Posted on 10/10/2005 12:04:02 PM PDT by DallasMike
TIME Magazine has an unusually insightful article this week on Harriet Miers. The piece, The two knocks on Miers, notes that the two strongest attacks on Miers -- questions on her experience and reliability -- have come from the political right. "'No more Souters' was the right's rallying cry, so when [Bush] said he knew her well, knew her heart, knew she wouldn't change, he thought conservatives would be delighted." President Bush highly values several traits in those who serve him:
But Bush found in her many of the qualities he prizes: loyalty, toughness, an allergy to the limelight, a fierce work ethic. When White House counsel Alberto Gonzales moved over to become Attorney General, she took his place.
Bush also sees other values in Miers that he likes, especially the ability to persevere. The Apostle Paul wrote:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
TIME uses Paul's same metaphor of a race to demonstrate how Miers has proved her loyalty to Bush over the long haul:
Among the rarest honors that President Bush bestows is induction into the Hundred Degree Club.
Its members are the aides who have managed to keep up with him running a dusty three-mile course at his Crawford, Texas, ranch when the temperature is above 100°.
It's certainly one way to get to know someone's heart, or at least his heart rate. Harriet Miers, 60, Bush's former personal lawyer, then loyal White House aide, was one of the few women to spend time clearing cedar with Bush on the ranch and pacing him on his runs, and over the years he got to know her well enough that he was sure she would help him avoid his father's fate.
...
Miers has served Bush faithfully ever since she worked as his counsel when he ran for Governor in 1994. Once elected, he appointed her to fix the scandal-ridden Texas Lottery Commission.
Miers has been extremely successful in her career. Glass ceilings have become glass floors for her to stride towards greater accomplishments. She has earned the respect and admiration of her peers as well as her president. But what in her experience qualifies her to become a Supreme Court justice?
Her most direct encounter with the life of a judge came after graduating, when she clerked for two years for District Court Judge Joe Estes -- in part, says a classmate, because she didn't get many good job offers. But at the end of her two years with him, Estes called a big Dallas firm then known as Locke Purnell to say it should hire her.
She rose as a corporate litigator representing clients like Disney and Microsoft, and soon there was glass all over the floor wherever she walked: first female president of the firm, president of the Dallas bar, then the Texas state bar. Shy but firm, precise to a fault, "she's unfailingly graceful about the fact that she beats you," as a courtroom opponent put it.
Like 41 of the 109 Justices in American history, Miers has never been a judge. And she does not make up for that, critics say, with other valuable experience.
She was never a law professor, like William Douglas; her one unremarkable term on the Dallas city council does not match Earl Warren's three terms as Governor of California or the 27 Justices who had served in Congress; she wasn't even a leading appellate lawyer, like noted L.B.J. crony nominee Abe Fortas.
"This is one of the slimmest résumés in the history of the court," says Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law scholar at George Washington University who puts Miers on a par with infamous Truman cronies Harold Burton and Sherman Minton.
Her defenders argue that she has valuable experience in business and practical politics. "In a big law firm," says her S.M.U. classmate Gary Rice, "it's like herding cats sometimes. She will be great at finding consensus." But, of course, that would be a problem for people who don't see consensus as a virtue.
For conservatives, the lack of a long, conservative paper trail raises concerns about Miers credibiliy. What will happen to her when she dons the black robes, realizes that little short of committing a heinous crime would ever get her thrown off the Supreme Court. Will she begin to enjoy the fawning attention of every lawyer, every judge in the United States. Will special interest groups shower her with awards and prizes named after her for rulings that they find pleasing? We well remember President Reagan's assurances that Sandra Day O'Connor was pro-life and the Souter nomination of the first President Bush still stings. Miers will be encouraged to "grow in office" by every left-wing group in the country. Does she have the fortitude to stand up to that kind of pressure? President Bush tells us to trust him.
To his skeptical conservative allies, Bush did chant the litany. "She will not legislate from the bench," he vowed. "I've known her long enough to know she's not going to change," Bush said, a code for "No more Souters."
Bush may be right, but Miers got to be her resolute self after undergoing a profound change. Raised a Catholic, she was reborn an Evangelical in 1979, and it was to her spiritual credentials that her surrogates pointed in trying to reassure conservative Christians that she could be trusted.
But that was not enough for activists like Janet LaRue, chief counsel for Concerned Women for America. "Jimmy Carter claims to be an Evangelical," she says, "and I wouldn't want to have him on the Supreme Court."
The people most familiar with her legal instincts did not provide much reassurance. "My theory is that she is going to be a Justice very much like Sandra Day O'Connor," says Gary Rice, in words that might cheer moderates but spook anyone looking for someone with a weed whacker who will go after liberal rulings of the past 30 years.
I predict that Miers will be confirmed and will out-perform conservative expectations. Last week, most of the nay-saying came from the professional pundits -- the Ivy League crowd of the Republican. This week, however, rank-and-file conservatives like myself are beginning to wonder whether the president made a good choice. I have followed Miers for 15 years though, know people who know her, know the church to which she belongs, and know the kind of life-changing experience that she underwent in 1979. I believe that today's anxieties will begin to be ease once the hearings begin.
But if she and the President stand their ground, some of her allies expect Miers to impress the Senators with her strength and savvy.
"To stand one on one in the Oval Office, and for the President to turn to you and say, 'What do you recommend?' you have to be confident, prepared, articulate and smart," says Brett Kavanaugh, Miers' successor as White House staff secretary. "She's done it for five years now."
The Times? Insightful? Really?
Actually, TIME Magazine. And note that I used the term "unusually" to modify TIME's insightfulness. I have low expectations of the MSM and am delighted when my expectations are exceeded. ;-)
Weed whacker???? I was looking for someone with a big ass chainsaw!
LOL
Amen! (or is that sacreligious to say "amen" to a "big ass chainsaw?")
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