevens will be retiring soon.
You mean, hometown to the corrupt Ronnie Earle? The home to Molly Ivins, the she-devil of Texas politics?
Who cares what they think? I mean, do you care what they think?
By the way, folks, take a moment and review the US Constitution -- specifically Article 3 -- and observe that Harriet Miers in no category fails any of the requirements imposed by the Constitution on individuals who might serve as USSC Justice.
She is thus Constitutionally qualified for the position.
The above post makes you sound like a complete numbnut. You are simultaneously insulting Freepers, the President, WH advisors, a generation of Conservative judicial academics lawyers and jurists, and Harriet Miers. All in one fell swoop.
Go compose a letter to the editor to your favorite local newspaper saying how even if Harriet Miers was just a legal secretary at the White House, her born again faith alone and her relationship with the President would alone qualify her for the Supreme Court according to Article III of the Constitution.
If it gets published, scan it and post it here for all to see.
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