Posted on 10/15/2005 2:37:57 AM PDT by 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."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
"I don't think a lot of the Anti-Miers people realize they are displaying EXACTLY what is wrong with the Courts. It is EXACTLY this superficial, arrogant "We know better then everyone else" attitude that is the major reason the Anti-Miers are LOSING this argument."
Take a look at the FR poll.
65% of FReepers polled either don't support her nomination, or they feel they don't have enough information to.
"We have NO interest in allowing a self appointed tribe of self anointed"Elites" to use the Courts as the vehicle by which they imposing their minority position emotional whimsies on the rest of us."
Your argument is "fight the elites by nominating a dummy?"
Good going!
We anti-elitists don't need no stinken' FRENCH opera!
Wow. That would be a good quote to use on the people who claim GWB is more like Reagan than Reagan was.
I had addressed my comment to AmericaUnited who stated that, "I know people who are absolutely brilliant thinkers and yet can't write." He/she seemed to iniducate some personal knowledge.
I gather you have never read anything by Steven Hawking. He is a brilliant writer who is able to provide lucid discussions of complex topics written for a general audience. Hawking is both a brilliant thinker and writer. Miers doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Hawking either as a thinker or writer.
"Why is that such a complex 'thought' for you to understand or comprehend. Don't be so quick to pat yourself on the back for being a genius."
Big difference.
Thomas's writing is not poor. Miers is.
Reid is supportive of the Miers nomination. That puts him on your side, or you on his. Live with it.
Only if they are lone dissents. :-)
Well put.
I forgot to add immigration reform. Agree no is perfect. GWB can make mistakes. Miers was one of them.
It was an excellent response. I truly don't know where people get that "trust me," argument, except perhaps from the far reaches of their imbecilic minds.
bttt!
Thats funny I have noticed the exact same thing and I have a perfect example of it.
I know that you know where legal writings of Harriet Miers can be found and yet you have not linked to them in this thread.
That is intellectual dishonesty writ large. In a thread supposedly based on her legal writings, but instead focusing on no such thing, don't you think it would move the debate forward if you offered up the brief she wrote in Jones v Bush rather than castigating others for, IYO, not moving the debate forward?
Nice catch.
Then you must be on the hate-Miers,er, "fact finding and rational discussion" side.
Come on, you're on a thread about a critic who tries to treat her casual writings as professional ones (dishonesty anyone?) and when he can't deride the style of her only professional writing cited makes the absurd criticism that whether the court of the legislature set caps on lawyer fees isn't a separation of powers issue!
Both sides are ridiculous. There are no hard facts to go on. She is truly a stealth nominee.
Shucks, I'm just a clodhopper from the mountains of Yewtaw. I didn't grad-U-ate from an Ivy League law school either.
But I'm smart enough to now that Miers is no more qualified to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States than I am.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1502796/posts?page=72#72
Fro some discussion on that case you can punch here.
It is not an argument. "Trust me" is impossible to reason with. There can be no probing of common and different ground. Reason and intellect are powerless in the face of "trust me." That's why they take that side - to win the argument without having an argument.
It's a cheap trick, and intellectually dishonest. That anyone would advocate government based on an absence of reasoned discussion is, well, I can't find a word for it right now, but it is "not a good thing."
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