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Brooks: In her own muddled words (On Bush's Sinkin SCOTUS Pick)
The Austin American-Statesman ^ | October 14, 2005 | David Brooks

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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: davidbrooks; elitism; garbage; junkarticle; snob; stupidarticle; stupidity
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To: TheCrusader

Stopping Roe-Wade is not the only issue. If Meir helps stop it that's fine. The question concerns where she goes from there. I see her liberal tendencies in her other positions. When she realizes the power she will have on the court her true colors will emerge. She and Souter will make a lovely couple.


41 posted on 10/19/2005 6:38:39 PM PDT by hdstmf (too)
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To: Conservative Coulter Fan

All I know is that Miers is far superior to the psycho leftist anti American anti Constitution legislating from the bench justices that are sitting there now. People like Ginsberg and Breyer, Stevens and Souter.


42 posted on 10/19/2005 6:39:07 PM PDT by eleni121 ('Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!' (Julian the Apostate))
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To: Alberta's Child
Oh, for crying out loud... and Brooks nonetheless!

LOL, so how about some satire?

Brooks and Friedman Married in Private Ceremony

KENNEBUNKPORT, MA (IWR Satire) -- New York Times columnists David Brooks and Thomas Friedman were married today in a private ceremony at the Bush compound in Kennebunkport.

The couple had been dating for several years after they first met at a PBS taping of the Jim Lehrer NewsHour.

"It was love at first sight, and when I found out Tommy was really an establishment shill and neocon like me, I just had to propose," said an exuberant David Brooks.

"Oh hush, you big lug. You know how frisky I get when I see that huge pro-business, pro-Israel, pre-emptive and trickle down grin of yours.

We're really like two peas in pod," said Mrs. Brooks.

43 posted on 10/19/2005 6:50:18 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul
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To: JCEccles

I still say she was writing down to her audience. They're lawyers.


44 posted on 10/19/2005 6:56:02 PM PDT by AmishDude (If Miers isn't qualified, neither are you and you have no right to complain about any SC decision.)
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To: Conservative Coulter Fan
We've been raked over the coals for being too "elitist" in our reading of Harriet Miers. Well, that prose is elitist. No one with a grade school education talks or writes like that - its the kind of prose you expect from a bureaucrat. Heck, Ann Coulter is always clear about what she says. I can't make heads or tails of what Miers says. She's a mystery, not only about her judicial philosophy, but also about her reasoning skills. You need a legal dictionary to figure out her expressions. No, I don't think Joe Six Pack would identify with that kind of thinking. Its definitely (there's that dreaded word again) elitist!

(Denny Crane: "Gun Control? For Communists. She's A Liberal. Can't Hunt".)
45 posted on 10/19/2005 7:02:53 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: trubluolyguy
Nothing soaring about it, right? I've seen lawyers write better briefs. This is - there's no graceful way to put it - just godadwful!

(Denny Crane: "Gun Control? For Communists. She's A Liberal. Can't Hunt".)
46 posted on 10/19/2005 7:04:39 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: Conservative Coulter Fan
"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. "

Whaaaaa...? I can't even understand what she's trying to say in those quotes. "Vague" is too kind a description.

47 posted on 10/19/2005 7:08:18 PM PDT by shezza (God bless our troops)
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To: JCEccles
#18 ... brilliant.
48 posted on 10/19/2005 7:10:38 PM PDT by Urbane_Guerilla
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To: dagogo redux
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.

Lately, in my office, we would call Miers' gibberish "stuck on stupid." But the original term is b___s___.

49 posted on 10/19/2005 7:15:37 PM PDT by Urbane_Guerilla
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To: Victoria Delsoul
LOL!!!!

Where the heck did you find that?!?!?

50 posted on 10/19/2005 7:22:18 PM PDT by Alberta's Child (I ain't got a dime, but what I got is mine. I ain't rich, but Lord I'm free.)
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To: Conservative Coulter Fan; KoRn
Gee. You convinced me. Let's just throw out that darn old Constitution out and do what the perpetually angry wing of the Conservative Movement wants. No Judges cannot be appointed until each and every member of the self important whiners club approves of the choice. Question, what happens when some of you want ONE choice and some of you want a different one?

I suggest trial by combat between the two factions to decide who gets to pick.

51 posted on 10/19/2005 7:22:46 PM PDT by MNJohnnie (I'll try to be NICER, if you will try to be SMARTER!.......Water Buckets UP!)
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To: Alberta's Child

I can't tell you, because I'm planning to use the other pics... Ann Coulter's et al, LOL.


52 posted on 10/19/2005 7:29:13 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul
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To: MNJohnnie
" I suggest trial by combat between the two factions to decide who gets to pick."

ROFL!! How about a game of cards instead? Maybe some PVP in a video game.

53 posted on 10/19/2005 7:33:03 PM PDT by KoRn
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To: Conservative Coulter Fan

"...a smart and good woman who has been put in a position where she cannot succeed."

Well said.


54 posted on 10/19/2005 7:33:43 PM PDT by no dems (43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile, 2 to pull a trigger: I'm lazy and tired of smiling,)
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To: dagogo redux
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

Well, we sometimes like to play this closely related game. (If you haven't heard about it before, there are exactly 102,000 hits on various references to it and variations of it on Google.)

55 posted on 10/19/2005 7:34:59 PM PDT by Revolting cat! ("In the end, nothing explains anything.")
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To: Victoria Delsoul

Oh, boy -- I can't wait to see some of these. LOL!


56 posted on 10/19/2005 7:39:55 PM PDT by Alberta's Child (I ain't got a dime, but what I got is mine. I ain't rich, but Lord I'm free.)
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To: Alberta's Child

OK, perhaps we can try other Miers threads in the name of balance, lol.


57 posted on 10/19/2005 7:44:59 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul
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To: Conservative Coulter Fan
"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.

Sniff, sniff.... < /elitism >

58 posted on 10/19/2005 8:19:46 PM PDT by TheDon (The Democratic Party is the party of TREASON!)
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To: Victoria Delsoul

I'll be looking for your posts on every Miers thread from this point forward. LOL.


59 posted on 10/19/2005 8:43:10 PM PDT by Alberta's Child (I ain't got a dime, but what I got is mine. I ain't rich, but Lord I'm free.)
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To: Conservative Coulter Fan
...and a commitment by many to fix problems...increase education in professionalism...

It may be true that it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a Holmes to read the Constitution.

But it probably takes more than this. This reminds me of the kind of drivel that circulates among the education elites as they hawk the same tired ideas over and over. Well, except they are better writers (or better plagiarists).

As I always tell myself about my own puny efforts: sloppy writing means sloppy thinking. But then, the hopes of an entire generation of conservatives doesn't ride on my scribblings here at FR.

Given the carping over Thomas' intellectual qualifications when nominated, I can think of nothing in his writing quite as embarassing as this Miers sample, written for, what, tens of thousands of her fellow-attorneys?

Yeow.
60 posted on 10/19/2005 9:10:25 PM PDT by George W. Bush
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