Posted on 10/10/2005 8:29:40 AM PDT by Uncledave
Monday, October 10th, 2005 Harriet Miers Must not be Confirmed
Since her nomination was announced, I’ve said that Harriet Miers should be confirmed to the Supreme Court, despite her unexciting qualifications, because she’s a conservative. Information that has come out over the last week has caused me to believe she is not a conservative. So I’m changing my position: Harriet Miers should not be confirmed by the Senate.
On Roe v. Wade, I have no doubt that Miers is a rock-solid pro-lifer. If this were the only issue that mattered, then Miers would have my full support.
But there are any number of other issues before the Court, foremost among them the racial discrimination that goes on in the name of affirmative action. On these issues, Miers would at best be a squishy liberal like Justice O’Connor.
You don’t have to believe me, just ask her liberal-lawyer friend, Louise B. Raggio:
“The abortion issue is a bad issue for me,” Raggio acknowledged, “but overall you look at the whole, and there are many issues I could agree with her on.”
In 1998, Miers funded a lecture series in Ms. Raggio’s name at SMU. Most of the speakers have been ultra-liberal women.
Politically, Miers’ entire career seems to be one of going along to get along. From her donations to Al Gore and Lloyd Bentsen, to her non-membership in the Federalist Society, she seems eager to fit in with the liberal-lawyer crowd. Miers says she didn’t join the FedSoc “or other ‘politically charged’ groups because they ’seem to color your view one way or another.’” Doesn’t the liberal ABA count? In the White House, Miers argued for every judicial nomination to be vetted by the ABA.
Miers just doesn’t seem to understand who the friends and enemies of modern conservatism are. Such ignorance is dangerous.
Miers is a documented supporter of “diversity,” a codeword for racial discrimination. She seems to have helped create the White House’s split-the-baby position on this issue in the University of Michigan cases in 2003, that helped keep affirmative action legal.
Harriet Miers is Alberto Gonzales in a dress. I would not support the confirmation of Gonzales; so why should I support the confirmation of Miers?
Some of my fellow contributors at polipundit.com will disagree with me, as is their right. Our disagreements reflect the free-spiritedness of the modern conservative movement.
But those conservatives who disagree with me need to prove that Harriet Miers has demonstrated the sort of prickly independence that keeps, say, a Justice Clarence Thomas, squarely in the conservative camp despite years of liberal pressure. Everything I’ve read and heard about Miers tells me that she does not possess anything like the ability to resist the inevitable pressure to move towards O’Connorism once she’s installed on the Court.
Some will argue that defeating Miers in the Senate would be politically damaging to the GOP. But it would be worse for Miers to be confirmed and become another O’Connor. Miers’ confirmation would be terribly demoralizing to conservatives like me, who donate thousands of hard-earned dollars to Republican candidates every year. We did not help elect a Republican president, and 55 Republican senators, so that we could get another O’Connor on the Court.
A coalition of, say 30 conservative Republican senators, and 21 liberal Democrat senators, could stop Miers from being confirmed. And so they should. Mushy moderates, like the Gang of 14, are the biggest supporters of this nomination; it’s about time that principled ideologues, on both sides of the aisle, asserted their supremacy.
Let the president give us a nominee who is a true conservative, and not a go-along-to-get-along O’Connorite. That nominee will have my unqualified support. -- PoliPundit
Posted at 7:52 am
Unbelievable. Another elitist, sexist, DUtroll has come out against Harriet and the president. /sarcasm
Seriously, who is polipundit?
Well stated and close to my position, too many liberal indicators.
I agree. We deserve as much of a sure thing as possible.This decision was bizarre, and should be rethought.
Check their records.
The President declared, from his '04 re-election, he had aquired substantial political capital - so why is he now not willing to expend it upon one held more closely to the conservative right? If he's reluctant to "spend" that capital NOW on such an important issue as shaping the USSC, what OTHER issue could possibly be more important for which to reserve it?
What I think time will reveal is that Bush played conservatives the whole time he was in office. He was never really on their side. The sucker crowd who, being exhausted from fighting Clinton, just wanted to believe Bush. They chose to see his coy, evasive ways as just cleverness. He was "reaching out" to the so-called moderates. So conservatives let him sign CFR, increase spending, promote tariffs, do nothing about illegal immigration, sell "reform" with conservative rhetoric only to end up with a liberal bill that was wiped clean of most of the conservative elements, give primetime stage time to only liberal Republicans at the convention, campaign for "moderates" against true conseratives in primaries, etc. THE SIGNS ARE ALL OVER THE PLACE. Conservatives have been played.
In the end we got what we asked for. We thought he was playing liberals, and we were fine with that. You pick a player, you get played.
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I agree. We deserve as much of a sure thing as possible.This decision was bizarre, and should be rethought.
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The more of a sure thing you get, the less likely the RINOs will risk their own seats to support the President, and you already know this . . . so I don't get it.
You know, all the arguments have been made, but one critical question I have not seen answered is:
Why does the hardcore right wing want to see the GOP take actions that will lose the majority in Congress and provide all the agenda defining power to liberals? I really don't see how putting liberals in charge advances the cause of conservatism. How does this make any sense?
The president promised a strict constructionist in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. How can one say Miers is not such a thing? If the complaint is she is not adequately overt and known, then one cannot say Bush has failed to provide a strict constructionist because you do not know that she is not such a thing.
Bush has therefore betrayed no one until she makes not 1, not 2, but 10 consecutive liberal votes on rulings.
Bush promised to provide strict constructionist nominees. He did not promise to provide loudly right wing judges that could not be confirmed whose names could be waved in the air by red meat conservatives and smashed in the face of the 7 RINOs so that they would vote NO.
"... too many liberal indicators."in her 50's. That bothers me the most.
I have been reading and posting their articles at this site for quite awhile. I respect their opinion, more than one writer at the site, And once again I think they nailed it.
In a nutshell, this is what bothers me. As I've said before, she has shown a stunning ability to get along and get ahead. Here role in the ABA typifies this.
There's nothing wrong with getting to the top of your profession, but it depends how you do it. What we simply don't know is whether the courage of her convictions will override the tremendous pressures she will experience on the court to go with the flow. It takes real intellectual foundations and convictions as well as Evangelical church membership to ensure that, and I'm just not sure if she has it.
Oh...I didnt see the 'sarc'.
Nevermind
We're not defining merely a 4 or 6 year term. We're defining a court whose impact will be substantial for decades.
Back in 2000, all I could hear is we need R's in the Senate, we need to take back the Senate b/c of SC judicial vacancies.
Well, the time is upon GOP to do as we were told - a put up or shut up for the GOP leadership. What's the point of a Senate gain/majority if Republicans are simply too cowardice to employ it to effect our own end?
The Polipundits (there are actualy four of them - these was written by the lead pundit) have a fantastic blog.
They are not elitists at all. I respect his opinion. Thought I (and the other three bloggers at the site) do not agree with it.
Unlike so many others on FR whose continued defense of this guy mystifies me, I've had it with him.
So we would lose a majority in congress if he nominated a Scalia? Not if we pressure the people who are supposed to be working for us.
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