Posted on 10/06/2005 2:30:51 PM PDT by freedomdefender
In many ways, the biggest fault line emerging among conservatives is between East Coast elites, on the one hand, and rank-and-file conservatives elsewhere in the country. As soon as the [Miers] nomination was announced, Beltway conservatives began griping that Miers, a former Dallas lawyer and a graduate of Southern Methodist University Law School, lacked the credentials to serve on the Supreme Court. "An inspiring testament to the diversity of the president's cronies," quipped National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru. ...
Away from the Eastern seaboard, however, conservatives were warming to Miers. Irate National Review readers wrote to accuse the magazine of elitism. A conservative Texas lawyer complained that calling Miers's old firm "undistinguished" was "the kind of thing that only an absolute snob--someone who takes the position that no Texas firm could ever be anything but undistinguished--would say." Meanwhile, prominent evangelical leaders were busy singing Miers's praises. James Dobson, the president of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, gushed that "Harriet Miers appears to be an outstanding nominee for the Supreme Court." Marvin Olasky, the compassionate conservatism guru, noted with satisfaction that Miers had been active in a conservative evangelical church for 25 years, with all that implies about hot-button social issues.
What explains the divide? ...what's important here isn't ideology but sociology --that conservative elites are frequently as credentialist, even snobbish, as the liberal elites they scorn. ...
To be fair, the conservatives who populate National Review's blog retreated from the credentialist critique of Miers once the angry e-mails began pouring in. They emphasized instead that Miers lacked a coherent conservative legal philosophy--that she'd "never written seriously on constitutional issues," as National Review's Jonah Goldberg wrote. But this is really just a politically correct form of the same argument. Pretty much the only places where students are encouraged to develop a coherent "legal philosophy" are the top 20 law schools. These philosophies then get refined in the kind of academic or professional writing that only a tiny fraction of lawyers ever do.
Hinterland conservatives had none of these reservations. An article on Focus on the Family's website talked up Miers's record at the "prestigious Dallas law firm of Locke Purnell Rain Harrell" and quoted the organization's legal analyst, who pronounced himself unconcerned by Miers's lack of judicial experience or fluency with constitutional issues. Contrary to the widely repeated axiom that conservatives wanted Bush to appoint a "strict constructionist," most rank-and-file conservatives don't really care about legal philosophies. They care about their political objectives, such as abortion and gay marriage. ...
So which side will win out? Allow me to answer with a brief digression. A few years ago, I interviewed a top adviser to New York Governor George Pataki. New York conservatives, particularly neoconservatives at think tanks like the Manhattan Institute, were up in arms over the governor's habit of buying off interest groups with generous state contracts. I asked the adviser whether he was worried. Without missing a beat, he told me that no New Yorker had ever rejected a candidate because the "neocons" didn't approve. And he was right: Pataki won an overwhelming majority of Republican votes that fall.
The same can probably be said of legal politics: No voter is ever going to walk into a voting booth wondering whether the president's Supreme Court nominees share her legal philosophy, for the simple reason that most voters don't have a legal philosophy themselves. That may be unsettling to conservative elites. But, then, George W. Bush has never been one to worry about elites of any kind.
I still do not believe Harry Reid's smirking endorsement. Neither do I believe Chuckie's dig about the president showing the "far right" that Bush doesn't listen to them. Can anyone say "set up?"
By the way, one thing I did read about Ms. Miers is that she fully supports the right to keep and bear arms. That was her own words in a speech she gave several years ago.
Bush is no "poor victim."
With the list of well-known strict constructionists who are eminently more qualified than she, conservative judges who studied constitutional law and know it very well, who worked hard for years in that very field -- even if she is very conservative and always votes that way when she's on the Court, the lesson will still be it's WHO YOU KNOW that gets you the top positions, and she will be one of the biggest examples of that.
Well said.
It's a fight between party and principle.
I believe the northern Midwest (IL, IA, WI, and MN) has the best educated populace in the country, in terms of having college degrees.
Even if I'm wrong, the midwest has a LOT of very good colleges in beautiful quaint Midwestern towns.
Did I call the President a 'poor victim'?
That's what some here can't comperehend - any criticism is seen as disloyalty to the republican party and / or hatred of bush. Apparently it's impossible to have a principled objection to something a sitting republican president does.
This anti-elitism is getting silly beyond belief. No, not everyone who goes to Harvard is genius, and not everyone at SMU is a dolt. But the "elite" schools (including a good number west of the Mississipi) attract the brightest and most ambitious applicants in huge numbers. They are harder to get into, and they are harder to survive in--in short, the odds are in their favor. Let us please remember that "elite" means "best"--not "snootiest".
Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas all went to "elite" schools (Stanford, Harvard, and Yale, respectively). Justice Harlan--the great conservative dissenter on the Warren Court---only went to NY Law School (probably so he could go part time). On the other hand, he was as blue-blooded as they come, got his BA from Princeton, and a Rhodes Scholarship. Elitist through and through.
Many of the conservatives who are opposing this nomination are people who normally support the President. That should make you take their objections seriously, not just brand them as "elitists."
It also had the University of Chicago, which includes a first-rate law school and has produced some great conservative minds.
Excuse me, but the President promised us a justice in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. He is giving us a corporate lawyer who has never shown any interest in Constitutional issues, belongs to the ABA but not the Federalist Society, and who can forever be pointed to as an example of Republican cronyism.
That is a damning fact.
Kristol has thrown a monkey wrench into a lot of the administration's policies going all the way back to the spring of 2001.
Krauthammer has missed the mark quite often, beginning with his over-the-top rant against "The Passion of Christ."
Noonan spends her time dissing the President's speeches, even though most people see thonse speeches as positive, if not great.
You are correct about the nastiness - but it's one thing to voice your dissent another to resort to personal attacks. Ann crossed the line. As far as the elitist label, just read some of the talking heads' columns - their words speak volumes. I'm sorry that you've been called names but unfortunately manners seem to leave along with rational thinking.
I inferred it from your words, saying your "heart breaks for him" because of something he brought upon himself.
Thanks, you totally nailed it.
I am not upset at all by this nomination. She's POTUS'S choice and unless she fails miserably during her hearings, I will be happy if she just sits tight and votes with Scalia and Thomas.
NICE SPIN...
BUSH THE REGULAR GUY...
vs the elites (riiiiiiigggghhhhht)
LOL....You and I are such radicals, totally out of the mainstream of conservatism in this country. Just look at our whacko brethren: Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Bill Kristol, George Will, and Ann Coulter. We should be ashamed.
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