Yes. Harvard is an elite school that turns out elite judges.
Roberts is an elite intellectual. The "common man" he is not.
Posted on 10/11/2005 12:49:28 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite
White House Pours More Gasoline On The Fire
It's either feast or famine at the White House with the Harriet Miers nomination. Given the chance to lay out a positive, substantial case for her nomination to the Supreme Court, the Bush administration has remained largely silent. However, given an opportunity to smear the base that elected them, the administration has seized practically every opportunity to do so. The latest comes from the normally classy First Lady, who again promoted Ed Gillespie's barnburner accusation of sexism among the ranks of conservatives:
Joining her husband in defense of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, Laura Bush today called her a "role model for young women around the country" and suggested that sexism was a "possible" reason for the heavy criticism of the nomination.
"I know Harriet well," the first lady said. "I know how accomplished she is. I know how many times she's broken the glass ceiling. . . . She's very deliberate and thoughtful and will bring dignity to wherever she goes, certainly the Supreme Court." ...
Asked by host Matt Lauer if sexism might be playing a role in the Miers controversy, she said, "It's possible. I think that's possible. . . . I think people are not looking at her accomplishments."
Perhaps people haven't looked at her accomplishments because this White House has been completely inept at promoting them. We have heard about her work in cleaning up the Texas Lottery Commission, her status as the first woman to lead the Texas Bar Association, and her leadership as the managing partner of a large Texas law firm. Given that conservatives generally don't trust trial lawyers and the Bar Association and are at best ambivalent to government sponsorship of gambling, those sound rather weak as arguments for a nomination to the Supreme Court. If Miers has other accomplishments that indicate why conservatives should trust Bush in her nomination, we've yet to hear that from the White House.
Instead, we get attacked for our supposed "sexism", which does more to marginalize conservatives than anything the Democrats have done over the past twenty years -- and it's so demonstrably false that one wonders if the President has decided to torch his party out of a fit of pique. After all, it wasn't our decision to treat the O'Connor seat as a quota fulfillment; that seems to have originated with the First Lady herself, a form of sexism all its own.
Besides, conservatives stood ready to enthusiastically support a number of women for this nomination:
* Janice Rogers Brown has a long run of state Supreme Court experience, got re-elected to her position with 78% of the vote in California, and has written brilliantly and often on constitutional issues. She is tough, erudite, and more than a match for the fools on the Judiciary Committee, and would also have made minced meat out of any arguments about a "privileged upbringing", one of the snide commentaries about John Roberts in the last round.
* Edith Hollan Jones has served on the federal bench for years, compiling a record of constructionist opinions. She is younger and more experienced than Miers, and has been on conservative short lists for years.
* Priscilla Owen has a record similar to Brown's on the Texas bench and has demonstrated patience and judicial temperament that would easily impress the American people to the detriment of the opposition on the Judiciary Committee.
* Want a woman who litigates rather than one from the bench? One could do worse than Maureen Mahoney, who has argued over a dozen cases at the Supreme Court, clerked for Rehnquist who also later named her as Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission, has been recognized as one of the top 50 female litigators by National Law Journal, and even worked on the transition team in 2000-1 for George Bush.
How does endorsing that slate of candidates equate to sexism in opposition to the unremarkable Miers? It doesn't, but as with those practiced in the victimization smear, the facts really don't matter at all. This kind of argument we expect from the Barbara Boxers and the Ted Kennedys, not from a Republican White House.
It's enough to start making me think that we need to send a clearer message to George Bush. The White House needs to rethink its relationship to reality and its so-far loyal supporters.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin notices this, too.
NRO comment on the sexist charge:
Okay, we confess. We don't like Harriet Miers because she's a woman. We also don't like Condi Rice because she's a woman. We don't like Margaret Thatcher because she's a woman. We don't like K-Lo because she's a woman. We don't like Mary Ann Glendon because she's a woman. We don't like Michelle Malkin because she's a woman. We don't like Lucianne Goldberg because she's a woman. We don't like Noemie Emery because she's a woman. We don't like Gertrude Himmelfarb because she's a woman. We don't like Limor Livnat because she's a woman. We don't like Linda Chavez because she's a woman. We don't like Midge Decter (had to slip that one in there) because she's a woman. We don't like Jane Austen because she was a woman. We don't like George Eliot because she was a woman. We don't like Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca and Leah because they were women....
We gave them open borders. We gave them medicare prescription drugs. We gave them campaign finance reform. We even conceded the need for 25,000 federal agents crawling up our backsides every day in the airports of America.
The only thing we asked for, and the one thing that was promised us, was a strict constructionist court. We never waivered in our support for this president. Now that he is a lame duck, the wife feels free to call us "sexists". Go figure.
Do you have a source for that? It is my understanding that Gonzalez chose thost nominees.
Regarding the TV interview of the President and Mrs. Bush this morning, I found the following comment of interest:
Q A lot of criticism coming for your nominee to the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, from conservatives - people like Trent Lott and Pat Buchanan and George Will and Bill Kristol. Were you taken off-guard a little bit, caught by surprise by the amount of criticism you're getting for Judge Miers?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, I made a decision to put somebody on the Court who hadn't been a part of what they call the judicial monastery. In other words -- I listened, by the way, to people in the Senate who suggested, why don't you get somebody from the outside. And I figured that people are going to kind of question whether or not it made sense to bring somebody from outside the Court.
What did Bush mean by wanting to put someone on the Court "who hadn't been a part of what they call the judicial monastery."
Was Roberts part of the judicial monastery? Is Bush speaking in tongues?
Hello everybody!
but not a judge.
Good chief executives are, in my opinion, generally highly qualified to serve as judges. They have demonstrated the ability to analyze a case, listen to conflicting arguments and, in the end, exercised good judgment.
How is a good chief executive NOT qualified to be a judge?
Since I arrived in Washington four years ago, he has served with skill and integrity in the White House as Counsel to the President. I have counted on Al Gonzales to help select the best nominees for the federal courts, one of the President's most important responsibilities.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041110-8.html
I see you two have your routine down pat.
Yes. Harvard is an elite school that turns out elite judges.
Roberts is an elite intellectual. The "common man" he is not.
Laura Bush is not a politician, she is never going to be running for anything like Hillary Clinton.
All this attention to what she says is nonsense.
She didn't bring it up Matt Lauer brought it up.
She was in a no win situation if she said no the media would criticize her for not defending women.
Also to say republicans gave this country open borders is a joke. The borders were open all the way during the Clinton administration.
The only way to stop illegals is a fence and the dems are blocking a proposal by republican duncan hunter for a fence on all of california southern border.
I'm also so tired of republicans getting bashed for spending. Republicans in congress are making Louisiana pay loans while the dems want to throw 250 billion at Louisiana.
If we beat up on our own enough we will get something ten times even worse.
Gonzales was also on the research committee for selecting conservative federal judges.
"Tell me why I should."
Um....ok...hold on....(sound of crickets)...
OH..OK I GOT IT!
Because you should trust GWB.
And..and..because you suck!
And you are a DU troll!
Um...I can think of others...just give me a few minutes....
Heheh. You're dead.
How do you square that with
nominating only judges who have demonstrated respect for the Constitution and the democratic processes of our republic or demonstrated that they share his conservative beliefs and respect the Constitution.
The key word, demonstrated.
She may well turn out to be a good justice, but she’s a lousy nomination because GWB turned his back on the very requirement, demonstrated respect for the Constitution which he campaigned on twice.
…………………………………..
Main Entry: dem•on•strate
Pronunciation: 'de-m&n-"strAt
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -strat•ed; -strat•ing
Etymology: Latin demonstratus, past participle of demonstrare, from de- + monstrare to show -- more at MUSTER transitive senses
1 : to show clearly
2 a : to prove or make clear by reasoning or evidence b : to illustrate and explain especially with many examples
3 : to show or prove the value or efficiency of to a prospective buyer
"CQ, with little effort on their own part, could easily research to find that Miers picked Judges Janice Rogers Brown, Bill Pryor, Owen, and other staunch right-wingers for the federal bench. She led the President's research committee for those judicial openings."
No, she did not pick them. She was just in her position recently. She can be given credit for helping with Roberts, but that's about it.
What riles me more is that Bush says she won't change.
__________________________________________________________
She has changed quite often. She was a democrat, then became a republican. She voted for Gore, then voted for Bush. She donated to Hillary, then donated to republicans.
Her past history show she does change, quite often.
You said it not me!
It's disheartening to see even Laura Bush under fire for a quite innocent response to a Matt Lauer question. By sundown tonight the country will believe Laura actually called conservatives "sexists". She did no such thing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.