Miers' Texas Writings Reveal A Glint Of Liberalism (Souter In Skirts MEGA BARF Alert)

Los Angeles Times ^ | 10/14/05 | Scott Gold And Richard A. Serrano

[goldstategop]

She called for increased funding for legal services for the poor and suggested that taxes might have to be raised to achieve the notion of "justice for all."

She praised the benefits of diversity, called for measures that would send more minority students to law schools, and said that just because a woman was the head of the state bar did not mean that "all unfair barriers for women have been eradicated."

She was upset that although poverty was rising in Texas, impoverished families received a disproportionately small share of welfare and Medicaid benefits. ...

Dallas lawyer Mark Curriden said that although most lawyers in Texas agreed that Miers was "very smart," conservatives for the most part disliked her work with the bar.

"They don't trust the bar," he said. "They don't want anything to do with it."

[Kryptonite]

We all mentioned that in the spring and the party leadership turned tail and ran.

You failed then. We all did.

Until Rush and the rest of the pundits admit this, conservatives will not only not get the nominees they want, they'll come off as losers who couldn't even get their #1 priority accomplished, and then failed to recognize the core problem when the sheet hit the fan.

Not focusing on the core problem hurts conservatives much much more than the GOP.

[defenderSD]

Did you see Pukin Dog's post from a few days ago? He seemed to suggest that embarassing information had been uncovered about a few of our favorite conservative jurists, such as perhaps 1) drug use in the past, or 2) embarsassing personal behavior like maybe visting strip clubs or some other behavior that would embarass the White House. That would not surpise me, because when I was in high school and college in the 1970's, almost everybody I knew smoked some marijuana at some time. These people are now successful business people, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and even working for police and fire departments. So it wouldn't surprise me if some potential nominees were derailed by witnesses who used drugs with one or more of them at parties. (Remember Judge Ginzberg?). I have no specific knowledge about any incidents. I'm just speculating based on my own experiences with college students in that era.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Did you see Pukin Dog's post from a few days ago?

Yeah, but I generally take "vanities" fiiled with alleged "first hand accounts" with a grain of salt.

[Southack]

"She will be confirmed after a few anticlimactic hearings, and conservatives will generally agree with her votes on the court. Miers will not create any problems for the GOP in '06 and '08. See you in the morning."

For whatever reason there is considerable bloodlust on the Right re: Miers.

Odd. In the short term, i.e. 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 (last calendar year of GWB in office), there is simply NO WAY that she'd vote against President Bush. He's pro-life, anti-gay-marriage, and anti-tax.

In the long term, she's not a factor because she's already so freakin' old.

She led the committee that submitted and selected Judges Bill Pryor, Janice Rogers Brown, and Chief justice John Roberts.

She's endorsed by numerous pro-life organizations (notice a theme with GWB's judges, anyone?!).

At 60 years old she packs heat. That's not exactly anti-second Amendment.

She's been in the real world, rather than isolated for decades in Judges' chambers (not that there has to be something wrong with that, either way).

She's a mission-sponsoring, fundamentalist evangelical Christian.

She's a Bush Loyalist.

So the current lynch-mob mentality is a bit over-the-top. So much as point out a few facts that don't bash either Bush or Miers and someone will attack your character around here right now.

She's truly too old for the job, politically, but she won't be any great disaster.

Nor should it be any big deal if she doesn't make it to the SCOTUS. Bork didn't make it and that didn't hurt President Reagan.

Frankly, the Senate has been telegraphing via their actions for years that they want non-controversial justices...this appointment might cause the Senate to re-consider.

[billclintonwillrotinhell]

She praised the benefits of diversity, called for measures that would send more minority students to law schools, and said that just because a woman was the head of the state bar did not mean that "all unfair barriers for women have been eradicated."

Which TV network should I watch for full coverage of the Miers confirmation hearings? BET? Lifetime? Oxygen?

[BigSkyFreeper]

No wonder people are fed up.

If people are as fed up as you say, then why are they sending the Senators who got them fed up in the first place, back to the Senate? The problem isn't Miers' lack of a record. The problem is there are a lack of a Conservative voice in the Senate to push the Conservative agenda through the Senate, without turning tail and hightailing it to the tallgrass when Kennedy, Schumer, and Clinton ask for floor time. Because that's exactly what the Republicans did last time around when Bush was pushing nominees through the judicial process. Another problem is, too few people pay any attention to the clowns that represent them, no matter what party that clown belongs to.

Conservatism as YOU know it, failed. Conservatism will continue to fail until such time it acknowledges the problem and deals with it accordingly, rather than just adding to the problem at hand, and continually being "fed up".

You can vote third party if you want. That won't solve things in the long run. Voting third party is rooted in shortsightedness.

[jocon307]

"At 60 years old she packs heat. That's not exactly anti-second Amendment."

There are plenty of people, like Rosie O'Donnell, Chuck Schumner, etc. who support their own right to bear arms, but not your or my right to do the same.

And as for all this tub-thumping about her church-membership she also attends several Episcopal churches in DC. So I don't think that indicates much loyalty to the Evangelicalism of her church. And as for sponsoring missions, I'm sure Ted Kennedy supports many missions too, so that proves nothing.

I'm sorry, but to me Meirs just seems like a professional small-pond politician. I cannot imagine why Bush chose her, any explanation that makes sense is a negative one. Since he REFUSES to fight with the Dems over ANYTHING, I suppose we just have to give him a fight ourselves.

DEFEAT MEIRS IN COMMITTEE!

[mc6809e]

This article is practically an endorsement of Miers and it's published in the LA Times.

Can it get any worse?

[goldstategop]

Sure if you're ectastic about David Souter, you'll love the woman who will fetch him coffee every morning.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[L.N. Smithee]

If people are as fed up as you say, then why are they sending the Senators who got them fed up in the first place, back to the Senate?

I'll tell you why: Because people like Bush, Rove, and the brainless trust at the GOP don't want conservatives running the party. They will talk out of one side of their mouth about shrinking government and spend like Reagan's proverbial drunken sailors; they will talk about protecting America from foreign invaders and smear a civilian coalition that deterred immigrants from around the globe from flowing freely across the border as "vigilantes" and nod like bobblehead dolls whenever the President of Mexico has the cajones to suggest that his expatriates should be given rights of American citizens; they play on the emotions of the faithful, family values crowd while cutting off funds to legitimate social conservatives like Pat Toomey; and they will, after luring the most ardent, hardcore of their own flock to their side, bring in a wolf in sheep's clothing like Harriet Miers.

For supposed supergenius Karl Rove, it's all about winning. That's how he made his reputation and his money. He's got the GOP in control of the Executive and the Legislative, even though he's had to install wishy-washy types to get the job done. And with the affirmation of Roberts, he's got his first Supreme notch in his belt, and now he's "swinging" for the fences. In the event that Miers is indeed confirmed, it may not be long before we discover that the "victory" over the Judicial was of the pyrrhic variety.

[L.N. Smithee]

Dallas lawyer Mark Curriden said that although most lawyers in Texas agreed that Miers was "very smart," conservatives for the most part disliked her work with the bar.

"They don't trust the bar," he said. "They don't want anything to do with it."

It wasn't so long ago that the ABA was raising sand about the WH's rejection of its ratings as a gauge for fitness for Federal courts. What changed everything?

[L.N. Smithee]

She led the committee that submitted and selected Judges Bill Pryor, Janice Rogers Brown, and Chief justice John Roberts.

S'what? You don't have to be a beauty queen to be a judge of a beauty contest!

[L.N. Smithee]

Bork didn't make it and that didn't hurt President Reagan.

Reagan was Reagan. Bush is Bush.

[goldstategop]

I dunno. I don't trust the ABA as long as the day is long. All I need to know is the Federalist Society doesn't like this nomination. That's good enough for me...

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[nj26]

"It "came from there", the writers are LA Times writers."

All the LA Times did was quote this woman's own writings in a newsletter in the early 1990s.

"The written record of President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court is meager. But her musings in the Texas Bar Journal in 1992 and 1993 offer a window into a different era for Miers.

At the time, she was perched atop a fractious organization of 55,000 lawyers that included law-and-order prosecutors, boardroom advisors and legal clinicians paid in chickens on the border. The crosscurrents were fierce, and Miers fought them by choosing a path that could safely be described as politically moderate and, at times, liberal — by Texas standards anyway.

She called for increased funding for legal services for the poor and suggested that taxes might have to be raised to achieve the notion of "justice for all."

She praised the benefits of diversity, called for measures that would send more minority students to law schools, and said that just because a woman was the head of the state bar did not mean that "all unfair barriers for women have been eradicated."

She was upset that although poverty was rising in Texas, impoverished families received a disproportionately small share of welfare and Medicaid benefits.

And she was an unapologetic defender of her profession, even the oft-maligned trial lawyer."

[nj26]

"S'what? You don't have to be a beauty queen to be a judge of a beauty contest!"

Great analysis.

[nj26]

"He seemed to suggest that embarassing information had been uncovered about a few of our favorite conservative jurists"

The GOP needs to stop being weak. Where's our counterpart to Hillary's rumored FBI files?

If Democrat Senators want to derail a conservative's Supreme Court nomination, then let's turn it back on them, and use the new media to air their dirty laundry.

Does anybody really believe that there aren't several Democrats (as well as RINOs) with a mistress in DC? Or that didn't partake in drugs in their youth?

[TexasCajun]

When is the last time the LATimes used the word Liberal or Liberalism in a headline to describe one of their friends?

Liberalism is a dirty word and they know it, then they use it to tag Miers with in an effort to split conservatives.

[KeyWest]

Good posts all the way around. I am amazed at the hysteria about her and we have not yet her her testify. The same core group that condemned Roberts are after Miers- remember the "Roberts is Souter" arguments? Then he testified and that ended that. We have not yet heard from her but some are more than willing to stamp innuendo as fact, like the "Roberts supports the gay agenda" based on his law firm work.

I have been around FR for a long time, also as Beekeeper, so this irrationality is nothing new. We all have bad days. It will pass in one way or another, but I fear that the appointment process for judges will be fully in the "Bork" mode since "conservatives" have accepted it as a technique. At least the dems allowed Bork to testify.

[libstripper]

They have some preconceived pent-up rage over "knowing little about her".

Did you ever think our "preconceived rage" could actually be deep trepidation based on over 50 years of experience with Republican Presidents, whom we had enthusiastically supported, contributed, worked for, and voted for, selecting "trust me" nominees, all seven of whom ended going over to the dark side: Eisenhower (Warren & Brennan), Nixon (Blackmun), Ford (Stevens), Reagan (O'Connor & Kennedy), and Bush I (Souter). Zero for seven is quite a track record. Eventually, after 50 years of bad picks like these, it's time to get suspicious and look askance at the eighth. The old saying is "once burned, twice smart." We've burned seven times; we ought finally to get smart on the eighth.