Posted on 10/08/2005 10:44:49 AM PDT by quidnunc
The Washington Times reports that Karl Rove was "very involved" in President Bush's selection of Harriet Miers to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. This should put to rest the notion that Mr. Rove is a political genius.
-snip-
The world is made up of doers and kibitzers. We in the chattering classes are kibitzers. Many, like Mr. Will, have convinced themselves that thinking and writing about what other people do is more important than actually doing stuff. It isn't.
Harriet Miers is a doer. She practiced law where it matters most, in the courtroom. She was managing partner of a mega Texas law firm. For the last five years she has been staff secretary at the White House, a more important job than most of her critics realize, and White House counsel, at the intersection between law and policy, and as good a preparation for serving on the Supreme Court as a year or two on an appellate court.
Harriet Miers may not be a deep thinker. We'll find out during her confirmation hearings. But to assume she is not simply because she's a doer is unfair, and almost certainly inaccurate.
Mr. Bush has said Ms. Miers is bright, and a solid conservative. We should judge for ourselves in the hearings. But until then, conservatives owe him and her the benefit of the doubt.
I used to think conservatives were morally superior to the moonbats of the Left. But the reaction to the Miers nomination indicates we are just as petty, petulant, snobbish, short-sighted, self-destructive, and unfair as they are.
(Excerpt) Read more at toledoblade.com ...
That is my point. It is not "qualifying" per se either. She may be an excellent choice. But all of the evidence provided to support this is irrelevant. One day we might see a brief shewrote, herself, so we can judge. So far, however, we just see someone who is extremely effective politically. That is not disqualifying either. It just does nothing to answer whether or not Ms Miers can reason out an opinion.
Say what you will, but the Democrat politicians listen to their vocal base.
. . . well, I guess even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then, or else Michigan's hunters are too powerful a force to ignore.
But he's a senator, not a judge. Find me a judge who is a 2A absolutist and a liberal . . . I don't know of any. Of course, I live in Georgia, so my mileage most definitely varies from New York state . . .
It was one of the Fifth Circuit judges who heard the 2A case there who remarked from the bench that he and another judge on the panel between them had more guns than most Latin American countries . . . and I know a federal judge who could probably repel boarders for a week with the firearms and ammunition he has squirreled away in his chambers.
Because, if you followed the Senate, Reid is the most for sale senator in the place. The only question is what deal Bush had to do for Nevada to make the deal work.
Both of those statements are absolutely incorrect.
If you make expansive and incorrect statements outside your area of knowledge, it makes all your other pronouncements look suspect.
And, I will repeat, she could not be a managing partner without being a very effective lawyer -- and that means both that she can write a brief and formulate an opinion. If that's what you're worried about, stop worrying.
Miers' Former Firm Opens Lobby Outpost
October 6, 2005
By Tory Newmyer,
Roll Call Staff
As Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers prepares for a potentially bruising confirmation battle in the Senate, her former law firm - the Texas-based Locke Liddell & Sapp - has got its own work cut out for it on Capitol Hill.
In a bizarre case of timing, the firm is launching its Washington, D.C., lobbying arm this week - a rollout planned long before Miers was tapped for a Supreme Court vacancy.
"We didn't choose this moment," acknowledged Dave DiStefano, a founding partner at Locke Liddell Strategies, as the Washington office will be known. "It chose us."
The powerhouse Texas law firm - which former co-managing partner Miers left in 2000 - has lobbied for clients in Washington, but until recently has not had a permanent D.C. office.
From 2000 to 2003, Terral Smith, a one-time legislative director to then-Gov. Bush, commuted from Austin to lobby on behalf of a handful of Texas-based clients. But Smith did not want to move to Washington, so the firm began shopping for people to plant its flag here.
The firm has been planning to open its Washington beachhead since the beginning of the year. Phil Rivers, a founding partner and former chief of staff to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), started work for the firm in August.
On Monday, as President Bush was making the surprise announcement that he was nominating Miers for the high court, DiStefano and Roy Coffee, a former senior aide to then-Gov. George W. Bush (R), clocked in for their first day of work at the firm.
"We found out that morning like everybody else, when the story broke," Rivers said.
Meanwhile, Coffee, known to Beltway media for his long history with the Bush family, was receiving calls from reporters who had questions about Miers, but who were unaware of his new job.
"I was getting calls the same day I joined her old law firm," he said. "It was weird timing to say the least."
Together, the three have already assembled an impressive book of business worth nearly $3 million, according to firm officials. Clients include the Center for Responsible Lending, FM Policy Focus, BellSouth, Genworth, Sempra Energy and Strategic Health Care.
The firm intended to roll out the news of its Washington launch when Congress returned from its Columbus Day recess, but was preempted by inquiries this week after the Miers announcement.
If confirmed, Miers would certainly raise the profile of the Texas firm she left in 2000 before joining Bush as assistant to the president and staff secretary in 2001. But her ascension to the Supreme Court would also mean the firm's fledgling Washington operation would lose a key White House contact.
Robert Miller, a partner with Locke Liddell & Sapp, emphasized that the firm has never sought to profit from its association with Miers.
"Harriet is a person of the highest ethical standards," he said. "We have never lobbied her on any matter, nor would she be receptive to that. I can say that categorically as chair of our public law section."
Rivers added: "The establishment of the office here is not only unrelated to [Miers'] appointment, but it is unrelated to her position in the White House. We would have done this office whether Ms. Miers had been in the White House or not."
Further, the Washington partners pointed to extensive experience with the executive branch and on Capitol Hill that have nothing to do with Miers' role in the administration.
Rivers joined the lobbying firm Bockorny Petrizzo late last year after leaving Shelby's office. He started in Washington as a legal counsel at the Interior Department, then spent 20 years working for energy giant Texaco, including two stints in the company's Washington office.
Coffee comes to the firm from O'Connor & Hannan. He served as deputy campaign manager for Bush's first gubernatorial run in 1994 and then worked as a director of state-federal relations in Texas for then-Gov. Bush.
DiStefano, a former chief of staff to Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), brings his solo lobbying practice to the new firm.
The partners said they would look to expand their business both from within the Texas firm's existing client base and beyond it.
"The game plan is to build a top-notch shop," Coffee said. "But we want to be thoughtful and conservative as we grow and not get ahead of ourselves."
While the three founding partners are all Republicans, they said their next hire will likely be a Democrat who has experience in the Senate. For now, though, the firm is focused on wrapping up the legislative session for its current clients and dealing with more mundane tasks.
"We just got our phones," Coffee explained.
Answer, not one Ivy League school between them. If any of them had been nominated do you think all these conservative "elitists" would be speaking out against them?
He does respond to some of the comments below the post.
And this shows . . . what?
After all, how many people who matriculated at and graduated from a CUNY campus-after open admissions, no less-are accused of being "elitists?"
:0)
-good times, G.J.P. (Jr.)
The Eleventh automatically adopted all the Fifth Circuit decisions pre-September 1981 (when the split occurred) and there is still a lot of overlap. For a long time, most of us continued to cite Fifth Circuit cases even though they post-dated the split - for all I know they may still be doing it, but my practice veered out of federal and into state litigation back in the mid-1980s.
What you mean is don't tell you that being a trial lawyer is the same as "house counsel." But that is not what I said. Being in private practice, here in DC, means that you are working as an attorney not on the public payroll. Words may mean a different thing wherever you live.
This woman may be a great lawyer, but given her very high powered politically charged background, her position as "co-managing partner" (to be very precise) may or may not be the result of great trial lawyering skills rather than her great political skills. The latter may or may not be more valuable than the former to her former law firm.
Another hint is how many different "public" things Ms Miers has participated in. The best lawyers I know, in fact the best skilled professionals I know in many fields are extremely focused on the practice of their skills and keep the "political" part of their professional activities to a minimum.
What we are left with is that we don't know how Ms Miers argues a case. And it isn't just me. If you don't like me, personally, or think I am a hack you are welcomed to your opinion. Since I parctice as little law as your profession will let me get away with, which is sadly far more than I would hope it could be, it bothers me not a wit. I just remind you that at the moment I am keeping awfully good company. In fact, I will divide the world into those who have expressed support and those who have expressed skepticism. I know which club I would want to join.
That Ms Miers was a member of an incredibly well connected firm. What of that? I won't speculate. We will just see where the facts in this case take us.
I have been very careful not to call you a hack, and I don't like or dislike you. But however accurate your comments may be for "inside the Beltway", they are way, way off base for "flyover country". I don't know how long you have practiced law, or what area you work in, but in my 27 years of experience practicing law your comments are just flat wrong with reference to the lawyers and firms I know in the South.
And I wouldn't call her firm "incredibly well connected" if they haven't even had a D.C. office until now.
I just informed my wife that I will no longer change diapers or take out the garbage because if I share the views of these eltists I'm damn sure going to live like one.
So much for the "high road." And for some to stake any claim to intellectual superiority, given the low road they've traveled in the trashing of the nominee and the President, is ludicrous.
Some even employ the same "talk-over" brand of debate that the Ellen Ratners and Eleanor Clifts have used for years. That does not inspire confidence in what the Far Left has to say, and it certainly destroys any confidence one might have had in such spokespersons for the Right.
;0)
Yes, DC is a pretty wierd place. but it is through the DC prism that Ms Miers will be viewed by those who are in DC, which includes a lot of the people writing about her. The place is so overflowing with political hacks and so lacking in anyone who can actually do anything (like fix a car, or like, hand you the loaf of bread that you paid money for in the bakery) that we recognize the type when we see it. She may not be your stereotypical political junkie, but boy she sure looks like one. And most people around here who can do something useful run away from jobs like those and the people who hold them as fast as they can.
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