Posted on 10/10/2005 5:29:49 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite
The White House called me about 45 minutes before the president publicly announced his choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. We had heard the week before that Harriet Miers was one of three people under serious consideration. The problem was, no one knew much about her.
We subsequently were told that she attended an evangelical Church in Dallas, which had strong views on social issues. Still, as I told the White House, the nomination comes down to "trust me" from the president.
I explained that I had witnessed five "trust-me" pleas regarding presidential nominees for the Supreme Court and none has worked out right.
Senator Gordon L. Allott, for whom I worked when President Richard M. Nixon nominated Circuit Judge Harry A. Blackmun, had some problems with the Blackmun's record. As a member of the Senate leadership who visited the White House weekly, Senator Allott mentioned his concern to the president.
Nixon told Allott, "Trust me. Harry Blackmun will turn out to be a carbon copy of [Chief Justice] Warren E. Burger." My guess is the president said that because he knew Senator Allott and Chief Justice Burger were good friends. Anyway, the Stevens appointment didn't quite turn out that way.
I also recall President Gerald R. Ford reassuring Senator James A. McClure that Judge John Paul Stevens was a good Republican and would vote like a good Republican. Maybe that is Ford's idea of how a good Republican would vote. It certainly is not mine.
And then there was the Kenneth Starr memo asking us to trust the Reagan White House. Sandra Day O'Connor was a conservative Republican, so the memo contended. Jane Hurst, then Free Congress Foundation Chairman, alleged that Starr had misrepresented the truth.
Then there was the White House conference call with Anthony M. Kennedy's priest who assured the Reagan White House that Kennedy's strong Catholic upbringing would cause him to vote right on social issues. The Kennedy appointment hasn't quite worked out that way.
Reagan White House Chief of Staff, former New Hampshire Governor John H. Sununu, and three-term former New Hampshire Governor Meldrim Thompson, arguably the most right-wing politician ever to have served in statewide office in modern times, scolded me for joining with Howard Phillips in opposing the nomination of Judge David H. Souter. Thompson told me he would stake his career on the idea that we would love David H. Souter on the Supreme Court. None turned out to be right. A sixth nominee was a bridge too far.
Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX), fighting for his political life, said while he agrees that "trust me" should not be acceptable in considering a nominee for the High Court, "this president deserves the benefit of the doubt."
It is true; President George W. Bush has nominated some of the finest people ever to serve on the federal judiciary. And Bush says Harriet Miers was responsible for finding many of those judicial nominees. The president says, "She knows what I want in a federal judge."
No doubt. But you don't get promoted in the Bush White House by dissenting from the president. It still doesn't tell us about her positions on issues or about her experience.
Washington Post reporter Dan Balz asked me why the Right was disappointed in the Harriet Miers nomination. In one of 27 interviews I did from 7 a.m. to 8:15 p.m. Eastern in a single day, I told Baltz that expectations were high.
After stealth candidate Judge John G. Roberts, Jr. was appointed chief justice, the conservative movement thought the president would nominate someone from among a number of well-qualified federal appeals court judges. There are women, there are Hispanics, there is a black woman.
Whatever the president was looking for was on the federal bench. There are many well-qualified scholars waiting in the wings as well.
What bothered Conservatives with whom I spoke or corresponded was that Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV) had recommended Harriet Miers to the president as a judicial nominee who easily could be confirmed. One prominent Conservative noted, "Harry Reid got his candidate. When do we get ours?"
It doesn't bother me that Reid has recommended Miers. Senator Reid knows Miers and has worked with her but he might not know her judicial philosophy any better than we do.
It also doesn't bother me that in 1988 Miers contributed to the Presidential Campaign of Vice President Albert Gore, Jr. Back then, nearly everyone in Texas was a Democrat. And Al Gore, believe it or not, ran as the more conservative presidential candidate that year, although he had repudiated his pro-life stance, recognizing that to get the Democratic Nomination, pro-life views are out of the question.
Frankly, it bothers me more to learn that as a Dallas City Council member, Miers reversed a high-profile position she had taken after a day of controversial votes and lobbying. Years ago, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said, "Don't just look for Conservatives to put on the High Court. Look for people who are conservative and have fought the wars and have survived." Miers has not.
If the Supreme Court appears to be an ivory tower where a Justice is subjected to no pressure and thus can vote at will, you are mistaken. Supreme Court Justices face almost as much pressure as legislators.
The national media plays an important role in pressuring the Judiciary. What would the editorial board of the New York Times think if a justice voted a different way on cases that were important to many justices? What about Miers? I am afraid she is pretty much on her own, as the president has given her as much support as he can.
Some evangelical leaders favor the Miers candidacy but this is based more upon the fact that Miers is the first evangelical to be nominated to the High Court since 1931 rather than because they know how she would vote.
Miers was raised Roman Catholic and found Christ in the late 1970s, according to one evangelical acquaintance. Since conservative Catholics are part of the Bush coalition, the White House would be ill-advised to discuss her conversion too loudly.
How Meirs does in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings could determine whether she gets confirmed. If she does well, the Senate floor vote could be at least 70-30. If she doesn't and the Democrats decide to oppose her nomination, a single "no" vote cast by a Republican, in effect, could kill the nomination.
Potential no votes on the Senate Judiciary Committee are those of Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Tom Coburn (R-OK). My guess is both senators could end up voting for Miers, but it is not certain.
I promised the White House that if I am satisfied with the hearings I'll support her as well. Unfortunately, not before.
Make sure you check out the *qualifications* while you are on the Stop Miers now site.
Do you have proof of this?
Many people are doing research to to find judges Miss Mier's has been involved with finding and vetting and we have come up with three: Chief Justice John Roberts, James Hardy Payne and Harriet Miers.
If you know of any others, please let me know.
.
"If the Supreme Court appears to be an ivory tower where a Justice is subjected to no pressure and thus can vote at will, you are mistaken. Supreme Court Justices face almost as much pressure as legislators."
This is the biggest misunderstanding of the pro-Miers crowd. He has explained it perfectly here.
LOL i saw that
Here are Judge Roberts comments after conformation:
"But every generation in its turn must accept the responsibility of supporting and defending the Constitution, and bearing true faith and allegiance to it. That is the oath that I just took. I will try to ensure, in the discharge of my responsibilities, that with the help of my colleagues, I can pass on to my children's generation a charter of self-government as strong and as vibrant as the one that Chief Justice Rehnquist passed on to us."
- Somewhat similar, don't you think?
Again I say you do not know, you present hearsay from Lorlee Bartos, her manager, and her "Good Friend Judge Nathan Hecht"
I absolutely stand by my last comment. You would not back this person based on that evidence - you base it solely on your trust of GWB as you stated: "PresBush`s personal knowledge of what kind of person Harriet Miers is". All that aside, the fact is both Roberts and Miers are ghosts - you have no definitive means of asserting where either of these two will rule on conservative issues (except maybe Miers is Pro-Life, good but the constitution has a somewhat larger scope).
This is the kind of braying jacka$$ sarcasm that is making us look just like the libs.
Friends, Americans, bloggers, lend me your ears
I come to bury Miers, not to confirm her.
The evil that Justices do lives after them;
The good is oft preserved by rejecting their nominations;
So let it be with Miers.
The noble Bush hath told you Harriet is conservative;
If it be so, 'tis a glorious qualification,
And gloriously may Miers answer it in her hearings.
Here, under leave of Bush and the rest,--
For Bush is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men,--
Come I to speak before Miers' hearings.
She was an unknown, undistinguished and of no importance to me:
But Bush says she is conservative;
And Bush is an honorable man.
She hath brought unqualifed minorities home to our universities,
Whose enrollments did diversity expand:
Did this in Miers seem conservative?
When that the gay lobby has whined, Miers hath responded;
Conservativism should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Bush says she is a conservative;
And Bush is an honorable man.
You all did see that during her career
I thrice presented her with membership in the Federalist Society,
Which she did thrice refuse: was this conservative?
Yet Bush says she is conservative,
And, sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Bush spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all had never heard of her once,--not without cause:
What cause forces, then, to confirm her?
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And Senators have lost their reason!
Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with the Constitution;
And I must pause till it come back to me.
All you "elitists" out there who've read---and maybe even understood---more than a line or two of Shakespeare (you know who you are!), ENJOY!!!
I think I made it a third of the way through the speech before drawing a blank.
Lame
Trust me
2 words spoken by 2 types of people
Used Car salesmen
Politicians
Never trust either.
Me, too! No wonder somebody thought of it in the course of this fiasco and adapted it in a humorous way. Some unfortunate parallels are evident...
I wouldn't call public comments by a past political associate and a current personal friend as merely rumors. Geez. That questions the integrity of everyone involved and is nothing more then a cheap shot. I was honest with you and told you that I took Miers legal record, conservative credentials and her relationship with PresBush into account to reach my conclusion.
You've chosen to take a pessimistic and highly skeptical view of the Miers nomination. So be it. I do not. I take a more optimistic view of both the Miers and Roberts nomination.
We don't kow that. It could be, but nobody sems to know.
Answer me this:
How many non-friends, or people who weren't either personal or political acquaintances, have stepped forward to defend Harriet Miers?
How many people not directly or indirectly linked with the Bush administration have decided to come on board the Miers bandwagon?
Shouldn't that tell you something about the relative merit of this nomination?
I have not taken any view, because there is no reliable information availible to form a view. I am neither pessimistic nor optimistic, I am disappointed, I am frustrated, I have carried water for GWB for five years. I have expended my capital in his name, for the sole purpose of the Judiciary (now 9/11 happened and his response to that has been exemplary - God bless him) but he made a campaign promise to appoint "strick constuctionists" to the court and neither of these two can in any way be compared to Scalia or Thomas. I'm sorry but the biggest threat to freedom right now is the Supreme Court.
Not to mention the sheer ham-handedness and outright thuggishness of a lot of the defense of the nomination, which more than one blogger and "elitist" commentator on the right have noted.
Bork should wisdom in speaking out about this. Killing this nomination and replacing Miers with a known originalist is about the only thing that can change the direction of the court and undo the increasing damage done to the Republican party. Maybe that was in Bork's mind when he spoke.
Absolutely nothing has been done to stop illegal immigration. In fact, the Bush administration policies have resulted in an increase in illegal immigration.
Should we now "trust him" on his nomination of Miers?
No. Bush has proven not to be a conservative. We tolerated all the other nonsense under the condition he fix the courts by appointing originalists to it. He broke his promise and any credibility he had about being a man of his word.
You don't get over a Supreme Court pick. Have you gotten over Souter? He is still there, isn't he?
He is someone far more principle and intelligence than you are. If all conservatives took the principled stance he did, Republicans might actually be forced to nominated known originalists to the court, cut spending and the growth of government and secure the borders.
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