Krauthammer: Withdraw Miers Nomination

Newsmax.com ^ | 10/8/05 | unknown

[beyond the sea]

Krauthammer: Withdraw Miers Nomination

http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/10/8/130600.shtml

President Bush should withdraw his nomination of Harrier Miers to fill the Supreme Court seat of retiring justice Sandra Day O'Connor, says Washington Post columnist and Fox News commentator Charles Krauthammer.

In a blistering Post column Friday Krauthammer, normally a strong Bush supporter, wrote that if Miers weren't a Bush crony, "her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her."

Noting that there are 1,084,504 lawyers in the United States, Krauthammer asked: "What distinguishes Harriet Miers from any of them, other than her connection with the president? To have selected her, when conservative jurisprudence has J. Harvey Wilkinson, Michael Luttig, Michael McConnell and at least a dozen others on a bench deeper than that of the New York Yankees, is scandalous."

The columnist called the fact that Miers has been chosen by a conservative president "particularly dismaying. For half a century, liberals have corrupted the courts by turning them into an instrument of radical social change on questions – school prayer, abortion, busing, the death penalty – that properly belong to the elected branches of government. Conservatives have opposed this arrogation of the legislative role and called for restoration of the purely interpretive role of the court. To nominate someone whose adult life reveals no record of even participation in debates about constitutional interpretation is an insult to the institution and to that vision of the institution."

Krauthammer predicted that Miers will "surely shine in her Judiciary Committee hearings," but explained that she will do so "only because expectations have been set so low. If she can give a fairly good facsimile of John Roberts's testimony, she'll be considered a surprisingly good witness. But what does she bring to the bench?"

[DJ MacWoW]

LMAO! Krauthammer a liberal!

Read post 95.

[Jacquerie]

Okay flag, what discipline would you impose?

[RedRover]

Now people are saying the very best are somehow undesirable??

I'm with you. I am not getting the argument that qualifications should count against a nominee!

[mthom]

I agree. I thought the impulse to put down effort, excellence, and success was a trait particular to the left. I guess it isn't.

[blackie]

Someone has to do the dirty work. ;)

[mountainfolk]

As far as I know, Rush and Tony Snow have kept a civil tongue in their heads and are willing to give Harriet Miers a fair shake. I do not include Rush with the other self anointed conservative pundits because he has been honest about his expectations for a battle and has not made Miers personally the excuse for his disappointment. I disagree with Rush as to the smartness of dragging either the candidate or the country thru months of bloodletting just to make a point that will end with endless rounds of candidates being put thru the grinder. In the meantime, Sandra O'C , who the anti Miers forces abhor, continues on the bench to cast her often liberal vote. Where is the gain?

[ex-snook]

Krauthammer was a speech writer for Mondale. Maybe he had a Damascus conversion. But what makes him a conservative other than saying he is. Smaller government? pro-life?

[RedRover]

On numerous occasions, the National Law Journal named her as one of the Nation's 100 most powerful attorneys, and as one of the Nation's top 50 women lawyers.

I'm sorry, but I still don't see anything in her biography that leads me to think she will be another Scalia. That fact she's been named "on numerous occasions" as "one of the top 50 women lawyers" isn't doing it for me.

[Black Tooth]

Krauthammer doesn't support the President. He's a drooling slug liberal. Lets face it. Every one of them are liberals. Bush seems to be the only conservative left standing.

[DJ MacWoW]

I am not getting the argument that qualifications should count against a nominee!

Nobody has said exactly that. The Founding Fathers said to be on the SC you didn't even have to be a lawyer. Why do you think they did that? So that you didn't get elitists mining for things like Roe V Wade, separation of church and state etc. Those aren't Constitutional. And "plain people" know it. It took "scholars" to "find" those things in the Constitution.

Freepers are yelling that Miers has no background in Constitutional law. The Founding Fathers didn't think anyone would need such "qualifications". And it took lawyers to screwup a plain speaking document and set unConstitutional precedents. Scholars are NOT necessarily a good thing. Scalia and Thomas are exceptions. They don't search for hidden meanings.

[Leatherneck_MT]

"DOWN WITH THESE ELITISTS!!"

Yep, makes sense to me, down with those who stood in the breach and helped assail the battlements of Washington DC to take the reins of power away from the Communists.

Makes perfect sense to me.

[DJ MacWoW]

But what makes him a conservative other than saying he is. Smaller government? pro-life?

Dang if I know. Usually I agree with him. Sometimes not.

[ASA Vet]

This is standing guard!

[daviscupper]

With all due respect, I understand your argument but I still disagree with your conclusion.

By not nominating a conservative jurist with sterling academic credentials and an outstanding track record on the bench Bush has bought into the argument that such an individual can never serve on the Supreme Court. And more importantly the country will be denied the intellectual debate and reasoned arguments for small government, the importance of property right and freedom, the limited role of the Judiciary and the merits of a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution vs legislating from the bench. This was a debate that should have been heard by the whole country -- and the whole world.

You maybe right that gutless RINO's would defeat such a nominee but there would have been a furious debate, the country would have been enlightened and, I am confident, the RINO's would have paid a heavy price in the next election for their betrayal. Then after such a debate nominating avowed conservative to the Supreme Court would not seem like such a radical move. However, if we always cave-in to avoid fighting for our principles we are doing nothing less than "Borking" ourselves. We will never get rid of RINO's by succumbing to their threats. JMHO

[DJ MacWoW]

but I still don't see anything in her biography that leads me to think she will be another Scalia.

I didn't see anything that made me believe that she'd be less than an asset to the SC either.

We haven't even heard her yet but there is a rush to judgement.

[RightOnline]

"He's just another unappeasable whining liberal."

Charles Krauthammer??? A "whining liberal"???????????????????????????????

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

God, that's rich. That really is. Thanks for the best laugh in days. :)

[NittanyLion]

LOL! It's a sad commentary when wildly over-the-top rhetoric in satirical posts are completely mistaken for serious ones...

[JCEccles]

You're speaking on behalf of the founding fathers? Try this one on:

"He [the President] would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure." Hamilton, Federalist #76.