Posted on 10/20/2005 11:19:05 AM PDT by Stellar Dendrite
I have stayed away from the depressing and divisive subject of Harriet Miers for a few days. It was a healthy little respite. But things have taken yet another grim, embarrassing turn--and it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine that this nomination will make it to the scheduled Nov. 7 Senate hearing date.
First, if you haven't already read it, check out Miers' 57-page questionnaire (in PDF via NRO), which she submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The blogosphere has brutally dissected Miers' answers, non-answers, and unintelligible gibberish. See, for example, Steve Bainbridge, Prawfsblawg, Victor Fleischer, James Lindgren, Patterico, and Bench Memos.
Now, Sens. Arlen Specter and Pat Leahy have rendered their verdict: They want a do-over. Words like "underwhelming," "inadequate," and "insulting" are streaming out of Washington. And it's not just from the lips and keyboards of elitist/sexist pundits. Via WaPo:
Barely concealing their irritation during a 35-minute news conference at the Capitol, Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and ranking Democrat Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) called the lobbying on Miers's behalf "chaotic," and said the answers she provided Monday to a lengthy questionnaire were inadequate. "The comments I have heard range from incomplete to insulting," Leahy said.
They sent Miers a three-page letter asking for more detailed responses in several areas, and Specter said he has asked the Bush administration for more documents concerning her work as White House counsel. Specter said Miers must provide "amplification on many, many of the items" included in the first questionnaire.
Miers quickly replied, writing that she would comply with the new request. She also wrote that "as a result of an administrative oversight," her Texas law license was suspended for 26 days in 1989 because of unpaid dues. On Monday, Miers disclosed that her D.C. law license was briefly suspended last year because of unpaid annual dues.
Announcing plans to start the hearing Nov. 7 despite Democrats' request for more time, Specter told reporters: "This is going to be an unusual hearing where I think all 18 senators are going to have probing questions." The panel has 10 Republicans and eight Democrats.
This also jumped out at me and exacerbated my already queasy stomach:
At yesterday's news conference, Specter appeared to be annoyed with Miers on several points. He said his staff gave him a "big binder" of legal cases she had handled in private practice, but "she gave us a skimpy little group" of material describing those cases in response to the questionnaire's request for details of her most important cases. "No reason we should know more about her cases than she does," he said.
Specter said he remained perplexed by a disagreement Monday stemming from his meeting with Miers in his office, after which their accounts differed on what the nominee had said about Supreme Court rulings that preceded Roe.
In dealing with 11 Supreme Court nominees, Specter said, "I've never walked out of a room and had a disagreement as to what was said." He smiled politely as Leahy said, "I've never known him to make a mistake on what he heard."
Meanwhile, several constitutional law scholars said they were surprised and puzzled by Miers's response to the committee's request for information on cases she has handled dealing with constitutional issues. In describing one matter on the Dallas City Council, Miers referred to "the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause" as it relates to the Voting Rights Act.
"There is no proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause," said Cass R. Sunstein, a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago. He and several other scholars said it appeared that Miers was confusing proportional representation -- which typically deals with ethnic groups having members on elected bodies -- with the one-man, one-vote Supreme Court ruling that requires, for example, legislative districts to have equal populations.
Go back to Miers' questionnaire and pay special attention to Question 22 on p. 49 to grasp Sunstein's point:
While I was an at-large member of the Dallas City Council, I dealt with issues that involved constitutional questions. For instance, when addressing a lawsuit under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the council had to be sure to comply with the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause.
As a non-elite, non-lawyer, non-Beltway pundit might put it: "What the...?!?" If this bizarre gaffe is supposed to demonstrate Miers' sharp legal mind and painstaking attention to detail, God help us all.
President Bush promised Senators that they'd fall in love with Harriet once they got to know her. But the Los Angeles Times reports that Republicans have been damning her with faint praise after emerging from meetings:
"I might have liked a different type nominee myself, but that's the president's choice," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said after his meeting with Miers.
The lackluster beginning of her campaign to be confirmed raises the stakes for Miers, and the president, when she appears before the Judiciary Committee. Senators of both parties say her nomination will succeed or fail based on how well she performs.
Senators and aides have been reluctant to provide details of their meetings with Miers because they do not want to antagonize the White House. But some described her as surprisingly reticent and, in a word used by more than one of them, "underwhelming."
Even those who were impressed said that she offered up little of herself in conversation. "In these meetings she has been very guarded," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
One senator found her much too quiet. The lawmaker had such a hard time hearing Miers that aides had to tell people outside the meeting room to quiet down.
"She doesn't have the gravitas in terms of the constitutional issues," said another senator who has been critical of Miers. The nominee, the senator said, would not answer questions about whether she would recuse herself if issues involving her work with Bush came before the high court.
"Generally when you hold these interviews, people want to show you what they know," the senator said. "She did not respond. Nothing came back."
These accounts do not bode well for Miers' scheduled testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in two weeks. Her supporters might argue that expectations are so low that she will have an easy time appeasing committee members after she has boned up on constitutional law. But John Roberts' stellar, authoritative performance--speaking without notes and jousting vigorously with the panel for four days--set a high standard. Does anyone believe from testimonials like this and this and this that Miers can meet that standard?
On top of all this, add reporting by John Fund and Bob Novak that raises questions about Miers' messy dealings while on the Texas Lottery Commission.
What does it spell? T-R-O-U-B-L-E.
***
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1506135/posts?page=1
The Miers Support Team: Gloomy and Demoralized [Byron York]
"Peter Principle on steroids is at work here."
LOL! oy veh, you are right!
When Arlen Sphincter and Pat Leahy are complaining, I view it as a positive.
You know that decisions used to be written pretty succintly? Real short 5 pagers. Now they go on past 100 pages of total nonsense. So none of this bothers me at all.
And futhermore, liberals today see tons of things that are not in the Constitution, like the right to sodomy. Now how is tht worse than Miers?
Yes, and IIRC, the commotion that happened when this was learned is what sunk her nomination to the Assistant AG for civil rights position.
Great post, btw.
The Constitution does not explicitly establish any qualifications for Justices of the Supreme Court. In fact it does not even specify citizenship or age as it does for the executive and legislative branches. However, Presidents normally nominate individuals who have prior legal experience. Typically, most nominees have judicial experience, either at the federal or state level. Several nominees have formerly served on federal Courts of Appeals, especially the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is often considered a stepping stone to the Supreme Court. Another source of Supreme Court nominees is the federal executive branch—in particular, the Department of Justice. Other potential nominees include members of Congress and academics. On the current Supreme Court, seven Justices previously served on federal courts (including three on the D.C. Circuit); two served on state courts; three were former law school professors; and three held full time positions in the federal executive branch.
Nominees to the Supreme Court, as well as to lower federal courts, are evaluated by the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary. The panel is composed of fifteen federal judges (but not Supreme Court Justices), including at least one from each federal judicial circuit. The body assesses the nominee "solely to professional qualifications: integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament," and offers a rating of "well qualified," "qualified," or "not qualified." The opinions of the committee bind neither the President nor the Senate; however, they are generally taken into account.
That's exACTLY what being 'President' means!!!
OOps!
From Wikipedia
This is the elephant in the living room. It really doesn't matter who he puts up there, changing the personalities on the court is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The Court itself needs to be abolished and redefined. If only there was the political will to do it. If it's going to retain this ungodly power of judicial review then the members need to be elected in four year terms, nationally like the President, since they have almost as much power as the President, with the same two term limit. That MIGHT fix the problem to some extent. But really it needs to lose the power of judiicial review.
Yeah, like when Linda Chavez wrote a column yesterday and it only took two or three posts for someone to write "Linda Chavez is nothing but a pain in the neck."
All along this discussion I have noted that many oppose her because they didn't know anything about her. Some say they know by what she's said. What did she say? She has said she will follow the constitution, as did all the other judges now on the bench. If all the judges have promised to do that, why are we now suffering from an activist court?
My point is, absent disqualification for cause, ie. murder, why are we any more critical of President Bush's choice because WE DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HER? Why not give President Bush the benefit of the doubt as he deserves from us. I know, but what about Federal Spending, what about NCLB, what about this or that? What about it? It has nothing to do with the President's sole selection of a Supreme Cout justice.
The insults to the base started with the "jobs Americans won't do" line repeated ad nauseum, and have continued to where our voices are now "background chatter."
Thank You. My point exactly. If Specter (of Scottish Law) and Leahy are upset with Miers, that has elevated her in my estimation.
We do not believe she was the "chief vetter". She was on the committee. We have a feeling she didn't have a lot of input on the committee either. We think the VP did most of the vetting. We are not going to go so far as to say her job was to get coffee and donuts, but We think you catch our line of thinking.
We are concerned that much of the promotion from within the BA comes about as a result of who is able to apple polish best for the President. This is not good.
If this woman cries in the committee hearing, the nomination will be lost. There is no crying in Senatorial Hearings.
I'm with you..it's bad enough that all the talking
oddballs buzz about this, day in and day out..get
the damn thing moving..one way or the other..let
Specter and the other bleeding heart, baby killers
slice her up....and throw her to the media meat
heads..then put up the lady Judge from California, Brown,
and then the racists will manipulate that for all it's
worth...we need a black, conservative, lady on the
court...Thomas looks lonely....Jake
You say it is just dandy that George Bush thumbs his nose at the very people who put him in office, pick an unqualified crony for the most important pick of our lifetime, and cause a rift in the conservatives--
you think this is fine just because he is president? The president serves the people, not the other way around.
This is how Hitler came into power. They cheered him on no matter what he did. Different scenarios for sure but same theme.
You are no conservative if you are not outraged about what Bush is doing to the conservative movement and his destruction of our national sovereignty through open invasion to our south and to his fiscal insanity, on top of this Miers lunacy.
I haven't read this thread yet so I apologize if this is repetitive, but I am just so ..... angry, actually.
I don't know if I can ever forgive those who launched the vicious attacks on this woman and the president. No, I've never thought Miers was "the most" qualified potential nominee (as far as I'm concerned, though, that could be said about any nominee). But I cannot imagine what it is like to try to go senator to senator and impress people when you are under constant attack and ridicule and don't even have the support of the people on your OWN SIDE.
I feel zero pride in being associated with the views expressed by Coulter, Frum, et al. And I hope that new voices -- respectable, adult voices -- will emerge from this shameful epidsode (the shame is the "pundits'," not Miers' or the president's) to speak for the rest of the conservatives in this country.
"The Bush bots will say, "aha, he's just trying to embarrass her.""
Whatever. But I'm guessing that at least two of the CURRENT Supreme Court justices couldn't have handled this subject adroitly under deadline.
"By putting conservatives in quotes are you attempting to say such people are not really conservative? In what way? Because they disagree with President Bush?"
This wasn't addressed to me, but I'll take the liberty of responding anyway. The answer to the last two questions is: because they are tyrannical.
"George Bush thumbs his nose at the very people who put him in office"
I really wish you would quit saying this. He couldn't have gotten elected with you alone.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.