Bush: Miers' Religion Cited in Court Nod

AP ^ | October 12, 2005 | NEDRA PICKLER

[West Coast Conservative]

President Bush said Wednesday that Harriet Miers' religious beliefs figured into her nomination to the Supreme Court as a top-ranking Democrat warned against any "wink and a nod" campaign for confirmation.

"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers," Bush told reporters at the White House. "Part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."

Bush, speaking at the conclusion of an Oval Office meeting with visiting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, said that his advisers were reaching out to conservatives who oppose her nomination "just to explain the facts." He spoke on a day in which conservative James Dobson, founder of Focus on Family, said he had discussed the nominee's religious views with presidential aide Karl Rove.

[Blessed]

>What if the person simply hasn't been blessed with your exposure to the Gospel? Say, a guy in the Amazon jungle who doesn't necessarily believe in a god but lives a virtuous life as he understands it? Is he an agent of Satan, too?

Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

The Bible says we are all condemed to a spiritul death(Hell)without a savior.

The Bible further sayus we are without excuse.

Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

>You see, the Church has never said that a single soul is in hell.,

The Bible says we are all under condemnation to begin with.It is only through God's Grace we are spared what we deserve.

[Dat Mon]

I swore to stay off these Miers threads...but sometimes the urge is just too irresistible.

Its like watching a potential train wreck in slow motion, you want to turn away, but cant resist looking to see if the truck is going to get off the tracks in time.

Let me say up front that IMHO this nomination process is pretty much over...its a done DEAL...unless something embarrassing comes out this week regarding her activities back in Texas...or if the revolt becomes overpowering to the RNC, and they persuade Miers directly to withdraw.

The horsetradn's over, the preliminary vote counts are in...there are enough pub AND dem votes there right now to put this woman over the top. Bush is not going to withdraw her no matter what.

All thats left is the spinning and the stage management, and the reachin' out to diverse groups to shore up the votes...like the squishy soccer mom middle via the MSM outlet on the Today show.

I agree with Rush...I think that this nomination is a turning point for the contemporary conservative movement...its a mark in the sand. I think it will galvanize and focus us in the coming months and years to come.

But I also think that a Meirs confirmation is ultimately going to provide some millstones around the conservative movement...thats why the dems want her on the court...as damaged goods. (The dem leadership wants her that is...the base is basically clueless..they need to be 'managed' as well.)

The reasons actually have little to do with this womans qualifications directly...she may turn out eventually to be a fine justice and a reliable vote...nobody knows for sure....that aspect is a house favored odds craps shoot at this point, however.

The first millstone is one of PRECEDENT... picking a close personal friend, personal and political lawyer, AND WH counsel all rolled up into one...for a lifetime meritorious appointment. Federalist 76 is not the law of the land, but the intent of one of the most influential founders is pretty clear to any reasonable person. If Meirs had a stellar record of legal scholarly achievement, all this would be a moot point, but as Levin makes clear...she does not. So we at least have the appearance of impropriety here.

I know somebody can go back over the last 200 years or so, and find where a similar nomination has occurred..but it has not to my knowledge happened in recent history. Now extrapolate what this kind of appointment could mean down the road should a corrupt treasonous pol from the OTHER side get in the WH...I shudder to think.

The other millstone is one of RELIGIOUS QUALIFICATION, it is offered here by Bush himself. He is making ...perhaps indirectly...the argument that religious belief should be an aspect of qualification for SCOTUS. ...bad bad move.

Lets assume that this is an indirect enough qualification in this particular case to not be overtly unconstitutional. What if down the road this woman does turn out to be a true originalist in the mold of who know who...Bush has given the libs the very ammunition they can use to argue effectively, in the court of public opinion...that the decisions and judgments rendered by this woman should be suspect...because they were those of a qualification suspect woman who was acknowledged by her nominee to have strong religious beliefs which factored directly in her being chosen in the first place.

We may win the Miers votes...but long term we may be put on the defensive in the war of ideas we must also win to succeed as a movement.

Aside from all this...the issue of the hearings IMO is a little complex and unpredictable...it depends on where the conservative members of the committee want to go ...how far they want to push it.

I think its likely she wont reveal much of anything to the average observer, though experts in con law may pick up clues that she is just reciting chapter and verse from a well rehearsed script (She's cramming on con law and being drilled as we speak).

Of course, Arlen, Lindsey, and Orren will be there to 'help' her through the hearings.

Threes also other potential landmine issues...making the Presidents policies themselves the object of the hearings...and getting her to go on record as being involved in those decisions...and thus liable for future recusials if those cases come before the court. It negates in effect..one of the reasons given for her being on the court in the first place.

All in all...IMO a very poorly thought out strategery..which if the blog rumors are to be believed...Andy Card rather than Rove had a hand in. Im not sure that I buy that...but its good for Rove to distance himself from this snafu...it only verifies my conclusion that this is not the master strategery that we had all hoped for.

[Rutles4Ever]

(Not a reason to either affirm, or not affirm Ms. Miers. This is W's misstep)

From Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States by Joseph Story, Vol III, Page 705-707. De Capo Press Reprints in American Constitutional and Legal History series, Da Capo Press NY 19700. Joseph Story's Commentaries . . . were originally published in January 1833)

Section 1841. The remaining part of the clause declares, that "no religious test shall ever be required, as a" qualification to any office or public trust, under the "United States." This clause is not introduced merely for the purpose of satisfying the scruples of many respectable persons, who feel an invincible repugnance to any religious test, or affirmation. It had a higher object; to cut off forever every pretence of any alliance between church and state in the national government. The framers of the constitution were fully sensible of the dangers from this source, marked out in the history of other ages and countries; and not wholly unknown to our own. They knew, that bigotry was unceasingly vigilant in its stratagems, to secure to itself an exclusive ascendancy over the human mind; and that intolerance was ever ready to arm itself with all the terrors of the civil power to exterminate those, who doubted its dogmas, or resisted its infallibility. The Catholic and the Protestant had alternately waged the most ferocious and unrelenting warfare on each other; and Protestantism itself, at the very moment, that it was proclaiming the right of private judgment, prescribed boundaries to that right, beyond which if any one dared to pass, he must seal his rashness with the blood of martyrdom. (1) The history of the Parent country, too, could not fail to instruct them in the uses, and the abuses of religious tests. They there found the pains and penalties of non-conformity written in no equivocal language, and enforced with a stern and vindictive jealousy. One hardly knows, how to repress the sentiments of strong indignation, in reading the cool vindication of the laws of England on this Subject, (now, happily, for the most part abolished by recent enactments,) by Mr. Justice Blackstone, a man, in many respects distinguished for habitual moderation, and a deep sense of justice. "The second species," says he "of' non-conformists, are those, who offend through a mistaken or perverse zeal. Such were esteemed by our laws, enacted since the time of the reformation, to be papists, and protestant dissenters; both of which were supposed to be equally schismatics in not communicating with the national church; with this difference, that the papists divided from it upon material, though erroneous, reasons; but many of the dissenters, upon matters of indifference, or, in other words, upon no reason at all. Yet certainly our ancestors were mistaken in their plans of compulsion and intolerance. The sin of schism, as such, is by no means the object of temporal coercion and punishment. If, through weakness of intellect, through misdirected piety, through perverseness and acerbity of temper, or, (which is often the case,) through a prospect of secular advantage is herding with a party, men quarrel with the ecclesiastical establishment, the civil magistrate has nothing to do with it; unless their tenets and practice are such, as threaten ruin or disturbance to the state. He is bound, indeed, to protect the established church; and, if this can be better effected, by admitting none but its genuine members to offices of trust and emolument, he is certainly at liberty so to do; the disposal of offices being matter of favour and discretion.

FOOTNOTES:

(1) See 4 Black. Comm. 44, 53, and the Ante, Vol I 53

(2) 4 Black. Comm. 52, 53.

[jveritas]

I trust President Bush more than anyone else, period. He knows her more than anyone on this forum or the barking pundits on TV, radio, and newspapers. I trust his judgment that she will be a good originalist conservative Supreme Court justice.

[jpl]

I don't know what in the world has gotten into Mr. Bush lately. I'm starting to think that maybe he's tired of the responsibility of being President and has more or less given up at this point. The whole situation is becoming a total embarrassment.

[Grut]

Where do the Bible and the Constitution disagree?

Well, if they don't disagree, what's the difference if the Court is packed with Christians, Wiccans or Athiests? Any of them, ruling from the Constitution, would automatically rule in accordance with the Bible.

[.30Carbine]

It was not a bright thing for President Bush to do, and is going to come back and bite him on the butt.

I believe you are wrong. Not only wrong in the political aspect, but in the spiritual, which is far more important.

[mjwise]

What? You think a religious test only can occur if President Bush sat Ms. Miers down, and forced her to attest to her evangelical beliefs in a written document as a requirement for her nomination?

Sorry bub, but if President Bush even once thought, "Her religious beliefs, by only the virtue of their existence, are positively influencing my decision to nominate her" then he subjected her to a de facto religious test and this nomination should die in committee. It's especially reprehensible after the big deal that was made about Roberts' Catholicism being irrelevant to the process after he was nominated.

[Cboldt]

So we at least have the appearance of impropriety here. I know somebody can go back over the last 200 years or so, and find where a similar nomination has occurred..but it has not to my knowledge happened in recent history.

Abe Fortas was WH cousel before being nominated to Associate Justice. There is recent precedent.

[.30Carbine]

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!! DANGER!!!

Now why would the mention of a person's spiritual beliefs - in Christ Jesus - so cause you (and so many others) to react this way?

Why is it that the mention of Christ sends the World into a tizzy?

Makes you wonder...why is Christ so divisive? Why can we use His Name as a curse word every day of our miserable lives but not actually believe in His Name?

This is great to watch.

[.30Carbine]

Perfect.

[mjwise]

And I should further qualify this by saying that if the absence of such religious beliefs (but with no other changes to her) would have dissuaded him from nominating her, then the nomination should definitely be killed.

[cogitator]

I trust President Bush more than anyone else, period.

This response does not answer my question. You just tacitly admitted that President Bush could nominate ANYBODY to the SCOTUS, and you'd trust his judgement, even though it might be obvious to the rest of the country that it was a stupid choice.

The problem with the Miers nomination is that it's not obvious it's a stupid choice, it requires a minute or so to think about it.

[.30Carbine]

Yeah, but the fact remains that President Bush and the WH allude to her religious beliefs too often, as if it was one of her qualifications. Unwise IMO. Her religious beliefs should be (or at least should have been) irrelevant to this nomination.

A person's religious beliefs are never irrelevant. To the contrary, those beliefs determine not only that person's destiny in this life, but for all of eternity.

BTW, what constitutes, "too often"? And who determines that?

[mlc9852]

I think you may be overreacting. Who are laughingstocks and who is doing the laughing? The Dems? And we care because?

[kjam22]

Sorry bub, but if President Bush even once thought, "Her religious beliefs, by only the virtue of their existence, are positively influencing my decision to nominate her" then he subjected her to a de facto religious test and this nomination should die in committee.

A strict constructionist who read the constitution literally would argue that she's not taken any test regarding her religious beliefs or understanding. If you say she has, then produce the test..... :)

[jveritas]

and you'd trust his judgement, even though it might be obvious to the rest of the country that it was a stupid choice.

You are way overrating the numbers of the anti-Miers camp and you are sadly mistaken if you form a majority. Majority of conservatives and Republicans are either supportive of President Bush choice or they just want to wait and see before making judgment on Miers. Only a minority, but a very vocal one (talks show hosts and conservative pundits), are against her without knowing anything about her.

PS: Check the FR poll on Miers.

[DTogo]

The best I can come up with is Joushi no tame ni jiko o gisei ni suru or "Sacrifice oneself for your boss." Broken down as:

joushi = (your) boss

no tame ni = for

jiko = oneself

o gisei ni suru = to sacrifice

My "oracle" could come up with nothing better.

[Dat Mon]

Youre right. Was he also a close personal friend and a former personal lawyer as well. I wasnt aware that he was.

[mjwise]

A person's religious beliefs are never irrelevant. To the contrary, those beliefs determine not only that person's destiny in this life, but for all of eternity. Nonsense. This is not a religious or spiritual post. The Constitution explicitly tried to nip the idea of religiously-motivated appointments in the bud. Because once you admit that "religion can be a qualifier", you open up the door for all sorts of bad decisions to be made, because now you're relying on whatever the president's religious beliefs are to make a good decision. And right now I suspect you and the President agree on many religious issues -- but what happens when a future President differs from you and nominates again on religious beliefs you want no part of? You already opened the door. And the mention today was one too many if you ask me. To tell you the truth, it speaks more of a WH that has little to stand on to speak well to Mier's nomination than that Pres. Bush is explicitly considering religion. But I still stand by my points.