Yep. But not in the way folks want to hear her answer questions. There's going to be a lot of code talking going on. It is the Brownback's who need to be persuaded to go along.
The only thing will be able to determine is whether she is a good public speaker.
If that's what you want to know, let me tell you, she's a terrible public speaker!
Check out C-SPAN. They have a copy of a speech she gave to a lawyer's conference. But about three-quarters of the way through, if you listen, you start to hear bits and pieces of what Bush is trying to tell people. Just remember, if you take a look, this is not a bunch of academics or constitutional lawyers she's talking to.
Thanks for the post.
It's the "code talking" that bothers me. What would be much better is a person that has been a judge and has lots of decisions to review. Knowing if she is personally for or against Roe v Wade shouldn't be important - what should be important is how she arrives at her decisions. If she issued a ruling for a conservative cause, but did so just for personal reasons and totally ignored what the law actually said then she would be a judicial activist.
That is what is so scary about all of this. We got lucky with Rhenquist - why press our luck?
We as a nation desperately need justices that will base their rulings on what the constitution actually say and not what they want them to say. Without a track record of judicial decisions, there is no way to know how Miers would actually base her decisions.
People say lots of things - talk is cheap. With complex issues like the Patriot Act and CFR, we need justices that we know will look at how the laws are written and are able to leave their personal ideologies at the door. Miers being an evangelical Christian has be used to bolster her creditals. What if a case involving religion came to the court where the Christian side was clearly in the wrong as the laws are currently written - how do we know if she could focus solely on what the law says? Without a track record, their is no reliable way to know.
Sure, Souter and Kennedy had track records that indicated that they might be good conservative justices, but did people look at why they ruled the way they did or just see if they tended to rule for conservative causes? Just because a person is against Roe doesn't mean that they would make a good justice.