Miers Hit on Letters and the Law ("Writings Both Personal and Official Have Critics Poking Fun")

Washington Post ^ | 10/15/2005 | Charles Babington

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Supreme Court confirmation battles usually involve excavations of the nominee's judicial opinions, legal briefs and decades-old government memos. Harriet Miers is the first nominee to hit trouble because of thank-you letters.

Miers's paper trail may be relatively short, but it makes plain that her climb through Texas legal circles and into George W. Bush's inner circle was aided by a penchant for cheerful personal notes. Years later, even some of her supporters are cringing -- and her opponents are viciously making merry -- at the public disclosure of this correspondence and other writings from the 1990s.

Bush may have enjoyed being told by Miers in 1997, "You are the best governor ever -- deserving of great respect." But in 2005 such fawning remarks are contributing to suspicion among Bush's conservative allies and others that she was selected more for personal loyalty than her legal heft.

Combined with columns she wrote for an in-house publication while president of the Texas Bar Association -- critics have called them clumsily worded and empty of content -- Miers may be at risk of flunking the writing portion of the Supreme Court confirmation test, according to some opponents.

"The tipping point in Washington is when you go from being a subject of caricature to the subject of laughter," said Bruce Fein, a Miers critic who served in the Reagan administration's Justice Department and who often speaks on constitutional law. "She's in danger of becoming the subject of laughter."

[gpapa]

Where?

[GarySpFc]

First, those articles are set pieces for a small, specialized audience. It required no more effort than she gave to them. There was probably no editorial staff and the only review was done by printer.

I think everyone has made mistakes of this sort when they were preoccupied with more important matters. This is very common in those who are deep thinkers.

[AmericaUnited]

You are the one that doesn't get it.

Wrong. My point was that Reid was saying that Thomas was a poor justice because of his inability to write well.

Dingy Harry doesn't like Justice Thomas's writing because he disagrees with the content.

Yes, we both know that's the real reason but it was a phony attack, hence the 'Harry Reid School of Attack'.

P.S. Thomas does write very well. Not on the same level as Scalia, but who else does?...

[cornfedcowboy]

Some people equate brilliance with articulation. I don't


Exactly! Have the clerks do the details. Have the judge give a yea or nay.

[Racehorse]

Where?

There's an opportunity for you.

You might ask Disney and Microsoft, among others, what they think about her inadequate writing skills.

[GarySpFc]

I know that subtle distinctions, such as Hero of the Revolution vs fawning mediocrity are beyond you, but you don't need to harp on about it.

On the contrary, I am an avid student of American History, and am very familiar with John Marshall. I have lived 63 years, and have the wisdom to discern when someone is filled with hate.

[Doohickey]

Okay, fair enough. If her performance at the confirmation hearings match her strained writing style, can I expect you to question her nomination?

[gpapa]

We are conservatives. Are RINOs conservative?

[AmericaUnited]

Yes. See, honesty, something very lacking here lately.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

They're not mistakes.

That is the tenor of her writing.

Her style is that of a pettifogging, careerist bureaucrat, and that is an ineluctable fact, whether you choose to admit so or not.

She is a paper-shuffling, glad-handing cipher, and to delude yourself into believing that those atrociously written, ill-conceived, and poorly articulated papers are anything other than a reflection of who she is as an individual defies logic.

[ElPatriota]

...Bush is softening up the country for a Gonzales nomination...

Nooohh...:) that is cruel! Then there would be no doubt, he would be simply Stupid.

[JCEccles]

Sending Miers to author and write nation-altering decisions on the most powerful court in the land is like sending Willie Nelson to La Scala to sing the role of Aeneas in Berlioz's Les Troyen.

Each of them might be able to hit every sixth note, but why is that "good enough"?

Miers has been continually promoted beyond her modest talent and abilities by the same sort of people and for the same irrelevant reasons as are manifested in these threads at FR.

[mrsmith]

"One worries that her thinking is just as tortuously muddled as her writing. " Fein doesn't even try to criticize the style of the only professional document cited. Instead he makes a self-ridiculing absurd attack upon it's substance.

I hope her jurist critics soon get over their justified pique and quit making fools of themselves.

[gpapa]

Welcome to FR.

[Cboldt]

You are the guy who tried to tell us that Miers was as qualified as John Marshall when he took the job, until I pointed out that Marshall did not just study law for a little bit, but studied it under John Whyte at William and Mary (Jefferson's law professor), and that by the time he was appointed to the Supreme Court, he was a hero of the revolution, had established a sound law career and was a leading elected and appointed member of our newly formed republic.

I have noticed that the "stealth is okay - trust in GWB" camp has been more prolific with misleading posts, than the "fact finding and rational discussion" camp is. I've seen this pattern in other FR "events" as well, and after a day or two of independent study, I have been able to reliably conclude, objectively, which side is being intellectually honest, and which side is playing mind and word games.

GarySpFc, your posts are making a negative impact on your credibility as intellectually honest. I respect that you are an advocate. In fact, you are an exceptionally good advocate. But those of us who take the time to "fact check" your posts are finding that too many of them are misleading.

This entire FR/government process works so much better if it based on basic honesty regarding fact presentation. To do otherwise reduces what could be reasoned debate into nothing more than playground mudslinging.

[Doohickey]

I appreciate it. FWIW, I'm open to being convinced that Attorney Miers is the right person for the job.

[Racehorse]

I think everyone has made mistakes of this sort when they were preoccupied with more important matters. This is very common in those who are deep thinkers.

It was an obligatory column she probably didn't want to write.  It went with the office. 

That she was lazy about writing it is no big deal, except to would-be sharks going after chum.  :-)

[Racehorse]

If her performance at the confirmation hearings match her strained writing style, can I expect you to question her nomination?

You can expect me to question it.

[AmericaUnited]

You might ask Disney and Microsoft, among others, what they think about her inadequate writing skills.

Some of these people make me laugh, trying to paint this woman as a complete illiterate nincompoop, that can't write, think, or speak beyond a 4th grade level. It's simply amazing how this female Forrest Gump managed to fool so many people and organizations over such a long period of time. HOW DOES SHE DO IT???

[LibLieSlayer]

No one is. No one is perfect.

Partial Birth Abortion, Tax Cuts, WOT, letting the AWB expire, Tort Reform... some of the Conservative things accomplished.

LLS