Ann Coulter: Who Was the Second Choice?

Human Events Online ^ | October 19, 2005 | Ann Coulter

[bigsky]

I have finally hit upon a misdeed by the Bush Administration so outrageous, so appalling, so egregious, I am calling for a bipartisan commission with subpoena power to investigate: Who told the President to nominate Harriet Miers? The commission should also be charged with getting an answer to this question: Who was his second choice?

Things are so bad, the best option for Karl Rove now would be to get himself indicted. Then at least he'd have a colorable claim to having no involvement in the Miers nomination.

This week's Miers update is:

(1) Miers is a good bowler (New York Times, Oct. 16, 2005, front page–Joshua B. Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget: "'She is a very good bowler"), which, in all honesty, is the most impressive thing I've heard about Miers so far.

(2) In 1989, she supported a ban on abortion except to save the life of the mother.

From the beginning of this nightmare, I have taken it as a given that Miers will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. I assume that's why Bush nominated her. (It certainly wasn't her resume.) Pity no one told him there are scads of highly qualified judicial nominees who would also have voted against Roe. Wasn't it Harriet Miers' job to tell him that? Hey, wait a minute . . .

But without a conservative theory of constitutional interpretation, Miers will lay the groundwork for a million more Roes. We're told she has terrific "common sense." Common sense is the last thing you want in a judge! The maxim "Hard cases make bad law" could be expanded to "Hard cases being decided by judges with 'common sense' make unfathomably bad law."

It was "common sense" to allow married couples to buy contraception in Connecticut. That was a decision any randomly selected group of nine good bowlers might well have concurred with on the grounds that, "Well, it's just common sense, isn't it?"

But when the Supreme Court used common sense–rather than the text of the Constitution–to strike down Connecticut's law banning contraception, it opened the door to the Supreme Court’s rewriting all manner of state laws By creating a nonspecific "right to privacy," Griswold v. Connecticut led like night into day to the famed "constitutional right" to stick a fork in a baby's head.

This isn't rank speculation about where "common sense" devoid of constitutional theory gets you: Miers told Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) she would have voted with the majority in Griswold.

(Miers also told Sen. Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.)–in front of witnesses–that her favorite justice was "Warren," leaving people wondering whether she meant former Chief Justice Earl Warren, memorialized in "Impeach Warren" billboards across America, or former Chief Justice Warren Burger, another mediocrity praised for his "common sense" who voted for Roe v. Wade and was laughed at by Rehnquist clerks like John Roberts for his lack of ability.)

The sickness of what liberals have done to America is that so many citizens – even conservative citizens – seem to believe the job of a Supreme Court justice entails nothing more than "voting" on public policy issues. The White House considers it relevant to tell us Miers' religious beliefs, her hobbies, her hopes and dreams. She's a good bowler! A stickler for detail! Great dancer! Makes her own clothes!

That's nice for her, but what we're really in the market for is a constitutional scholar who can forcefully say, "No -- that's not my job."

We've been waiting 30 years to end the lunacy of nine demigods on the Supreme Court deciding every burning social issue of the day for us, loyal subjects in a judicial theocracy. We don't want someone who will decide those issues for us – but decide them "our" way. If we did, a White House bureaucrat with good horse sense might be just the ticket.

Admittedly, there isn't much that's more important than ending the abortion holocaust in America. (Abortionist casualties: 7. Unborn casualties 30 million.) But there is one thing. That is democracy.

Democracy sometimes leads to silly laws such as the one that prohibited married couples from buying contraception in Connecticut. But allowing Americans to vote has never led to crèches being torn down across America. It's never led to prayer being purged from every public school in the nation. It's never led to gay marriage. It's never led to returning slaves who had escaped to free states to their slave masters. And it's never led to 30 million dead babies.

We've gone from a representative democracy to a monarchy, and the most appalling thing is–even conservatives just hope like the dickens the next king is a good one.

[Iowa Granny]

Er, none of that was true. Not even slightly. It is a made-up Page Six story by someone eager to get his name in circulation.

Oh Really? It's news to me. I've been in and out of here on the average of once every 45 minutes all day, there hasn't been a single retraction thread.

Surely all the FReeper Hunks would have been posting a retraction thread if what you're saying is true.

[AndyJackson]

Andrew Jackson is likely spinning in his grave knowing you are holding such loosey-goosey views of the Constitution while using his name.

You may not like my statement, but it is hardly original with me. Recognize the following: the constitution adopts in their full extent the common and statute law of Great-Britain, by which many other rights not expressed in it are equally secured.

Sound familiar? I thought not. The source - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper #84.

[minus_273]

remember when cheney was supposed to find the Veep and ended up being it himself. same thing.

[AmishDude]

We've gone from a representative democracy to a monarchy, and the most appalling thing is–even conservatives just hope like the dickens the next king is a good one.

What Coulter wants is a judicial oligarchy. Read the tagline.

[MarkL]

I still think that Neal Boortz was right, that President Bush should have nominated Ann for the SCOTUS position, if for no other reason than the sheer entertainment value of watching the Dems' heads explode!

Mark

[Iowa Granny]

Iowa Granny's post is a personal attack, based on false information. It was vicious and ill-informed.

Please point the way to the retraction of the Coulter/manchild story.

My comments were not a personal attack. It was a statement. Real conservatives do not take seriously the thoughts of middleaged women who sleep with young men barely past their teen years.

[Peach]

What Coulter wants is a judicial oligarchy.

Exactly. I read her a few years ago and chuckled, but she's just become shrill in recent years. It's a shame because she probably has a fine mind but instead of using it, she tries too hard to be a stand up comic and it comes across as bad or worse than Carville.

[hosepipe]

I see Ann... RINO selecting RINOs for RINOs.. check.. thanks..
And everyone knows a RINO is a very confused democrat..
What is a democrat.?.. A RINO with his head screwed on correctly..

[EveningStar]

We've gone from a representative democracy to a monarchy...

How so?

[Black Tooth]

The commission should also be charged with getting an answer to this question: Who was his second choice?

Sometimes impaling questions as so close they tend to keep one warm.

[rock58seg]

Dear Ann, You forgot the clincher. She was active in Meals on Wheels.

[fr_freak]

The critics of the decision who complain about penumbras and eminations from the Constitution, unfortunately deride the right of privacy that was identified. Perhaps the wording was boarderline 1960's wierdo, and that is unfortuante.

All the right to privacy that individuals need is the 10th amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." This amendment states that all powers not explicitly given to the federal government are reserved to the states or people. Therefore, the federal government would have no authority to regulate the lives of citizens, nor to interfere with the way the citizens, through their local government, regulate themselves, except in such ways as they violate Constitutional protections.

Now, this is where conservative contention with Roe v. Wade and many other decisions comes in: the Court decided that, since their was no explicit federal authority to prevent states from banning abortion, or, as in, Griswold, the sale of birth control, they then must invent a right that is not actually stated in the document, in order to strike down a state law that they did not like. The 10th Amendment would normally have prevented them from interfering in such a state matter, so finding a new "right" in the penumbras was the way to circumvent another part of the Constitution. What should frighten even people that like the results of Roe v. Wade is that, if the Court can invent a previously non-existent right in order to expand their authority to intervene in local affairs, then there is no practical limit on the power of the Court and, in theory, they could then justify the micromanagement of governance down to the mayoral level simply by finding more "rights".

Furthermore, if this "right to privacy" were truly found in good faith, it would be applied evenly throughout federal jurisprudence. However, as we all here know, the federal government is forever putting its nose in people's private business. For example, the federal government seems to believe that it has the authority to regulate what you ingest or smoke in your own home. Now, if there is a right to privacy that protects your ability to have your fetus dismembered through surgery, how is it possible to justify federal authority to ban someone from getting stoned? Is the taking of drugs any less of a personal and private decision than abortion? The merely implied "right to privacy" was used to essentially invalidate the explicit 10th amendment, yet it can't be used to invalidate a mere interpretation of the commerce clause? The fact that "the right to privacy" hasn't been applied to limit the authority of the federal government, but only to limit the power of the sovereign states and local government, alone makes the ruling suspect.

[metalurgist]

You are so right. What a lot of people on this forum want is a judge that dispenses social justice that they agree with and democracy as long as they are on the side with the 51%.

I want a judge that reads the constitution and if the power is granted to the state, whether it is moral or not sides with the constitution, and doesn't dispense social justice or personal opinion.

I think we have let Congress of the hook and wasted near 40 years trying to shape the court instead of shaping Congress.

[veronica]

I am convinced that there are rubes, mostly leftwing nutters at DU, Daily Kos, and Clown Posse, but a few oddballs here, who believe everything that is reported in the press, jump all over it like flies on you-know-what, and do so particularly and most venemously, when the person being reported about is thin, blond, and successful. Meow!

And as far as a 40-something woman dating a younger man, nothing is quite so silly as pontificating Church Ladies, leftwing or otherwise.

[Iowa Granny]

Isn't THAT Special.

Thank you so much.

Could you please provide 3 dozen cookies for the next social hour? Or perhaps you'd prefer to provide the 18 y.o. males for the Ladies Aid Society's Night on the Town.

[jla]

So you consider an inability to craft a single coherent, cogent sentence-at any point over the course of your life-"picayune stuff?"... Good to know where your priorities lie.

OK, I give up, what are you talking about?

[jla]

DTogo...We both Googled the same Megyn Kendall alright.
The picture I posted was of Irish newslady Gráinne Seoige.

[ladyinred]

It was me Ann, I confess! I wanted to keep it a secret, but you have outed me!

[Peach]

Nothing is quite so silly as pontificating Church Ladies, leftwing or otherwise.

Oh, I don't know. I rather think pontificating freepers who don't know the person they are addressing are rather more amusing.

But nice of you to defend Sam since he's obviously so unable to do it himself.

[Sam Hill]

So many around here (and elsewhere) remind me of the Churchill adage: "the Hun is either at your feet or at your throat."

Many of the same people who not so long ago slavered ridiculously over Ann Coulter (or Robert Bork, or fill in the blank) now can't make up enough nasty things to say about her (them).

It seems to be a function of whim, hormones, caprice, whatever. Anything other than reasoned argument.