Posted on 10/17/2005 3:17:09 PM PDT by Map Kernow
Harriet Mierss confirmation hearings are about to begin, so we may be on the verge of learning something meaningful about the presidents choice to replace Justice Sandra Day OConnor on the Supreme Court. Or maybe we wont. We havent learned much since she was named, and one suspects there might not be all that much more out there.
I dont know enough about Ms. Miers even to guess at her qualifications for the job to which she has been appointed. Ive heard good and bad things about her from those whove dealt with her, and Ive read reams of opinion about her, but I still have to count myself as skeptical, as nothing Ive heard thus far even begins to convince me that she belongs on the Supreme Court.
The case for Miers is simple. The president knows her and likes her. Shes a hard worker and a woman who did well as a lawyer in Texas, is devoted to the president and has performed loyally as a White House staffer. Oh, and there is one other thing. Ms. Miers regularly attends church and apparently takes her religion seriously. This, according to White House arm twisters, tells us that she would vote on the court in a way that would please social and religious conservatives.
In fact, it tells us no such thing.
Its nice to know that Ms. Miers is a regular church-goer, and nicer still that she is devout, but we have been told time and again by the same people selling her candidacy today that a nominees religious views need not shape his or her judicial decisions. When liberals questioned whether John Roberts would, as a Catholic, be able to decide cases involving abortion and euthanasia without being unduly influenced by the views of his church, they were assured in no uncertain terms that his views of the Constitution and the role of the Supreme Court, rather than his personal religious views, would prove determinative in such cases.
They were right then and wrong now. One can find devout liberals and conservatives sitting side by side in pews every Sunday. As a practical matter, while it is true that regular attendance may, as numerous polls suggest, indicate a greater statistical likelihood that one will vote Republican, such attendance tells us little about any individual attendees politics and absolutely nothing about how Harriet Miers might vote on cases that come before her as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
When a Supreme Court justice looks at a case, conservatives and most other Americans would hope that he or she would ask how the Founders might have viewed it in light of the meaning of document they crafted rather than how their minister, priest or the president who appointed them might want it to turn out. We dont know how Harriet Miers views the Constitution or the role of a Supreme Court justice, and most of us are waiting to find out.
Still, I have from the beginning been willing to grant that, since few of us know much about the lady, she may be all the president and his advisers claim. She is, after all, a smart woman and a fairly successful lawyer who may well have thought deeply, though privately, about constitutional questions in spite of the rather mundane chores for which shes billed her clients over the years, but it is going to be up to her to demonstrate it.
What is most troubling about this whole affair, however, is the way the administration has gone about trying to demonize conservatives who have raised questions about Ms. Miers. It began from day one to attack personally the motives, loyalty and judgment of anyone who questioned the wisdom of the nomination. Since then, the ad hominem attacks on Mierss conservative critics have been unconscionably heavy-handed and will haunt the president regardless of how the nomination fight turns out.
Most conservatives have stood with Bush from the beginning. Those of us who know him like him. Weve swallowed policies we might otherwise have objected to because weve believed that he and those around him are themselves conservatives trying to do the right thing against sometimes terrible odds. Weve been there for him because weve considered ourselves part of his team.
No more.
From now on, this administration will find it difficult to muster support on the right without explaining why it should be forthcoming. The days of the blank check have ended because no thinking conservative really wants to be part of a team that requires marching in lock step without question or thought, even if it is headed by the president of the United States.
#5
BTW, I think part of the dynamic in this Miers thing, is that the President has been so unfairly attacked by liberals and leftists, to the point of hateful absurdity, that some conservatives feel protective of him regardless of what he does.
"Doesn't Bush get another go if we block Miers? How does blocking her mean that he gets no more chances to nominate a judge?"
Well, hopefully no one is planning on actually blocking her until we hear what she has to say. But yes, he gets another chance if that happens.
Please go to HH's site to get the context and to verify HH's opinion that the President "leads the conservative movement ...."
Why lie like this?
Does he think people will believe him?
Good point.
The above statement may be the most accurate summation of the state of the party base that I have heard yet. The only improvement possible would be to add to the first sentence the additional task of winning the war on terrorism. Well stated, Cicero...
Likely not. Eminent domain is generally used by the powers that be--politicians, lawyers, and crooked businesses--against the little guy, and she has spent her whole life working for the powers that be. The usual way people like that assuage their consciences is to throw the little guy a few bones, courtesy of the taxpayers, which takes us even further from constitutional justice.
You mean if Harriet Miers loses confirmation, we get to elect a new President?
That sure changes the calculus.
You ask a simple question and get totally ripped apart? Something is NOT right here.
kitty killer
Thank you. I agree that the War on Terror is another top priority. The court is still out on how Bush will measure up to that. He started out splendidly, and he has continued to do good work in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I'm a bit nervous about his waiting so long for the obvious next moves of dealing with Syria and Iran.
I have been willing to wait for what he considers the right moment, as long as he keeps my trust. But the way things have been going for the past few weeks I am less sure than I was that that such trust is justified.
Moreover, Bush can't press forward with the War on Terror unless he has support, and I'm afraid he has damaged that support and confidence needlessly. Not the damage from Katrina, which was nothing but media lies that will fade away, but the Miers provocation, which is his own doing and which will not fade away at all if he doesn't change course very soon.
" You mean if Harriet Miers loses confirmation, we get to elect a new President?
That sure changes the calculus."
Actually I meant that the kind of conservative the President's critics are asking for might have stalled the confirmation process so long that the seat was still open in 2008.
You think that being one of the 100 best lawyers in the country is not sufficient?
Does the person have to be a judge already?
Where did you get that figure from? I have serious doubts about it.
Does the person have to be a judge already?
No, but she should have extensive experience with constitutional law. As far as I can know, she has next to none.
Well, I hate to back down so quickly... but it's important to admit mistakes.
I said she was a 100 lawyer, information I got from President Bush.
But in looking for a link to give you, I found that she was actually ranked one of the top 100 most influential lawyers.
To me that is different. Not enough to call the President a liar but it is enough to make the ranking less important in my opinion.
I'm sorry if my post was misleading.
http://archive.salon.com/politics/war_room/2005/10/04/toplawyers/
http://volokh.com/posts/1128789544.shtml
http://keyetv.com/topstories/topstories_story_281121428.html
This Administration has had a horrible PR organization and its starting to catch up with it.
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