I recall the attacks against Clarence Thomas. He didn't have sufficient judicial experience and had briefly headed some WH agency. He wasn't the best-qualified for the job, they all said.
He's turned out to be the best judge on the court - not because of his sophistication, but because of his simplicity. He's a radical to the left because he goes to the dictionary for the meaning of words in the Constitution - what a simpleton and a rube. More sophisticated judges go looking for penubras and new meanings and find rights that were there all along and no one ever noticed them.
Someone posted an interview with Miers' pastor. He said she would take an originalist viewpoint - namely, that words have specific meaning. If that holds out to be true (and that's a big honkin' IF), I will gladly support Miers. We don't need more sophistication on the court. We need less.
Harriet Miers -- pro, part 2
***** Miers has been a member of Valley View Christian Church in Dallas for 25 years, where Hecht has been an elder. He calls it a "conservative evangelical church... in the vernacular, fundamentalist, but the media have used that word to tar us." He says she was on the missions committee for ten years, taught children in Sunday School, made coffee, brought donuts: "Nothing she's asked to do in church is beneath her." On abortion, choosing his words carefully for an on-the-record statement, he says "her personal views are consistent with that of evangelical Christians... You can tell a lot about her from her decade of service in a conservative church."
Harriet Miers -- pro, part 3
***** Hecht says about Miers' judicial philosophy: "She's an orginalist -- that's the way she takes the Bible," and that's her approach to the Constitution as well -- "Originalist -- it means what it says." He notes that her legal practice involved writing contracts rather than tort law, so she was always looking at the plain meaning of the words: "Originalist." He also says she's not a social butterfly who will be swayed by Washington dinner table conversation: "She goes to the dinners she's supposed to go to. She's not on the social circuit."
Harriet Miers -- pro, part 4
Hecht says Miers never got married because she "probably worked too hard. She's close to her family, has a sister and three brothers, goes to her nephews' high school football games, bought a car for one of them." She "had a Catholic upbringing, had not been close to the church, it was off again, on again, then she came to a point in her life when she wanted to change that…. She made an abrupt change in 79 or 80. She was very hard-working and successful, she wanted new meaning, substance in her life.” Her father died when she was a freshman in college. "Look at her commitment in taking care of her [now 93-year-old mother] all these years. Look at her tax returns. She tithes, gave a full tithe to the church. Helps out in missions, Bible translation. These are the kinds of values she shows." Hecht and Miers "went to two or three prolife dinners in the late 80s or early 90s."