Posted on 10/06/2005 7:15:47 PM PDT by jdhljc169
Today's Chronicle of Higher Education has a story that describes Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' involvement with a lecture series at her alma mater, SMU Law School. The inaugural lecturer? Gloria Steinem. I've played these games in law schools, and this story sends up red flags for me. Here's my take on it ...
I was reserving judgment, but after having read the Chronicle article (and given conservatives' skittishness about her already), I think she's a non-starter. Miers may be a very nice person - and by all accounts she is. But she has never served as a judge, and while I do not think that an attorney must have been a judge in order to be an excellent justice, I do think that if you want to be certain of a nominee's views on the proper role of the judiciary, you better have seen them in action as a judge.
We haven't. And absent that, we must look to other events in Miers' professional life to ascertain her perspective. To that end, the Chronicle article is instructive:
In the late 1990s, as a member of the advisory board for Southern Methodist University's law school, Ms. Miers pushed for the creation of an endowed lecture series in women's studies named for Louise B. Raggio, one of the first women to rise to prominence in the Texas legal community ...Ms. Miers, whom President Bush announced on Monday as his choice to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, not only advocated for the lecture series, but also gave money and solicited donations to help get it off the ground ... A feminist icon, Gloria Steinem, delivered the series's first lecture, in 1998. In the following two years, the speakers were Patricia S. Schroeder, the former Democratic congresswoman widely associated with women's causes, and Susan Faludi, the author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991). Ann W. Richards, the Democrat whom George W. Bush unseated as governor of Texas in 1994, delivered the lecture in 2003.
Having served on the faculties of three law schools, I can tell you that if you are an academic of the conservative political persuasion, this is the way you play the game: you call things by the terms the liberal academic establishment uses ("Gender Studies," "Women's Studies," etc.) and then you bring in lecturers and provide content that challenges their prevailing "wisdom."
There must be dozens -- hundreds -- thousands -- of conservative female attorneys, politicians, pundits and successful business owners in this country who would be wonderful role models for female SMU law students. If Miers pushed for the creation of a lecture series to honor Texas' first and finest female attorneys, and the series brought in the likes of Steinem and Faludi, then I know as much as I need to know about this woman.
Stick a fork in her. She's done.
I've been involved in one civil and three criminal court processes. The term "common sense" was argued in all of them. And instead of a "well-articulated judicial" rap, how about wisdom,?
"I do think that if you want to be certain of a nominee's views on the proper role of the judiciary, you better have seen them in action as a judge.
We haven't. And absent that, we must look to other events in Miers' professional life to ascertain her perspective. To that end, the Chronicle article is instructive:"
I'm at a loss to see the link between assertaining a "nominee's views on the proper role of the judiciary" with Ms. Meirs' role in promoting women studies, the speakers of which she probably didnot have veto control over.
GIMME A BREAK!
I voted for him because he was better than John Kerry. When punching the ballot for him I wasn't also signing a contract agreeing to genuflect to him on whatever choices he made.
Since the gameplan by both parties putting up a nominee is to have them keep their mouth shut, I'll be shocked if any information comes out of the hearings.
"I always said that I knew people like th Clintons in Law School"
Are you an attorney?
Was Meirs on this committee in 2003?
AMEN!
Unfazed, no. It just means that she is on automatic pilot and oblivious. She is now going through the motions. She will either win by a slender margin, and thereby embarrass the President, or lose by a slender margin, and thereby embarrass the President. It is time for Harriet to withdraw, or else to assert a medical difficulty (instead of withdrawing outright).
Where in the US Constitution does it require a SC justice to possess a law degree??
We need to know when she was actually asked the question ~ not when someone says she was asked. If you have a MSM editor in the flow of information it cannot be trusted.
She was a member of an ADVISORY panel and pushed for the series.
I see no indication she had control over the speakers. She was not chairperson of the group in charge of the speakers.
This article doesn't actually prove she had any leverage at all in this matter.
So you voted for president Bush not because you believed in him, but because you were afraid of John Kerry?
By your logic all polls are irrelevant because they do not survey the WHOLE country. Sheesh...
ABSOLUTELY not true!!! How dare you paint people with one broad brush!!
If you only knew how many patriotic, military supporting, Republican bell-ringing workers fall into your silly category, you would (and SHOULD) be embarassed!!!
In case you haven't noticed...this is "FREE" Republic...and this is the United States of America...and guess what?
My, oh, my...I can actually disagree with you!
Puddle deep intellectually? Why don't you wait until after the hearings before you judge her intellect? I thought that in this country we were all innocent until proven guilty. If you didn't learn that in law 101 perhaps you are not the one to be judging Ms. Miers and her qualifications.
LOL! You are welcome.
You do not have to poll everybody.
Did you ever wonder how the post office "counts" the mail?
Was Justice Clarence Thomas an embarrassment?
Ok, so I missed the 'n' on 'the'. the=then. Anyway, if he comes to visit me tonite, I would love to talk to him. Gotta lot uv questions for him.
"Maybe we're done with W"
Maybe "WE" are not. doh
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