Posted on 10/08/2005 10:44:49 AM PDT by quidnunc
The Harriet Miers brouhaha has exposed an attitude that is very unbecoming many of the current conservative intellectual aristocracy: Their apparent failure to recognize how lucky they are to have had a chance at an Ivy League education. This seems to have lead to an elitism that is un-American, un-conservative, un-Republican, and flatly unattractive. (Not that I feel strongly about this, of course.)
One wonders whether some of our right-wing Ivy League brethren are not just a little too impressed with their status. As Beldar notes, referring to Harriet Miers:
Hypothetically, if your daddy has a stroke when you're a freshman in college, and you stay close to home so you can work a scholarship job while you're going to the best college and then the best law school in town, and then you clerk for a local federal district judge, and you go to work for one of the best firms in town (but that town isn't Washington or New York), and you go on to rack up a string of exceptional professional successes — does that nevertheless mean you're forever after a "third-rate" lawyer, forever after unworthy to be considered qualified for the Supreme Court, because you didn't go off to some Ivy League school?
I have a hunch there are many, many Americans who are bright overachievers and whose decisions about college and professional school were limited by similar life circumstances. I might be considered one of them, and I fear that many who had a more fortunate teen-age situation fail to appreciate that there, but for the grace of God, go they.
-snip-
That's part of what's so disappointing about the Ramesh Ponnorus (Princeton), Ann Coulters (Cornell), Rich Lowrys (University of Virginia — who let him in here, anyway?), Charles Krauthammers (Harvard), David Frums (Yale and Harvard), Laura Ingrahams (Dartmouth — sorry, Laura!), and several others. Instead of reflecting the sort of humble gratitude that one might hope to see from them (or that one sees routinely from Ben Stein), this crowd seems to consider themselves fit to judge the "excellence" of those whom they find to be lesser intellectual lights. The shame of all this is that this circle of hard-core conservative elites is affiliated with the Republican Party. (These days Laura loves to say she's a conservative first, a Republican second, but that charming attitude is a story for another very long post, someday, when I am in the mood for a lot of venting.)
As Republicans who have been advanced greatly in life because of their affiliation with the party, these folks owe the rest of us better than the preening elitism that seems to have overcome them. Reading NRO's The Corner these days makes me feel like I am in a private dining room in New York City, listening while a bunch of Ivy League conservatives pass around the brandy, smoke cigars, and comment archly on G.W. Bush's betrayal of his class. (Kathryn Jean Lopez notes today that she "hasn't given up on" Bush just yet. What a relief.) It's a most unappealing kind of echo chamber.
What the Miers nomination seems to have provoked within this group is a feeling of deep personal betrayal by President Bush: The right-wing Ivies seem to believe that they developed a stable of conservative legal titans, fully equipped to fill slots on the Supreme Court. After they installed Bush as president, they presumably believe, it was his duty to do their bidding and nominate one of their anointed ones to the Court. When Bush failed to do so, they came unglued.
How else to explain the near-glee with which Laura Ingraham today related Bill Kristol's appearance on the Today Show, where he called for Bush to withdraw the Miers nomination, or the Krauthammer WaPo piece today calling for the same thing? Our conservative philosopher-kings believe they are entitled to the nominee they want, and they are bitterly disappointed that they were passed over.
In an interview aired on her show today, Laura Ingraham told Ed Gillespie that the problem is not elitism, it's that her group of conservatives have standards of "excellence" that Harriet Miers simply does not meet. Really? Did Clarence Thomas, Laura's favorite justice, meet those standards? I seem to recall that he was a federal appeals court judge for only a very short period, and that he testified during his confirmation hearings that he had never discussed Roe v. Wade with anyone. Nor was Thomas a writer of law review articles. Laura now criticizes Miers for those same deficiencies. "Standards of excellence" indeed.
-snip-
(Lowell Brown in The Hedgehog Blog, October 7, 2005)
To Read This Article Click Here
Can anyone tell me why the first Senator to come out in support of Miers was Harry Reid?
Because he approved of her in a private meeting prior to the announcement of her nomination.
The Democrat senators don't want a big fight on this.
Seriously, who cares? I don't trust the man. Do you? I certainly don't let anything he says or does sway my thinking. Do you?
Deal with Bush behind closed doors?
I don't trust Harry Reid to make a sound judgment. That's why I have questions about his support for Harriet Miers.
What utter horse manure. This nothing to do with the Ivy League and the rest of the GOP. It has to do with a Republican President once again appointing a stealth candidate who clearly has many liberal leanings as opposed to appointing an known originalist with proven track record. Stealth candidates have repeatedly failed to be originalist and it is outrageous we're being asked to accept such a strategy with 55 Republicans seats in the Senate.
"Can anyone tell me why the first Senator to come out in support of Miers was Harry Reid?"
Word is he's supporting Miers due to the fact that his NON SUPPORT of John Roberts hurt him politically back in his home state.
Clarence Thomas was suspected of being a squish too when he was nominated.
Well, well........thank you for posting that.
My first comment is in response to the article posted in this thread: I am a native Ohioan who is not exactly overwhelmed with respect for the Toledo Blade, whose editorial content seems to be written by Nancy Pelosi.
Secondly, per your discussion of "The Difference between So Many Conservative...", while Thomas did not discuss Roe v. Wade in his confirmation hearings, he had a history of speaking out against abortion as a young lawyer, and had conservative credentials.
That Miers did not attend an Ivy League law school is not a primary objection. Owen, Jones, and Brown did not attend top-5 schools, and they would have been heartily embraced by the Right. The difference is that Owen, Jones, Brown and the other frequently-circulated names have built excellent careers around a set of unshakeable principles and a clear judicial philosophy. Miers has no such resume, and the story of her beliefs and values changes with the wind, as if she is a strategist for the Kerry campaign. I'm afraid she'll vote for the Constitution before she votes against it.
None of this isn't to say that Miers isn't brilliant or a spectacular person; I just don't think we should have to play guessing games about the potential impact of a Supreme Court nominee.
Please share with us her "many" liberal leanings.
Why in hell do we owe Bush or any Republican President that? There as not a more principled or trustworthy President than Ronald Reagan and his two stealth candidates both ended up being liberal activists>
Conservatives owe to their principles to demand Miers withdraw and known originalist be nominated in her place.
Absolutely nothing is going to change in this nation until Republicans understand that they must appoint known originalists to the courts and do so.
Now that I know Karl had a hand in this, I think I can relax.
The perfect Rovian plan yet again.
If only they were REAL Republicans instead of just Repubs on paper. Very few cahones in that bunch. Keep in mind that they voted 90 to 9 to kiss and hug terrorists instead of question them.
What a great line!!!
Look at David Frum's Diary at National Review Online. What he says about her influence on administration policy is very disturbing.
Here is my letter to J. Kelly:
Exactly. They know now it hurts the party. They have signaled to Bush that they don't care how conservative the nominee really is; as long as there is some appearance of being a 'moderate', they'll go along. This lets them look reasonably statesmanlike to their constituents and keeps the mowing and gibbering of the moonbat left to a minimum.
But if pushed into a fight, they'll fight. They have stated numerous times they will filibuster Brown (my favorite) or Owens, or anyone with a clear, strong conservative record. There are 36 republican senators and 19 RINOs. The RINOs have stated they will not vote to break a filibuster. Most of the well-known names would not likely get out of the Judiciary Committe.
That's just how it is.
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