[shrinkermd]

First, thank you Harriet Miers for your exemplary and dedicated service to President Bush and our country. You have spent a lifetime in devoted service to others. Surely, this characteristic of anonymous service is not found in Washington DC and more particularly not in the inner sanctum of SCOTUS.

You were indeed qualified to be a member of SCOTUS. The allegations leveled against you were cheap shots suggesting you were another stupid Evangelical who really didn’t know what from when. Looking at the issue closely, I find that The Constitution of the United States is a very readable document. Even an average person like me fails to understand why lawyers, especially conservative lawyers, see it as a hermeneutic challenge.

Apparently, according to conventional, inside-the-beltway-wisdom the Constitution is now a super Rorschach card (inkblot test) where each and every SCOTUS member reads whatever they believe into the document. Solipsists with underlying beliefs, then, are the preferred members of the court with one exception.

That is the Court must have Blacks, Jews, Roman Catholics and tepid Protestants—no practicing, observant Evangelicals allowed. Don’t drown me in the statistics. Just read George Will and the other bow tie conservatives and sense their shock and scorn.

Further, let us face the fact that the scattering of races and creeds on SCOTUS merely belies it is now a super parliament usually populated by elites vetted by the MSM sufficiently thoroughly to become the judicial oligarchy that rules and over rules our faith and beliefs. You would have been a welcome addition on the Court regardless of where you fell on the liberal/conservative continuum. You could have decided on a simple reading of the Constitution plus what society is, has been and will be. After all, supposedly in a limited government the bulk of our devotion and belief rests in the common culture.

I would be derelict in my moral duty by pointing out this quote by Ann Coulter, ''However nice, helpful, prompt and tidy she is, Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on 'The West Wing' let alone be a real one,'' conservative writer Ann Coulter said in one of the more cutting comments…” A cheap shot from a woman who specializes in boyfriends old enough to be her son and never discusses her family life which seemingly she can keep private even though she is a more public person than the usual elected official. Other than having what some believe to be outstanding looks and others see it as a troubled form of affectation, she makes her money by cleverly trashing the reputations of others. Harriet Miers she was a good enemy to have! Even though we shortly will have her latest provocative poses placed for the 1000th time on FR, she is no conservative—conservatives respect civility and Ann belongs with the Dowd wing of the RAT party.

What did Lincoln say about you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time? Yes, many out here in "boobsieville" were not fooled—you did a great job for a great man and would have made a great SCOTUS justice. Thanks.

[fatnotlazy]

"You were indeed qualified to be a member of SCOTUS."

***

Certainly no less qualified than those who did ascend to the high court and those who came before her. In fact, we've had quite a few UNQUALIFIED jurists in the past and some might say more than a few on the S.Ct. right now. The allegation that she was unqualified because she did not previously serve as a judge was a bogus excuse.

[misterrob]

"A cheap shot from a woman who specializes in boyfriends old enough to be her son

Proof?

[AFPhys]

I am in full agreement with all but one of your paragraphs.

Thanks for posting a final defense of Harriet Miers' nomination.

[Pondman88]

Nice.

[Wolfstar]

If Barack Obama is qualified to be President of the United States, then certainly Harriet Miers was more than qualified to be a Justice of the Supreme Court.

Although I had lost respect for the more hard-edged type of conservatism awhile back, the Harriet Miers episode completely alienated me from mainstream conservatism.

[Cold Heat]

Well said...

The Meir's issue, among others has split the base asunder, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

It will be interesting to see just who inherits the reign of the republican party. I am quite prepared to pack up and move if required, but I don't think it will be necessary.

There is obviously not room for all, primarily due to one faction trying to usurp the other.

In time, this will be sorted out.

In the interim, the country will enter a chaotic political period as we devolve and reform, but the self destruction is inevitable. Let's hope the process can be completed by 2014.

See you at the polls.........

[nathanbedford]

My take on Harriet Miers was markedly different from yours. Harriet Miers' nomination was a jump the shark moment for me with George Bush. This is not a reflection on Harriet Miers but a reflection on George Bush.

I know the conventional wisdom is that George Bush has learned from the mistakes of his father especially his father's death rattle: "read my lips no new taxes." But apart from this lesson George Bush seems to have learned nothing from his father's experience.

The entire Katrina fiasco was little more than an instant replay of the bludgeoning his father received in the wake of hurricane Andrew here in Florida.

Moreover the appointment of Harriet Miers was reflective of a regrettable tendency in the president to engage in cronyism. His appointment of Brown at FEMA led to the debacle of Katrina. His appointment of General Myers' niece is a replay of this vice.

But ultimately the appointment of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court betrays a lack of understanding of the significance of the appointment, the standards required, and the stakes involved for his administration, his party, his nation, and his constitution. It also stands as a betrayal of the people who gave him the very votes he solicited as he explicitly promised them he would appoint a conservative in the vein of Thomas and Scalia. It reveals George Bush to be utterly insensitive to the bitter disappointment caused by previous appointments such as Justice Souter and others as they came out of the closet and betrayed themselves to be rabid liberals as soon as they donned their black robes and assumed power until the very day they die. It signaled that President Bush, despite his campaigning for votes to the contrary, is indifferent to growing threats our judiciary as presently constituted poses to all the precious constitutional prerogatives of his constituents

The problem with Harriet Miers was not Harriet Miers herself. It is that she was an unknown quantity and the president had absolutely no business imposing such a risk on us.

In this jump the shark moment George Bush betrayed himself to be aligned not to a conservative philosophy, not to a conservative movement, not to a Republican Party, but to a tribe, a tribe of cronies who govern by noblisse oblige

[Democratshavenobrains]

The most hilarious thing is that if the Lefties had just put aside their Bush hatred for one millisecond and praised this woman, she might have gotten through.

BUT NO! Instead they got a smart young conservative white male.

[DrDeb]

EXCELLENT!

[nathanbedford]

Since my original post I found two more which were posted during an evidently slightly after the time of her nomination. Here is the first, the second one will follow in a subsequent post.

I am glad you opened this thread because it gives those of us who do not know how to react to this nomination the space to say so.

Here is a small nugget which might lend some confidence to the pick: Dick Cheney has been all over the airwaves reassuring conservative listeners of talk radio that this nominee indeed has the right stuff. I find is reassuring because, frankly, I feel more comfortable with Cheney's conservatism than I do with Bush's. Clearly, it can be inferred that Cheney has been in on the vetting process and has lent MIER his imprimatur. In my view, Cheney is not the kind of a man that can be sent out as a lackey to spin for the administration unless he has helped to shape the matter beforehand.

I also want to say that I am on record in this forum as long ago is at least one year posting my view that Bush is not primarily a conservative but first a Christian, then a man of intense loyalties, and finally a conservative when that philosophy does not conflict with the first two characteristics. We will have to see whether Bush selected this nominee because she's a Christian, a loyal ally, or a conservative.

Finally, an unrelated word about Pat Buchanan. He is a curious man, who gets so much right but so much wrong. I can recall his speech at the convention in which he was roundly criticized for observing that America was at war, a cultural war. Time has borne him out, he got that part absolutely right. Our paladins in this war wear black robes and wield gavels. It should not be so but it is the left that has started this war and it is the left that has converted our Constitution and our precious rule of law into the battlefield. Like the war against Islamo-terrorism, the war for the cultural soul of America must be won or our democracy will not be worth having.

I count the importance of selecting a supreme court Justice to be no less important than the choice of a field commander in the war against terror. When viewed from the lifespan of our children many of whom will easily live to be 100 years of age, the selection of a Supreme Court Justice might very well be more important than the selection of a general in the field. This pick must be seen in the context of our childrens' lives and, as such, we're contemplating whether their liberties and democracy can survive the next century in this cultural war no less than democracy's survival chances in the war against terror. Why then did Bush nominate a woman who was already 60 years of age? Why then did Bush nominate a woman about whom I, and indeed every other informed FReeper, must confess that he does not know how to react to the nomination?

[nathanbedford]

(rereading this post is painful. It predicts our debacle in the November elections and identifies the causes. It was all so unnecessary. I think you'll find my comments respecting Bush's faith to be of interest.)

As a result of the policies of the Bush administration, Republicans have forfeited their formerly kryptonite hundred year claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility. Contrary to what Rush Limbaugh says, the Democrats do have an affirmative program, it is to be the party of fiscal responsibility by raising taxes and cutting spending. They will point out that the Republicans are the party of fiscal irresponsibility because they have cut taxes and increased spending. Because Bush and the Congressional Republicans have sought to buy votes with federal spending rather than cut spending in all areas apart from national defense, it is now the Democrats who can plausibly say that it is they who are fiscally responsible.

Their argument will not convince us but it will be persuasive enough, especially when supported by a full-court press from the whole of the mainstream media, to blur the fundamental distinction between the parties and perhaps gain the next election by confusing a fair portion of the electorate.

Thus we have wantonly kicked away one of the legs of our stool. Another leg of the stool was comprised of our ability to go to the electorate, as George Bush did successfully in the last two elections, and persuasively argue that we were the party of judicial integrity. That we were the party which manned the threshold to the Constitution like the Patriots at Thermopylae to check the ravening horde of liberals who would sack the Constitution like a city which had succumbed to a siege.

The Harriet Meir nomination in a stroke has needlessly compromised our ability plausibly to appeal to the electorate as the party which stands on constitutional principle and eschews judicial opportunism.

We are now left with only one issue which separates us from the Democrats, national security. Like it or not, ever since there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, we've been on the run on this issue. Yes I know we won the last election on this issue but the tide has clearly turned. Watch Hillary contrive to present herself as a plausible candidate who is strong on defense.

Why did we saw off two of our three legs? On the issue of spending some would say it is because Bush was never a conservative. Others would say that it was the war that did it but that would not be the whole truth, at least that would not be the whole explanation. Others would say that it is simply the nature of a politician to buy votes with other people's money and the temptation, even to Republicans, is irresistible.

My own view is that our present dilemma is the product of a little bit of each of the above. For years now I've been posting my view the George Bush is not essentially a movement conservative but a committed Christian. Here's what I've been saying recently:

The truth is straightforward, as usual. Bush is first a committed Christian, then a devoted family man who values personal loyalty to an extreme, and third, a conservative when that philosophy does not conflict with the first two. In this appointment, Bush believes he has satisfied all three legs of the stool. This is what I posted yesterday:

On the limited evidence available, I do positively believe Bush appointed her because she has been reborn. I mean that quite respectfully. I mean that he is counting on her being a new person. Most of the time it means she will vote conservative. But I honestly do not think Bush appointed her to vote conservative. I think he appointed he to vote in the SPIRIT.

The sad thing for us conservatives is to contemplate just how unnecessary the debacle over Harriet Meir really was. One can understand the fear in the legislative heart of retribution from constituents as their snouts are pulled away from the trough. One can even understand Bush's, or perhaps more accurately Rove's, trepidations in dealing with immigration arising out of fear that they will be called racists and out of the desire to pander to portions of the business community. But the whole nomination fiasco is almost uniquely unrelated to identifiable political or policy considerations. In the absence of such temporal explanations, I am left with the conclusion that Bush has selected her because she's Christian.

[bray]

Some "conservatives" have to go to the whip on Barbosa too!

Pray for W and Our Troops

[Sloth]

If you honestly think Miers was opposed because she was perceived as an 'evangelical', you must be smoking some strong crack.

[twigs]

From the beginning, it sounded to me as though Ms. Miers did a very good job for the president. He trusted her completely and she served him well. That did not make her a qualified Supreme Court nominee, however, but that was stopped. That mistake was the president's doing, not hers. She has served well and we all ought to be thankful for her.

[LibKill]

Sorry, but Miers was not conservative. She at best was moderate. Better than Ginsberg but not half as good as Alito or Roberts.

Bush won with the help of CONSERVATIVES. When it came to Supreme Court appointments, it was PAYDAY for CONSERVATIVES.

We wanted the real thing, not 'conservative lite'.