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Who cares if Miers votes the "Right way". It's about who's better qualified!
Weekly Standard ^ | 10/19/2005 | Duncan Currie

Posted on 10/20/2005 9:06:27 AM PDT by aceintx

The Meritocracy Party Is it still the GOP? The Miers nomination poses an awkward test. by Duncan Currie 10/19/2005 12:00:00 AM

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WRITING IN the Wall Street Journal, editorial board member Melanie Kirkpatrick counsels her "friends on the right" to "brew themselves a cup of chamomile tea and go back and review the roster of Bush judges." Such an exercise may help them "sleep better" with the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. "Any president is due some deference under the Constitution in his choice of judges," Kirkpatrick says, "and given his record on picking judges, this president deserves more than he has received."

In other words, trust Bush--or at least wait until the Senate hearings before passing judgment on Harriet Miers. For over two weeks now we've heard White House aides and pro-Miers conservatives parrot some variation of this argument. A charitable interpretation might be paraphrased as follows: Just be patient--when Miers goes before committee, she'll dazzle everyone with her punctilious mastery of constitutional law. A not-so-charitable interpretation might go like this: As long as she votes our way on the Court, what more do you want? So let's quit all this elitist nonsense about "qualifications" and "cronyism" and give her a chance.

If the pro-Miers forces mean to imply the former, then yes, they are correct to say the president deserves at least a modicum of deference in his selection. But if they mean the latter--that how Miers will vote is all that matters, and her credentials be damned--then conservatives should be aghast.

Republicans have spent much of the past quarter century establishing themselves as the Meritocracy Party: the party that rejects

"dumbing down" American institutions, eschews race- and sex-based quotas, supports merit pay for schoolteachers, and endorses rigorous standards in all spheres of American life, the Supreme Court included. Yet when it comes to George W. Bush's second High Court nominee, the Meritocracy Party finds itself in quite a pickle.

A conservative president--whose broader agenda most Republicans still favor--has tapped a patently under-qualified candidate. But the White House insists she will adjudicate as a strict constructionist, not unlike Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and the newly-minted (though still untested) chief justice, John Roberts. The administration also touts her evangelical Protestantism, a not-so-subtle assurance to pro-lifers. Meanwhile, First Lady Laura Bush and White House adviser Ed Gillespie have suggested that opposition to the nominee might be a function of sexism.

It is useful to construct a hypothetical here. Imagine a Democratic president, one with fairly solid street-cred among his party's base. Imagine he stated his intent to nudge the Court in a more liberal direction. Imagine he had once named John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg as his favorite justices, the models for his own picks. Imagine, then, that this president chose his own White House counsel for the Court, a woman with no record of constitutional jurisprudence. Imagine that, to appease pro-choicers who were skeptical of how she'd vote on Roe v. Wade, the president mentioned that his nominee was a Jewish woman like Justice Ginsburg (wink-wink). Imagine, finally, that the first lady and a top White House staffer painted her opponents as sexists.

How would Republicans react? They'd fly into high dudgeon. They'd condemn the cynical use of religion. They'd blast the nomination of a White House insider with no ostensible background in studying the constitution. They'd lament the triumph of cronyism and blind partisanship over merit and intellectualism. They'd thump their chests and affirm that Republicans, not Democrats, were the Meritocracy Party--as witness the High Court hullabaloo. And, on each count, they'd be convincing.

So when Harriet Miers's defenders insinuate that her qualifications are meaningless--when they hint that adding a reliably conservative vote to the Court is all they care about--they do both the nominee and American conservatism a disservice. Leave aside the fact that Supreme Court justices rarely prove as "reliable" as they might initially seem. If Miers lacks the sweeping constitutional expertise needed to persuade wavering justices on individual cases, it's hard to see how, over the long term, she'll help move the Court in a more conservative, or "constitutionalist," direction. (After all, Republicans won't be picking Supreme Court justices forever.)

Conservatives, moreover, are typically among the most full-throated enthusiasts for America's vaunted meritocracy. They have led the charge to end anti-meritocratic policies such as affirmative action. And, in so doing, they have successfully molded the GOP into the Meritocracy Party. But at this critical juncture, their support for a Republican president has led them to trumpet anti-meritocratic arguments--the sorts of arguments conservatives would quickly scorn if they were made by liberals. Indeed, one often wonders if pro-Miers conservatives would accept any lawyer for the Court who promised to vote "the right way."

Harriet Miers may well possess the myriad talents and capabilities that President Bush claims she does. But let's not pretend her constitutional credentials--or the lack thereof--are immaterial. Conservatives, of all people, should know better.

Duncan Currie is a reporter at The Weekly Standard.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: fixated; miers
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Its always been about her qualifications and abilities. She is not the most qualified and it’s becoming obvious that she may only be in the adequate category of persons who could sit on the Supreme Court.
1 posted on 10/20/2005 9:06:28 AM PDT by aceintx
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To: aceintx

Test results? Written? Oral?


2 posted on 10/20/2005 9:08:00 AM PDT by rhombus
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To: aceintx

Said it many times before. I'll rather have a group of conservative dog catchers on the SCOTUS that a gaggle of "intellectual" Harvard lawyers.


3 posted on 10/20/2005 9:09:56 AM PDT by pissant
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To: aceintx
If Miers lacks the sweeping constitutional expertise needed to persuade wavering justices on individual cases

Quite frankly, I doubt this happens much nowadays. Anyone who can vote to uphold McCain-Feingold won't be swayed by any kind of constitutional expertise. If you can ignore "Congress shall pass no law", you can ignore anything.

4 posted on 10/20/2005 9:10:17 AM PDT by dirtboy (Drool overflowed my buffer...)
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To: aceintx
The only qualification needed for the job is to vote the right way.

Yogi Berra would have made a better justice than Earl Warren.

5 posted on 10/20/2005 9:10:33 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave troops and their Commander-in-Chief)
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To: pissant
I'll rather have a group of conservative dog catchers on the SCOTUS that a gaggle of "intellectual" Harvard lawyers.

Ah ha! So you admit it... she's a dog catcher!! But seriously, I hear Hillary Clinton is the smartest woman in America. Why? Because a lot of people say so. I sure don't want to see her sitting on the SC.

6 posted on 10/20/2005 9:11:47 AM PDT by rhombus
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To: wideawake
The only qualification needed for the job is to vote the right way.

What determines voting "The right way" if you have no guiding principles or consistent judicial philosophy
7 posted on 10/20/2005 9:12:56 AM PDT by aceintx (Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice!)
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To: aceintx

It actually is about who can get confirmed and qualified enough. Both.

She fits the bill best in Bush's mind for whatever reason.


8 posted on 10/20/2005 9:13:31 AM PDT by rwfromkansas (http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=rwfromkansas)
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To: wideawake
The only qualification needed for the job is to vote the right way.

Then we can't trust Miers. What we really need is someone so completely retarded that he's incapable of voting any way other than he's told, and then make Scalia his handler.

9 posted on 10/20/2005 9:13:35 AM PDT by Shalom Israel (How's that answer? Can I be a nominee to SCOTUS? I can give better answers than Ms. Miers...)
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To: aceintx
Phony argument. It's all about the way she votes. This is just an attempt, albeit a somewhat noble one, to ditch Miers AND be consistent with past Republican rhetoric. So we say it's about qualifications and abilities. Which leaves us asking, was Ginsburg more qualified. Should she be more acceptable to conservatives? I would hope not.

It's about how she votes and lying won't help. We want her to vote in a legitimate way -- a Constittuional way. Judges have only limited Constitutional power. When they legislate, they usurp that power. So the "how she votes" argument is true, even though it's a distortion too, in that, for the right, it is not about imposing their ideology. It's about butting out of ideology and just ruling on the laws and Constitution AS WRITTEN and ratified by the people, not the judges.

10 posted on 10/20/2005 9:14:19 AM PDT by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people. Ps. 14:34)
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To: wideawake
The only qualification needed for the job is to vote the right way.

How do you decide how to vote "the right way" if you have no guiding principles or consistent judicial philosophy
11 posted on 10/20/2005 9:15:26 AM PDT by aceintx (Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice!)
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To: wideawake

Exactly. Yes, we need some justices on the Court who can sway others. That is largely why Bush nominated Roberts. That guy can probably persuade others.

But, we don't need ALL justices to be like this.

Some times, we just need a reliable conservative.


12 posted on 10/20/2005 9:15:36 AM PDT by rwfromkansas (http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=rwfromkansas)
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To: pissant
Said it many times before. I'll rather have a group of conservative dog catchers on the SCOTUS that a gaggle of "intellectual" Harvard lawyers.

This nomination is insulting to all the conservatives who paid top dollar for an expensive piece of sheepskin with the right University on it.

Lincoln would be looked down upon today if he was nominated to SCOTUS. Can you actually believe a man could teach himself law? GASP!

13 posted on 10/20/2005 9:18:14 AM PDT by frogjerk (LIBERALISM - Being miserable for no good reason)
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To: aceintx
Its always been about her qualifications and abilities.

So actual votes on the court don't matter. Only qualifications. I assume, then, that you would rather have someone with a bio along these lines:

She attended both Harvard and Columbia law schools and served on the law review of both, an achievement that generally bodes well for a distinguished legal career. She tied for first place in her graduating class. As classmate put it, she was "scary smart."

She become a clerk for a U.S. district judge and later became the first female tenured professor at Columbia School of Law. She then became a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Who is she?

Answer: Ruth Bader Ginsberg

14 posted on 10/20/2005 9:19:25 AM PDT by Wolfstar (The reactionaries' favorite short list are all judges GWB appointed to the appellate bench.)
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To: aceintx

It's not about her resume, it's about whether the nominee understands why the judicial branch is a problem and what the proper method for reversing its usurpations will be. Merely voting against Roe v. Wade is completely insufficient, the entire edifice of judicial legislative action must be torn down.


15 posted on 10/20/2005 9:19:31 AM PDT by thoughtomator ("Stare decisis" means every bad decision a court ever made is perpetually binding)
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To: aceintx

BS....if she votes the "right" way, it's proof of her constitutional acumen. A ninety percent concurrence rate with Scalia/Thomas and I would wish her on the court untill she's 110.


16 posted on 10/20/2005 9:20:01 AM PDT by traderrob6
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To: aceintx
Always voting the right way implies that someone has guiding principles. If they didn't, their voting would be erratic.
17 posted on 10/20/2005 9:21:30 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave troops and their Commander-in-Chief)
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To: aceintx
The Meritocracy Party, Is it still the GOP?

In this case, meritocracy is code for elitist.

18 posted on 10/20/2005 9:22:17 AM PDT by TheDon (The Democratic Party is the party of TREASON!)
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To: frogjerk

Seems to me my hero, Ronald Reagan, former Roosevelt democrat, didn't have a stellar pedigree before he commenced to re-arrange the world.


19 posted on 10/20/2005 9:22:21 AM PDT by pissant
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To: aceintx

They also said Clarence Thomas wasn't the best qualified, and I'm sure he wasn't, but in my opinion he's the best justice on the court right now.


20 posted on 10/20/2005 9:23:10 AM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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