Bush: Harriet Miers Won't Change
If there was one important message resulting from the President's morning press conference, it was this: Harriet Miers is no David Souter. President Bush seemed to emphasize two points: (1) He knows her view of the proper role of the judiciary; and (2) She won't change. Certainly, it's hard to take such assurances on faith, but the President seemed sure, and -- give his record on judicial nominees -- I have no reason to doubt him now.
Is Harriet Miers the most qualified nominee? No -- but, frankly, no one lets that bother them when they know and like a particular nominee's views. Any nominee who doesn't come from the John-Robertsian Ivy League Law School/Supreme Court clerkship/academia or D.C. insider axis is subject to such criticism (chief example? Clarence Thomas, although Sandra Day O'Connor faced it, too.) But let's not kid ourselves -- as a prominent practicing lawyer and White House counsel, she's clearly qualified to sit on the Court.
The argument that a nominee can't have a judicial philosophy unless she (or he) has already been sitting on the bench (or in the classroom) simply lacks merit. An outstanding judicial philosophy is a function of intellect and/or conviction -- not judicial or academic "experience." After all, David Souter was a judge (NH state court and the First Circuit), but that didn't mean he had a philosophy (at least until lefty Justice William Brennan got done with him). And if President Hillary Clinton named Janet Reno or David Boies to the bench, we'd be pretty confident that they'd be bringing a consistent (and unfortunate) philosophy with them.
And perhaps there's merit to the argument that the Supreme Court shouldn't be entirely filled with those who have been breathing only the rarified air of either academia or the judiciary.
Did I hope for Judge Michael Luttig or Judge Michael McConnell or Judge Edith Jones? Of course. But it ill becomes conservatives to ape the condescending, elitist attitudes of liberals -- wherein Ivy League credentials and government experience become the only relevant markers of intellect and achievement.
Let's let liberals be the Adlai Stevenson-types of the world.
Is Harriet Miers the most qualified nominee? No -- but, frankly, no one lets that bother them when they know and like a particular nominee's views. Any nominee who doesn't come from the John-Robertsian Ivy League Law School/Supreme Court clerkship/academia or D.C. insider axis is subject to such criticism (chief example? Clarence Thomas, although Sandra Day O'Connor faced it, too.) But let's not kid ourselves -- as a prominent practicing lawyer and White House counsel, she's clearly qualified to sit on the Court.
The argument that a nominee can't have a judicial philosophy unless she (or he) has already been sitting on the bench (or in the classroom) simply lacks merit. An outstanding judicial philosophy is a function of intellect and/or conviction -- not judicial or academic "experience." After all, David Souter was a judge (NH state court and the First Circuit), but that didn't mean he had a philosophy (at least until lefty Justice William Brennan got done with him). And if President Hillary Clinton named Janet Reno or David Boies to the bench, we'd be pretty confident that they'd be bringing a consistent (and unfortunate) philosophy with them.
And perhaps there's merit to the argument that the Supreme Court shouldn't be entirely filled with those who have been breathing only the rarified air of either academia or the judiciary.
Did I hope for Judge Michael Luttig or Judge Michael McConnell or Judge Edith Jones? Of course. But it ill becomes conservatives to ape the condescending, elitist attitudes of liberals -- wherein Ivy League credentials and government experience become the only relevant markers of intellect and achievement.
Let's let liberals be the Adlai Stevenson-types of the world.
posted by LadybugUSA at 8:34 AM
2 Comments:
Carol, I agree. The brainpower needed for the Court can be found outside the top law schools and the experience needed can be found outside the judiciary.
Does Miers have the intellect, experience (and strict constructionist philosophy) that I think she needs? Probably, but I’m not sure. We’ll all have to wait and see.
I agree wholeheartedly with the first four paragraphs of this post. As Doug Bandow opines at American Spectator today, picking someone without judicial experience is a good first step, but "too bad President Bush didn't go further and pick a non-lawyer."
AmSpec rather enjoys its reputation as the publication in the shotgun seat of the conservative stagecoach, so establishment types could dismiss its lack of enthusiasm as typical, but Bandow, like Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard and the blog "Galley Slaves," suggests you've mischaracterized conservative opposition to Miers.
Last phrased his reservations thusly: "...a woman who from an intellectual standpoint couldn't carry [Robert] Bork's briefcase and who financially supported the Democrats who destroyed Bork just a few months after that sorry display, is now being sent to the Supreme Court--by a Republican president."
In other words, this conservative opposition to or reticence about Miers can't be called an example of "condescending, elitist attitudes." On the contrary, those conservatives whom I trust are not bemoaning her lack of Ivy League credentials for the same reason that no one begrudges P.J. O'Rourke for getting an English degree from Miami U. of Ohio rather than Yale or Stanford.
What many are saying instead is that GWB punted on Fourth and One by nominating Miers rather than more openly conservative candidates.
To extend the metaphor a bit, the conservative base was willing to block for GWB on Fourth Down, if he'd handed the football to Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, or Michael Luttig. Instead he nominated a competent confidante-- and to say (and believe, as I do) that she's no David Souter is small consolation.
You and Hugh Hewitt have tacitly admitted as much, it seems to me, and it's refreshingly honest to hear both of you say "I would have preferred somebody else, but she dserves a chance."
I'm down with that, and think Thomas Lifson of "American Thinker" is right to find encouragement in Miers' humility and work ethic. Still, those who say we dserved better than a "yes, but..." candidate would seem to have a point. It's not cheap debating points or another humiliation of buffoons on the Senate Judiciary Committee we're after, it's reclaiming lost ground in the culture wars that turned the judiciary into the cavalry of the "progressive" movement.
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