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 ...
SCOTUS appointments have been THE number one issue for Senate Democrats ever since O'Connor announced she was retiring. Democrat senators, especially the leadership, have been intensely caucusing to discuss strategies to blunt Bush's picks. You can bet Miers' name came up in those discussions. Think it through: she's an intellectual lightweight, she was once a Democrat, and she's Bush's pal. There is evidence she has the mind of a liberal on at least SOME social issues (for example, her belief that enhanced self-esteem could eliminate much crime).
The makings for a crony appointment of a weak candidate with possible latent liberal tendencies were all there. All Reid had to do was bait the hook and dangle it in front of a weary Bush who had shown no indication that he was willing to duke it out with Senate Democrats and the Gang of Fourteen over another SCOTUS vacancy.
When viewed from the perspective of Senate Democrats, Miers' was the absolute best appointment they could ever hope for.
And they got it.
The former is a perfectly legitimate objection that needs to be raised, while the second is immaterial to her suitability as a nominee.
Karl Rove had nothing to do with this pick. Karl goes for the jugular.
Duh.
You're assuming quite a bit there, with very little justification. It makes no sense that he would have recommended her to the President, knowing how closely the President knows her, if he himself didn't know her from a hole in the wall. He might as well have "CYA'd" himself with a "Kick Me" sign.
Therefore, he is doing it to CYA.
CYA mode would have been manifested by what I described at #47.
So, what do they know that you don't? Secret info?
she's an intellectual lightweight,
You are a waste of human flesh. An oxygen thief. How dare you? What secret information do you have that the President's personal lawyer and an accomplished corporate attorney is an "intellectual lightweight". She has an undergraduate degree in mathematics, which makes her smarter than 90% of Constitutional Law professors and that one credential alone, in all probability, makes her a hell of a lot smarter than you.
"We all can be active in some way to address the social issues that foster criminal behavior, such as: lack of self-esteem or hope in some segments of our society, poverty, lack of health care (particularly mental health care), lack of education, and family dysfunction." - Harriet Miers
Wow. That is REALLY poorly written. I was neutral on this nomination until I read your post. That sentence is not the sentence of a sharp mind. Do Supreme Court justices tend to do their own writing, or do they have clerks do it for them?
His intellect is so unimpressive that he makes his predecessor, Tom Daschle, look like Henry Clay by comparison.
Ah, so Reid has been getting secret coded information from Miers that say, "We've got 'im Harry-poo! It took many long years, but I finally got Bush to nominate me to SCOTUS! Ready to turn hard left, soon, baby."
How is this .... "On the basis of what is known, there is every reason to believe that Judge Thomas will live up to his promise. "
... a criticism? an allegation of being a squish? NR was merely covering bases in their comments about some of Thomas' comments, and on the whole was supporting the Thomas nomination. As with *all* nominations we need to learn what "he (she) thinks about the role of the judicial branch within our constitutional system".
Harrumph. I first started listening to Rush in 1991, I recall it intensely, because I wanted Thomas confirmed and I was amazed someone was out there pounding the table for how unfairly he was being treated. The liberals were out to "Bork" him and every single conservative and Republican I know of supported him. Every Republican I recall ended up voting for him as well.
By all accounts, Harriet Miers' intelligence is not at issue, but her judgment is.
There are many people whose intelligence is non pareil, Helen Calidicott and Barbara Ehrenreich are just two names that spring immediately to mind, but who I would never even think of entrusting with my future, or the future of other Americans.
Wrong. We'd be happy with a proven conservative woman nominee.
It's anti-Souter-ism not sexism that motivates the conservatives.
Did JCEccles really say that?
First these people claim they are not elites so you want to take them at their word, then they go ahead and make asinine remarks like that.
Amazing.
Only by reasonable people. The truth is that John Podhoretz is literally questioning her intelligence (more than questioning, if you ask me) and JCEccles stated "she's an intellectual lightweight".
But, being a mathematician is more important than being an engineer (pretty hard) or chemist (sorta hard) or physicist (pretty hard) is the ability to engage in abstract thinking. Stephen Breyer told us that he is incapable of engaging in enough abstract thinking to understand that the Constitution might be a little applicable to modern life. To the mathematician, all of the other sciences look exactly the same, just different names for the same stuff.
This is exactly why you should like Miers. Bush Sr. chose Souter without really knowing him...thus he picked a bad one.
Bush has known Miers for years.
Unless "a lot of things" consists of his shoe size or favorite color, I highly doubt it. But what I am trying to squeeze out of you is that you're asserting that Harry Reid is so clever and Machiavellian that he knows the particular aide of Bush who is secretly a liberal. It's crazy. Bush knows her best. Reid met her a few times when she was shepherding through nominations. She was probably very polite to Reid during the filibusters.
Where on Earth did you get that Miers is an ambulance chaser...unless you just believe all lawyers are ambulance chasers...which is ridiculous. Has everyone last thier minds here?
However, even if we presume that she starts out with an attitude that is more suited to interpreting the Constitution as it was written, who is too say that this mentality will remain after ten years on Court?
Ten years of being castigated for being a reactionary-in the Bork/Scalia mold-if we are even certain that that's how she'll begin her tenure.
The best-and in reality, the only-way of ascertaining how a future Supreme Court justice will behave when he or she is sitting on the Court is by looking at their past records.
And this is something that Harriet Miers-whatever her inherent assets-does not have, since she was never a judge on either the federal circuit or at the state level.
All true. The same was said of Thomas. And with regard to Souter, he was a conservative judge in NH. For example, he ruled the right way in a Kelo-like case.
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