[inquest]

The little that has been squeezed out on her potential leanings since her announcement has been pro-life and she certainly is NOT a revisionist.

As far as I know, there have been no public arguments made by her that push a pro-life view. All we have are some boxes checked off on a questionnaire put out by a pro-life group when she was running for Dallas City Council. Only a year earlier, she was donating to the Democrats. So stack this up against the public positions she has taken, such as

-identifying the root causes of crime as things like poverty and "low self-esteem", without mentioning lack of discipline, the entitlement mentality, the debasement of the culture, etc. (Source),

- the view that lawyers have a bad rap only because of public ignorance, not because of, say, the fact that they've rendered the laws unintelligible to the regular citizen (a concern of vital importance when considering her for a spot on the court which has been notorious for doing that to the Constitution)*,

- her recently unearthed opinion about the "pay gap" myth,

- and her efforts at SMU to start a "women's studies" (read: feminist indoctrination) curriculum that featured such luminaries as Gloria Steinem and Patricia Schroeder (Source),

-and her comments that the Federalist Society was too "political" an organization for her to be involved in, but had no problem being involved with the Democratic (as in, Democratic Party) Progressive Voters League (Source)

All these things tend to point in an uncomfortably left-wing direction.

(* to see the piece that I'm referring to in the second-listed item above, click here, then go to the third paragraph down in the yellow inset, where you can click to see her opinions in the Bar Journal, then go to the opinion from January '93)

[Mizpah]

I've taken the time to read your sources except for the one you asterisked, in that I could not find the relevant link. If taken at face value, I can see where you believe she leans left of your position. I will say this, I too believe that if all things are equal, women should not be paid less just because they are women. That does not mean that I support affirmative action in hiring or pay. I am a victim of such affirmative action, by the way. Perhaps there is more behind Miers’ words in this regard but it would have to be a suspicion not a given.

There should not be any doubt that self-esteem, poverty and living conditions impact behavior and by extension, crime in a negative way. That is not to say that they are the only factors. There are those who live in hellish conditions yet choose to follow the law. They are some of my heroes. The 1992 article sounds rather benign for the era.

Is the suspicion of Miers’ statements on equality and poverty really a bundle of unexamined prejudices?

I have little respect for SMU and that report, if taken at face value, is the strongest argument against her qualifications because of an alleged passivity trait. For me, that is somewhat offset by evidence of her being the behind the scene warrior tweaking the liberal Senates noses with continued renomination of conservative judges.

I would go on but it is clear that your SCOTUS appointment would need to be an outspoken conservative activist. Not that I am opposed to many such advocates. I just don’t believe that is absolutely required to be an effective conservative judge. Or even an effective conservative.