Not quite the shattering revelation you doubtless intended it to be, I assure you.
Ouch! Bullseye!
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 ...
But so hilarious.
:7)
Consider it bookmarked.
Clarence Thomas, who by the way is known for the quality of his writing -- he seldom speaks during oral arguments -- had quite a track record. There is absolutely no indication that this woman is a Clarence Thomas. There are troubling indications that she is very liberal on economic issues and moderately liberal on social issues, but these indications are very thin, because her life has been lived in a circumspect way and her jobs have mostly been out of the public eye (neither good nor bad, this; it's just the set of facts we have).
The supporters of the Miers nomination seem to have two basic arguments, and two only:
There are also occasional attempts to inflate her resume which adds up to: a better than average lawyer of no known political or philosophical leanings.
Sounds to me like a good candidate for a US District Court, maybe in a stretch Court of Appeals.
I was inclined to trust the President on his nominees -- we owe him, after all, some deference in that. He blew that with me forever with the Julie Myers nomination to head ICE -- a crony's twentysomething niece who has never supervised more than three people. She is the most unqualified person nominated for any senior Federal position since Andrew Young. This tells me that the President's judgment about people is insufficient to support a "trust me" standard.
And Harriet Miers seems to be the most unqualified person nominated since Carswell, if not Fortas. I realise some people are so anti-intellectual that they would welcome a Carswell. (Fortas, in fact, looked more qualified than Miers on paper, but he was a well-known crook). Neither of the gentlemen I name here was confirmed.
You may just be more trusting than I. But you can't expect sell Miers on "trust W" or "she's my religion" grounds. I don't trust W, and she ain't my religion. And for the people making the "mediocre people deserve representation too" argument -- I submit they already have plenty.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Results oriented jurisprudence is EXACTLY what is wrong with the courts today. Conservatives have been fighting the notion that little things like the constituion and the framer's intent are secondary to "getting things right" (e.g. the court's finding an essential need for diversity in the University of Michigan case).
Now we're supposed to accept a mediocre nominee because she'll "vote correctly"?
Ouch! Bullseye!
Well... it was a slow-moving target, after all. :)
My definition of "vote correctly" is voting as a strict constructionist. Why is your 'definition' different?
Stare decisis has never meant a lock on past decisions.
It is nothing more than a process one goes through to analyze precedent according to stated principles, and certain weighting is given to the various criteria. To say one is wedded to stare decisis is to say they are wedded to that process. It is a careful, meticulous process of consideration. The final result can still be, and has been in previous cases, an overturning of past rulings.
In his testimony, John Roberts gave the same deference to the process of stare decisis. Some jumped straight up and said, oh look, he is stating that he could never vote to overturn anything, not just Roe, but Kelo (property takings ruling), no death penalty for anyone under 18, etc. Cooler heads prevailed as the truth was pointed out. He left plenty of room to overturn anything.
His support of the careful process of consideration and weighting in no way precluded that.
Sir, I don't think you should go to this. You don't have time and it is not important. Let me know. XXXXXXXXXX
Campaign Finance Reform (McCain-Feingold) and prescription drugs under Medicare. Add Miers. No one is infaliable.
I would hate to see you go "nukular" on Myers.
A melifluous style is not just the product of a flicitous predisposition for the well-crafted phrase, and writing style can be improved through rigours self-discipline and application.I am surprised that this work-bound fussy nominee has not been driven to try to improve the clarity of her expression, PARTICULARLY SINCE WRITING IS AN ATTORNEY'S STOCK IN TRADE. One worries that her thinking is just as tortuously muddled as her writing.
ROTFLMAO!!! Why do I suspect she plasters her notes to the President with little Hello Kitty stickers...? :)
You're looking at thge issue from a results oriented perspective. I'm not concerned how she'll vote on any given issue, I don't care if she can ape Scalia or Thomas's votes. That's not my vision of Conservatism.
I want a nominee who has a clearly expressed constructionist judicial philosophy and who is able to articulate it effectively. I see nothing in this nominee's background to suggest that she that ability. I simply cannot buy into the notion that we should accept this nominee because she'll (perhaps) vote correctly. There's simply too much at stake.
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.
The criticism is bogus.
Bogus 'noise' from the Washington Compost indeed.
Steven Hawking.
Miers does not suffer his impediment.
I have evolved. First, I was disappointed in the nomination. Then, I felt sorry for her. Now I just hope she withdraws.
Bush is softening up the country for a Gonzales nomination.
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