George Will: Let the Great Debate Begin

Washington Post Writers Group ^ | November 1, 2005 | George F. Will

[RWR8189]

WASHINGTON -- With the nomination of Samuel Alito, the nation's long-term needs and the president's immediate needs converge.

Our nation properly takes its political bearings, always, from the Constitution, properly construed on the basis of deep immersion in the intellectual ferment of the Founding Era that produced it. That is why our democracy inescapably functions under some degree of judicial supervision. The nation has long needed a serious debate about the proper nature of that supervision. And the president needed both a chance to demonstrate his seriousness and an occasion to challenge his Democratic critics to demonstrate theirs in a momentous battle on terrain of his choosing. The Alito nomination begins that debate.

When Churchill's wife said it was perhaps a blessing in disguise that British voters turned him out of office even before the war in the Pacific ended, he growled that, if so, it was very well disguised. President Bush must realize that the failure of the Harriet Miers nomination was such a blessing.

He quickly cauterized that self-inflicted wound and acted on this political axiom: If you don't like the news, make some of your own. Presidents are uniquely able to do this, and Bush, because of his statesmanlike termination of the Miers nomination, was poised to reorient the national conversation. And because of the glittering credentials that earned Alito unanimous Senate confirmation to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, those Democrats who are determined to oppose him are unhappily required to make one of two intellectually disreputable arguments.

One is so politically as well as intellectually untenable that they will try not to make it explicitly. It is that judicial conservatism may once have been a legitimate persuasion, but now is a disqualification for service on the Supreme Court.

[ContraryMary]

George was right about Miers, and he's right about Alito.

[Always Right]

I thought all these anti-Miers people were suppose to hate anyone Bush nominates. They are all just Bush-hating liberals disgusing themselves as conservatives.

[GOPJ]

When Churchill's wife said it was perhaps a blessing in disguise that British voters turned him out of office even before the war in the Pacific ended, he growled that, if so, it was very well disguised. President Bush must realize that the failure of the Harriet Miers nomination was such a blessing.

LOL

[mark502inf]

Reid urged the president to nominate Miers, whose withdrawal Reid says he laments. Now Reid deplores the Alito nomination because it was, Reid says, done without Democratic ``consultation.'' But it was during such consultation that, Reid says, he warned the president not to nominate Alito. So Reid's logic is that nothing counts as consultation unless it results in conformity to Democratic dictates.

Classic Dem-speak.

[gridlock]

What I love best about the Alito nomination is that he is not a woman. I have nothing against women on the Supreme Court, but I love it when the President cuts across the grain and nominates a man when everyone says he has to nominate a woman. Putting a pie in the face of Conventional Wisdom just tickles my funnybone.

Plus, replacing O'Connor with a woman would have strengthened the perception that her position was a "Woman's Seat" on the court. Such a notion should be repugnant to all.

[gridlock]

One of the great things about writing your own memoirs is that you can always supply yourself with the most wonderful quotes at the most appropriate times. I often wonder how many of these things Winston Churchill never said.

[msnimje]

I love to watch the Dems squirm as the president goes about his business and they stand on the sidelines complaining.

[NutCrackerBoy]

Last December, Harry Reid, leader of Senate Democrats, said that Scalia would be a fine nominee for chief justice. Reid doubtless would [say] that Scalia would have been acceptable only because he was replacing someone comparably conservative -- William Rehnquist...When Reid endorsed Scalia for chief justice, he said: "I disagree with many of the results that he arrives at, but his reason for arriving at those results are (sic) very hard to dispute." There you have, starkly and ingenuously confessed, the judicial philosophy -- if it can be dignified as such -- of Reid and like-minded Democrats: Regardless of constitutional reasoning that can be annoyingly hard to refute, we care only about results. -George Will

I think most Democrats idea of Constitutional interpretation consists of recasting the words in terms of modern liberalism. They do believe in applying the Constitution exactly in that way and to that degree.

Why does Will give so much weight to Reid's views on Scalia in this column? Also, you can value someone's reasoning ability and still disagree with the Constitutional interpretation, without going all the way to pure results orientation.

[ConsentofGoverned]

"One of the great things about writing your own memoirs is that you can always supply yourself with the most wonderful quotes at the most appropriate times. I often wonder how many of these things Winston Churchill never said."
.....................................................
let's not let the cat out of that bag, a good editor and
publicist are worth their weight in witty replies let's keep the ghost writers out of it too.

[jwalsh07]

George was right about Miers, and he's right about Alito.

And was he right about Bush as well, an idiot not capable of making an informed choice for SCOTUS?

[Mamzelle]

Oh, shut up, George.

[proud American in Canada]

have nothing against women on the Supreme Court, but I love it when the President cuts across the grain and nominates a man when everyone says he has to nominate a woman

I agree 100%! (and I'm a woman).

I ultimately joined the "anti-Miers" camp, and I haven't been able to stop smiling since, oh, about 9 a.m. yesterday when I heard the news.

The Dems are panicked, btw. They keep trying to change the subject. All I heard on CNN this a.m. was Libby/Iraq/the levees in N.O.

Oh, I just heard an announcement: tonight! Larry King!

The latest on Joe Wilson and the Scooter Libby Investigation! LOL!!!!! Like anyone outside the beltway really cares. They won't stop trying, though.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

" Putting a pie in the face of Conventional Wisdom " ....

Correction :

Putting a pie in the face of " Political Correctness " .

[Prophet in the wilderness]

A woman once chastised Winston Churchill for being drunk.

Woman : " Winston ? your drunk ! "

Winston Churchill : " WOMAN ? your ugly, but, at least tomorrow I'll be sober, and you will still be ugly ".



Woman : " Winston ? if I were your wife, I would give you poison "

Winston Churchill : " WOMAN ? if I was your husband, I would drink it "

[Cboldt]

And was he [George Will] right about Bush as well, an idiot not capable of making an informed choice for SCOTUS?

He [President Bush] has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their prepresidential careers, and this president, particularly, is not disposed to such reflections.

Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers' nomination resulted from the president's careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers' name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/georgewill/2005/10/04/159414.html

[Young Scholar]

Oh, shut up, George.

Why? I highly doubt (from your reply, if nothing else), that you could have written anything even close to as intelligent as this column.

[Mamzelle]

Will is pretentious, portentous and tendentious. He's so adoring of his own prose (and his own dear self) that his notions smother aborning. The left keep him around as a grey-muzzled pet in bow tie--Brooks is another. I wish they'd retire, and let writers with a little life in them have their places. Coulter, Malkin, etc.

Our pundits exist to enlighten and entertain. I'm always interested that FRs will treat them as old warhorses to whom we owe some touching loyalty rather than cocktail-party wordsmiths who scribble rather than get their hands dirty. Seldom do we ever stop to ask the likes of Will--"What have you done for us lately, besides feathering your own literary nest?"

Will's piece on Miers (her appointment was whimscal and I'm delighted with Alito) was a snobbish, snooty, condescending collection of dreary dependent clauses. The Willsian self-infatuation was the only thing shining through...

[BibChr]

"Self-inflicted wound," Will says, putting down the butcher knife and the torch, and rinsing the blood off his hands.

Effete, prissy pig.

Dan

[BibChr]

Ooh, well-said.