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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 ...
Yesterday, when I read Brooks' article, I thought it was a big deal. A very big deal.
Then, I remembered something rather important.
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.
Second, SC opinions are not set pieces. The drafts are reviewed, edited, re-edited, circulated among the Justices, discussed, and edited again and again until the meaning of the text matches the Justice's intent.
The criticism is bogus. I should have realized that straight away.
What evidence is there to indicate that she modifies the quality or style of her writing for different audiences?
Preferring to make my views known to the White House and to my senators by personal mail, I have generally avoided commenting on this forum about Ms. Miers' qualifications. Your remark, however, pushed me to the edge. How?Over a twenty-year span in my profession of teaching both English composition and literature, I've taught thousands of students. To date, not ONE bright student failed to write coherently, even brilliantly, but, without exception, all of the poor thinkers invariably produced equally poor writing.
Simply put, as the mind works, so do the words tumbling out on paper (or on a word processor). Ms. Miers' mushy, unintelligible writing not only reveals a mushy, mediocre mind but also portends an embarrassing process. A "nice" woman does not an exceptionally qualified Supreme Court justice make. I, for one, hope she steps aside.
Regards . . . Penny
We both know you're not the least bit interested in evidence. Why pretend to ask about it?
For an understanding of the writing process, check out Claire Kehrwald Cook's Line By Line: How to improve your own writing, published by the Modern Language Association.
B.I.N.G.O.
But can she spell potato?
Fein said he is more concerned about Miers's legal thinking than her syntax, especially as outlined in her three-page letter to then-Gov.Bush on June 11, 1995, when she was the former state bar president. The letter implored Bush to veto a bill moving through the Democratic-controlled legislature that would have prevented the state Supreme Court from capping lawyers' fees.
"This proposed law does violence to the balance of power between the legislative and judicial branch of our State's government and constitutes an assault upon the powers of the Supreme Court" just as it had fallen into "Republican hands for the first time," Miers wrote.
Fein said it is outrageous to invoke separation-of-powers arguments when a legislature -- wisely or not -- tries to foster free enterprise. By citing the GOP's new control of the Texas Supreme Court, he said, Miers seemed to be seeking a partisan outcome on shaky constitutional grounds.
Not like Att'y Fein doesn't have a dog in a fee-capping fight.
From the info in the article, it seems to me that the legislature attempting to limit the SC powers and any attempts by the SC to tinker w/ legal fees (as in a 'cap') would both be on shakey constitutional ground--i.e., that both scenarios constitute overreaching.
To expand--isn't what the legislature was trying to do rather like the legislature passing a law & attaching a rider that says the law is immune from review by the courts? Or at least be setting a precedent that could be used in such an argument?
OTOH, I suppose that the SC could strike down the law and then the tussle would likely move to the federal courts.
In any case, I don't have a problem seeing this as a separation of powers issue.
Exactly!!!
-However, in the legal realm, especially at this level, a person has to be able to express their thoughts precisely and accurately in writing.-
And she has done so, many times.
The Law Guild seems to think it is the MASTER of the people and only it's self-selected 'High Priests' can be allowed to sever as judges. I know this will come as a big shock to the rather pedestrian intellects that populate the legal profession, and the punditry, these days, but the people of this country have neither the need, nor the desire, to be a judicial theocracy. 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.
> Yawn...Big deal. I know people who are absolutely brilliant thinkers and yet can't write. I know a few fantastic writers who are dumber than rocks.
Without reference to Miers in particular, don't you think a SCOTUS job description is one of those that requires acumen in both areas... thinking and writing, given that future precedent is not set on what a justice thought, but on the words set down in the opinions that they wrote?
On the other hand, being the subject of laughter has worked in President Bush' favor. He not only leaves them laughing , but scratching their numb skulls and wondering, "how'd he do dat?"
Simply put, as the mind works, so do the words tumbling out on paper (or on a word processor). Ms. Miers' mushy, unintelligible writing not only reveals a mushy, mediocre mind but also portends an embarrassing process.
Sounds just like something I stumbled upon during the 70s in something Laharpe wrote. Can't say I disagree with him or you--too much. I wouldn't want to.
I do believe your judgment based on this narrow sample is overly harsh.
Not one brilliant hack in twenty years? Remarkable. Congratulations.
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I have to strongly disagree with you here. There are many people who can think in very complex and sophisticated ways, but have a hard time translating those ideas and thoughts onto paper, in a way that an English teacher like yourself would be happy with. This is a much wider phenomena than you claim.
Exactly! But some people have very twisted priorities.
LOL...the only thing missing from nominee Miers notes is the little heart forming the dot on the "i" that my fourth grade girls used to use until I broke them of the habit.
My answer is in post #29
I would like some evidence of your assertions. A brilliant, complex mind can grasp the mechanics of writing--usage, grammar, and punctuation--readily enough so that even if the initial writing is rough, it inevitably transforms itself into an intelligible, coherent result, an accomplishment the poor thinker can never attain.
Regards . . . Penny
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