"Meekness" is not one of them.
I'm afraid it's nothing so dramatic. But I am disappointed in the choice.
Yeah? Gee, I hope you're right. Guess we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed and watch for a few years to find out.
"I realize that many are concerned about Miers, but I think we need to trust Bush."
So after a week of wrangling we have come full circle. "Trust Bush" is still the only justification that the pro-Miers side has.
Someone said trust, but verify. Fine, Harriet Miers is pro-life, period. How do I know? She has donated $1000 to the following Congressional candidates: Jon Newton, Don Stenberg, Pete Sessions. All of them are solid pro-life Republicans, you wouldn't donate to them if you are pro-abortion. She has attended pro-life dinners and donated to pro-life groups.
She might vote conservative on the Court - but the Supreme Court isn't about voting your feelings. It involves thinking about constitutional law and applying it impartially.
I don't care squat about her being 'born again' - so am I, and I have no business on the Supreme Court.
We need a very intelligent person, well versed in the law, who can write opinions that will resonate for decades...not a nice woman who hasn't expressed any noticable views on anything by age 60.
She should be in good shape then, provided she never told a co-worker, "There's a pubic hair on my Coke can."
But, then again, the Libs could always just recruit some stooge to make the claim anyway. It's happened before.
As with pretty much everyone on the center-right, my initial reaction to the Miers appointment was anger, disbelief, and opposition. I feared, and many feared, that Miers was another Souter — and without the credentials to match. But I decided to do some research on Miers before I vented in my blog. After looking at the evidence, I came to two conclusions: 1) she's qualified; 2) she's very conservative.
The pick of Miers was very unexpected: Why Miers? But in retrospect it's not very mysterious. Every president wants for SCOTUS justices that they agree with nearly 100% of the time. After many years of working together, W knows that Miers agrees with him on nearly everything. So when Senator Reid suggested that W think about putting Miers on the court, W had every reason to do so.
Did Reid hoodwink W? Not likely. W has known Miers for years and well; Reid knows her only slightly. The Dems effectively told W that they would confirm a justice that W knows is in near-total agreement with him. It's not surprising that he took it. From W's perspective, he had no reason to start a fight with the Senate when Democrats indicated they would surrender nearly 100% of what he wanted without a fight.
From W's perspective: you don't need the nuclear option when the other guy waves the white flag.
But is W right about Miers?
Souter, Kennedy, and O'Connor all had one thing in common — they were unknown personally to the president who appointed them. Reagan and Bush 41 trusted the judgment of conservative legal experts who thought they would be good conservatives — these experts turned out to be mistaken. W is not trusting conservative legal experts on this pick but his own personal work with Miers for a decade. W might be wrong — but Miers is here the anti-Souter, a candidate whose work the president knows quite thoroughly; something which contrasts with Souter, et al.
Not that W's judgment is untrustworthy. Rather, he shouldn't be trusted for the simple reason that there's no need. Miers is not an unknown. She has a long paper-trail, much longer than people realize. The evidence is quite clear and quite conservative. For example...
-snip-
(GrenfellHunt in President Aristotle, October 6, 2005)
To Read This Article Click Here
"Let's give her a chance. Bombs away." Excellent choice in phrase, to say the least.
Boy did I miss out. I haven't been able to listen to Rush for the last few weeks, but to hear the best spoken man in the nation reduced to incoherency, well, that would be something!
“You really have to be more charitable toward him. After all, Clement Attlee is a very humble man.” “Yes,” replied Winston Churchill, “and he has much to be humble about.”
Lies.
In response to Corillo's specific comments:
I realize that many are concerned about Miers, but I think we need to trust Bush. Every judicial nominee of his has proven to be a solid conservative, and I believe Miers will not spoil that record.
That's not my main concern. Hey, maybe Miers will vote with Thomas every time. I hope so. Maybe she'll be as eloquent and as forceful in her defense of the Constitution. I hope so, but I doubt it. My biggest problem with this nomination, and I think a lot of people share this viewpoint, can be summed up in two words: MISSED OPPORTUNITY. This was a rare chance to put a real powerhouse on the Supreme Court. My personal preference would be for Judge Kozinski, my favorite judge ever, but there were plenty of solid candidates. Indeed, the federal bench is replete with conservative superstars. And every last one of them was passed up for Harry Reid's choice, a woman whose nomination prompted the nationwide rallying cry "Harriet Who??". President Bush could've given us an exclamation point. Instead, he's given us a question mark.
What message does this send to bright young conservative jurists? "If you believe the Constitution means what it says and should be interpreted as such, keep your mouth shut about it. Don't be a highly visible supporter of strict constructionism, or you can just forget about elevation to the High Court, no matter how deserving. Instead, be as obscure as possible, and try to become close personal friends with an ambitious politician.
Bah.
God love ya, wagglebee. Thank you for this excellent post. The hardliners probably won't give this article a first or second thought, but hopefully those with more faith in God and our President will.
BUMP!
There's always that one sentence that makes you quit reading.
I voted for Bush twice because I trust him. A "commoner" on the Supreme Court is exciting to me... but not as exciting as Laura Ingraham or Ann Coulter would have been!
But, but, but. How can it be. The elites are insisting bench time is a requirement!
'Constitutional convictions'!!! What a strange term in today's vernacular. The pundits may not understand it, but "we, the People" know that whatever she lacks in artificial "credentials" can be made up by the conviction that the United States Constitution is and was, as someone observed a long time ago, the most miraculous document ever invented by the mind and purpose of man. Her fidelity to that document and its provisions (including the process required for its own amendment) is what will distinguish her service.
Great post!
As Dr. Mohler said, some of what we are learning about Harriet Miers is genuinely encouraging. She has been identified as an evangelical Christian with deep Christian commitments.
This means that Harriet Miers is not a product of the tight and relatively insulated world of legal scholarship and the judiciary. Her real-world experience in litigation, management, church, and life means that she is less likely to fall prey to the "inside the beltway" syndrome.
What if... Harriet Miers isn't supposed to be confirmed? As the days wear on, the dems, who originally seemed pleased with this nominee, are slowly backing off as news of her evangelical background comes into focus. They will not vote to confirm her based on her Christian beliefs, but they'll cite her lack of experience and a "paper trail."
This will be a lie, of course, the real reason won't be her presumed lack of experience, it'll be the Jesus thing and they'll swear up one side of the Constitution and down the other that it's not her ideology.
This is where they'll fall into the trap. The usual RINOs will side with the dems on her confirmation or lack thereof. The President will then withdraw her nomination, citing a new era of cooperation. "Advise and consent" has worked again just as it did with John Roberts. Since now the dems will be on record saying it isn't about ideology, it's about qualifications, citing Justice Roberts again, the road will be paved for the nomination of Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown.
Since the dems weren't opposed to either of them recently, i.e. the "gang of 14 deal", and the dems clamor for a highly qualified candidate, they won't have any ground to stand on while trying to oppose either Brown or Owen.
Perhaps it's rose colored glasses or a wild pipe dream, but I can't believe that the President, who has been shrewd in nearly all of his appointments until now would not have a more... sinister plot behind this nomination than just putting Aunt Bea out there to go on the Supreme Court.
This would also be the perfect scenario to use the "nuclear option" if a fight would arise. Not only would the President have just loaded the Senate's weapon, he'd have aimed it and done everything but pull the trigger for them.
...or I could be on crack.