Posted on 10/19/2005 4:31:13 PM PDT by Conservative Coulter Fan
Of all the words written about Harriet Miers, none are more disturbing than the ones she wrote herself. In the early '90s, while she was president of the Texas bar association, Miers wrote a column called "President's Opinion" for The Texas Bar Journal. It is the largest body of public writing we have from her, and sad to say, the quality of thought and writing doesn't even rise to the level of pedestrian.
Of course, we have to make allowances for the fact that the first job of any association president is to not offend her members. Still, nothing excuses sentences like this:
"More and more, the intractable problems in our society have one answer: broad-based intolerance of unacceptable conditions and a commitment by many to fix problems."
Or this: "We must end collective acceptance of inappropriate conduct and increase education in professionalism."
Or this: "An organization must also implement programs to fulfill strategies established through its goals and mission. Methods for evaluation of these strategies are a necessity. With the framework of mission, goals, strategies, programs, and methods for evaluation in place, a meaningful budgeting process can begin."
Or, finally, this: "We have to understand and appreciate that achieving justice for all is in jeopardy before a call to arms to assist in obtaining support for the justice system will be effective. Achieving the necessary understanding and appreciation of why the challenge is so important, we can then turn to the task of providing the much needed support."
I don't know if by mere quotation I can fully convey the relentless march of vapid abstractions that mark Miers' prose. Nearly every idea is vague and depersonalized. Nearly every debatable point is elided. It's not that Miers didn't attempt to tackle interesting subjects. She wrote about unequal access to the justice system, about the underrepresentation of minorities in the law and about whether pro bono work should be mandatory. But she presents no arguments or ideas, except the repetition of the bromide that bad things can be eliminated if people of good will come together to eliminate bad things.
Or as she puts it, "There is always a necessity to tend to a myriad of responsibilities on a number of cases as well as matters not directly related to the practice of law." And yet, "Disciplining ourselves to provide the opportunity for thought and analysis has to rise again to a high priority."
Throw aside ideology. Surely the threshold skill required of a Supreme Court justice is the ability to write clearly and argue incisively. Miers' columns provide no evidence of that.
The Miers nomination has reopened the rift between conservatives and establishment Republicans.
The conservative movement was founded upon the supposition that ideas have consequences. Conservatives have founded so many think tanks, magazines and organizations, like the Federalist Society, because they believe that you have to win arguments to win political power. They dream of Supreme Court justices capable of writing brilliant opinions that will reshape the battle of ideas.
Republicans, who these days are as likely to belong to the corporate establishment as the evangelical establishment, are more suspicious of intellectuals and ideas, and more likely to believe that politics is about deal-making, loyalty and power. You know you are in establishment GOP circles when the conversation is bland but unifying. You know you are in conservative circles when it is interesting but divisive. Conservatives err by becoming irresponsible. Republicans tend to be blown about haplessly by forces they cannot understand.
For the first years of his presidency, George Bush healed the division between Republicans and conservatives by pursuing big conservative goals with ruthless Republican discipline. But Harriet Miers has shown no loyalty to conservative institutions like the Federalist Society. Her loyalty has been to the person of the president, and her mental style seems to be Republicanism on stilts.
So conservatives are caught between loyalty to their ideas and loyalty to the president they admire. Most of them have come out against Miers — quietly or loudly. Establishment Republicans are displaying their natural loyalty to leadership. And Miers is caught in the vise between these two forces, a smart and good woman who has been put in a position where she cannot succeed.
These quotes are very telling, most disturbing, and quite damning.
After each one I found myself just uttering an increasingly incredulous, "OH MY GOD!"
If it's not now over for this woman, it certainly should be.
NO, it is the Establishment that is having a hissy fit cause one of their "heros" was not picked. It is the Conservative Base that is looking around wondering "What the "bleep" has gotten into these self-important twits."
It must be incumbent upon all who wish, or who desired and therefore were on notice that the effort required to respond, or to not answer, as necessity dictates in these stressful and questioning interludes of reason, that what the natural tendency really wasn't to take as criticism, really, in the final analysis, is, or was.
LOL. Good head-scratcher.
You know you are in establishment GOP circles when the conversation is bland but unifying. You know you are in conservative circles when it is interesting but divisive.
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To take this to the next level, try watching a meeting of Libertarians and/or Homeschooler parents... The creativity, individuality, interest, respect, are beyond fascinating!
I say this from reading threads here on FR where these persons congregate.
I'd be interested to hear what this terminology is.
I'm beginning to wonder if Johnnie is Bush or Harriet! He's on every thread about Harriet with ad hominem attacks against anyone who DARE opposes King George! Treason! Off with their heads!
I could drink a little tank of printer's ink and puke a better response than hers.
"Poverty of Thought Content" is the broadest term and probably the most descriptive, and the one that first came to my mind, quickly followed by the good old lay descriptor, "gibberish".
I'd love to hear some cubical dwellers and those in other professions tell their terms for this sort of gibberish, found all too often in various organizations.
Gotta head on over to make rounds at my evening gig, so can't dwell too long, but Poverty of Thought Content is most often used to describe the vague and digressive ramblings of schizophrenics, who can often talk endlessly and yet convey nothing informational.
(BTW, the president's pick is in NO way suffering from schizophrenia or any other serious mental illness that I can see, but her style of thinking demonstrated in these quotes is quite disturbing nonetheless, for exactly the reasons the author states.)
#18...laughing so hard....can't brea...breathe....LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are now qualified for the SCOTUS! LOLOL
She's obvously writing down to her audience. I'm sorry, but it doesn't read any different from any other legal boilerplate I've ever seen.
I think you make a good point. It seems likely that she got elected Texas State Bar president and made a law firm managing partner not because she is an intellectual giant or a gifted writer, but because she is likeble and isn't the least bit dangerous or threatening to her peers and superiors.
Everybody can get along with Harriet. Her word gun shoots nerf balls, and never hits the same target twice.
Our worst problems are fixed by not tolerating bad conditions and by commitment.
I don't see any problem with that for the president of an organization who has to put out some monthly or bi-weekly pablum in a newsletter.
That doesn't mean her stuff is useless. I can think of situations where a law firm might well choose Miers over the least talented summer hire intern to author a particular piece of documentation--answers to interrogatories, for example.
I can envision an opposing law firm assigning ten lawyers at $500 an hour, 60 hours a week, just to decipher and make sense of the mess, only to give up when their client's retainer and bank account ran dry.
IF ANY ONE OF YOU TAKE A CHANCE ON MIERS FOLKS IS LISTENING IT WOULD BE A GOOD TIME TO SEND THIS GUY A PRIVATE EMAIL TELLING HIM TO QUIT HURTING YOUR CAMP.
If she gets on the court she will evolve to a full blown social liberal within 3-5 years. Take another look at Brooks article. She has pushed affirmative action, civil rights, gay agendas, feminist causes and the "poor". She also sways with the faddish causes. Then there are the donations to demorats. She is Souter-in-drag. We will be stuck with this airhead for 20-25 years of muddle-headed decisions.
"The Miers nomination isn't about abortion at all. It's about putting somebody on the court who will protect the legacy Bush cares about most: the expansion of presidential power during the war on terrorism"
He can depend on Harriet.
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