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.

[jveritas]

that=than

[Rutles4Ever]

No, I personally wouldn't expect it. But that doesn't mean he should give the democrats obvious fodder and go on the record with it.

I would HOPE that if, theoretically, a better candidate was atheist, he would go with the better candidate. We're appointing a jurist, not a pope - and I'm a practicing Catholic, so that's not a swipe at Christianity.

[mlc9852]

Maybe we should wait for the hearings to see how this will all play out. Nobody Bush nominated would be acceptable to the liberals. If they vote her down (which I doubt), he can start all over with even a more conservative nominee.

[mlc9852]

Everyone knows he would never nominate an atheist.

[tomahawk]

I never thought losing the House and Senate in '06 were real possibilities.

The way Pres. Bush has been acting recently makes me think it is a real possibility.

[mjwise]

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.

[MineralMan]

"It is rather troubling that in the last two days, all we have heard from the WH is that we should (a) focus on her role as a woman and (b) focus on her religion.
"

Sadly, there's little else to know. She's not a Constitutional scholar, so she doesn't have a paper trail that shows her to be an originalist or a strict constructionist or any other sort of constitutionalist. We don't know.

She practiced business law, primarily. While business law issues come up occasionally at the SCOTUS, they don't make up much of the calendar.

She's an adminstrator, primarily, in her career, which has been quite successful.

So, all President Bush has is her success at breaking through barriers for women and a hint that her religious beliefs will make her likely to overturn Roe v. Wade. There's nothing else to say, really.

Sadly, Miers is simply not qualified to be a SCOTUS justice. That requires some background in constitutional law, in my opinion, whether in front of the court, as in Robert's case, or on the federal bench. She has none of this.

This is an important and powerful position. We should be looking for the very best qualified people to fill it. Guesswork just won't do.

[tomahawk]

I believe the Miers nomination is doomed.

[jveritas]

In five words why do you oppose Harriet Miers nomination?

[Agent Smith]

That is all well and good, BUT he should use the political victories to advance the Republican agenda. So far, he is flunking lunch with Mier's nomination.

[tomahawk]

He should withdraw her nomination and pick a qualified judge (and there are dozens of qualified women judges if that's what he wants).

Better to take some humiliation now than more letter when Miers is voted down.

[jveritas]

In five words why are you against Harriet Miers nomination?

[Rutles4Ever]

Everyone knows he would never nominate an atheist. Everybody knows I drive five miles over the speed limit but I'm not going to turn myself in.

[Rutles4Ever]

Everyone knows he would never nominate an atheist.

Everybody knows I drive five miles over the speed limit but I'm not going to turn myself in.

[Leatherneck_MT]

I can think of no commodity she has that interests me LESS than her religion.

I would rather have the likes of Thomas Jefferson (an admitted Atheist) on the courts, than ANY religious leader of the day.

We are talking about SCOTUS and our Constitution. Not elections for the Pope.

[MineralMan]

"Seems to me that there is nothing that would placate you anyways, and therefore its futile in any attempt to convince you."

---

Placate me? Convince me? I'm just stating my opinion that Miers is not qualified to be a SCOTUS justice. That opinion is shared by many others.

I can be convinced, however. Just show me her legal writings which demonstrate that she understands constitutional law and holds a conservative position towards it. So far, I have not seen that. Have you? If you have, please show me.

Don't let the fact that I am an atheist influence you. Most of the people I respect the most are Christians. Religion is, in my opinion, not an issue in this nomination.

Sadly, there's little that President Bush can offer in the way of qualifications for this nominee. Therefore, I consider it a poor choice. I am entitled to my opinion, and it is an informed one.

[Kjobs]

You can put a kitten in the oven, but that won't make it a biscuit.

[Stellar Dendrite]

Religion When It Suits [Matthew J. Franck 10/08 06:50 PM]

I don't often agree with E.J. Dionne, but yesterday he nailed it. Of course, so have some conservative commentators whom he quotes. Dionne's complaint? That the same people in the Bush administration and among its supporters who thought it was outrageous when anyone brought up the religion of John Roberts, in order to raise questions about his future decision-making as a justice, think it's just fine to sell Harriet Miers (to wary conservatives, anyway) by talking about what a fine and trustworthy future jurist her religion makes her. A little hypocrisy may be "the tribute that vice pays to virtue," as La Rochefoucauld said. But this much begins to smell bad.

I'll go Dionne one better. I think the administration has played it wrong both times. It was right not to try to "sell" Roberts on the basis of his putative conservative Catholicism. What John Roberts thinks about the ensoulment of the embryo, not to mention of the doctrine of transubstantiation, is not an argument for his confirmation by the Senate. But when Democratic senators started to hint darkly about what they feared might be Roberts's Catholic views, the administration and its GOP allies in the Senate would have done much better not to react in high dudgeon, but to smile serenely and say "why ever do you wish to ask such a thing? Go right ahead and we'll see what the judge has to say." Does anyone think that what would have followed would have benefited Roberts's opponents in any way?

And now, with its broad nudges and winks, its tributes to Harriet Miers's religious faith, as though that constituted satisfactory assurance to conservatives that she would be "our kind" of Supreme Court justice, the Bush administration has chosen a tactic that is both wrong on the merits and foolishly hypocritical. Should Miers's interlocutors in the Senate hearings try again what they were rebuffed for trying with Roberts, how can their questions be fended off now? Bush's people have already ruled such questions in, not out.

[p[adre29]

and that is a trap for the Crat's. If they try and use the
"no religious test" clause they will appear to be anti faith
but if they don't mention it, the left wing will hammer them
with "why are you letting a religious fantatic on the Court"

and i think the clause more has to do with barring from any
office due to religious conscience or oaths. and I can agree
with that.

[thoughtomator]

That's the way she's being sold to us. It's not nearly as egregriously anticonstitutional as what the Democrats do, but still it is at cross purposes to the text.