Miers: Second Runner Up . . .
The LA Times reports today that Karl Rove told James Dobson that Harriet Miers wasn't the President's first choice for the Supreme Court seat. Sounds like a big game of "telephone," doesn't it?
The story boils down to this. Karl Rove was begging: Don't be angry with us -- the President sought out "better" candidates for the seat but was turned down. What matters is how "better" is defined. If "better" means someone of a more originalist judicial philosophy, then we're in trouble. He's warning that Miers is going to be wobbly.
But given that whatever Rove said succeeded in eliciting Dr. Dobson's support, it seems more likely that "better" means someone with a better known philosophy or more credentialed. If that's the case, then there's no need for concern. I can live with the message that the President fell back on someone with fewer traditional judicial credentials or someone more obscure, as long as she's "solid" jurisprudentially and with the character to resist the impulse to drift left.
This morning, Rush Limbaugh distinguished between the two opposing conservative sides as those "who thought we could have done better" on the one hand, and those "who support Miers" on the other. But I'm not sure those two categories are mutually exclusive. In fact, I fall into both. The question is whether, given this report, we could have done better, given that the seat was, in effect, "reserved" for a woman.
And that may have been the foundational mistake -- because it seems to me that, if he had been turned down by a female, the President could have gone on to pick an A-list male nominee, letting it be known later that a woman was his first choice. Sure, it would have been kind of hard lines on the male, but on the whole, he'd have no cause to repine, because he'd be the nominee, after all.
But one final point: If it's really true that more prominent female originalist judges took themselves out of contention because they wanted to avoid the confirmation process, it's understandable. But it's also unfortunate -- because by doing so, they've let the Democrats win. Make the process ugly enough, and we'll keep the A-list off the bench (or on just the appellate bench).
The story boils down to this. Karl Rove was begging: Don't be angry with us -- the President sought out "better" candidates for the seat but was turned down. What matters is how "better" is defined. If "better" means someone of a more originalist judicial philosophy, then we're in trouble. He's warning that Miers is going to be wobbly.
But given that whatever Rove said succeeded in eliciting Dr. Dobson's support, it seems more likely that "better" means someone with a better known philosophy or more credentialed. If that's the case, then there's no need for concern. I can live with the message that the President fell back on someone with fewer traditional judicial credentials or someone more obscure, as long as she's "solid" jurisprudentially and with the character to resist the impulse to drift left.
This morning, Rush Limbaugh distinguished between the two opposing conservative sides as those "who thought we could have done better" on the one hand, and those "who support Miers" on the other. But I'm not sure those two categories are mutually exclusive. In fact, I fall into both. The question is whether, given this report, we could have done better, given that the seat was, in effect, "reserved" for a woman.
And that may have been the foundational mistake -- because it seems to me that, if he had been turned down by a female, the President could have gone on to pick an A-list male nominee, letting it be known later that a woman was his first choice. Sure, it would have been kind of hard lines on the male, but on the whole, he'd have no cause to repine, because he'd be the nominee, after all.
But one final point: If it's really true that more prominent female originalist judges took themselves out of contention because they wanted to avoid the confirmation process, it's understandable. But it's also unfortunate -- because by doing so, they've let the Democrats win. Make the process ugly enough, and we'll keep the A-list off the bench (or on just the appellate bench).
posted by LadybugUSA at 10:32 AM
7 Comments:
Mr. Rove: How foolish do you think we are?
I find the whole concept of judges dropping out of contention thunderousy hard to believe. A seat on the Supreme Court is a lifetime appointment to which most legal professionals in a certain specialty ultimately aspire.
No serious applicant for the job would have not known of the scrutiny that comes from the Judiciary committee. And yet all these judges en masse decided at the last minute to bail?
Um - no.
Carol,
With all due respect, your party line, presidential prerogative arguments in favor of Miers over the past few days seem remarkably similar to those of Hugh Hewitt. Are you intentionally trying to parrot Hugh? Just curious.
This is all I have to say: http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm
Good grief -- if defend the Miers nomination we must, let me tell a personal tale that more or less gets to the heart of my version of the truth. Review, abuse, scorn as you like, fair citizens of the blogosphere, but I guarantee nothing like this is coming from Hewitt or Rove.
I played pool a lot in college. I was one of the best (or just the best) that I knew. I won't visit all I did here, but I have several pieces of hardware to show. Anyway, I signed up for a doubles tournament, where players were pre-handicapped. I had a few days prior made the acquaintance of a woman who was, to my eyes, unusually good at pool.
I signed her up as my partner. She was completely unknown to the rest of the players and so hard to handicap. They assumed she was not especially skilled at pool, and so put us into an easier bracket than had my partner been a known good player. I figured I had an easy and clever in to the finals.
We cleaned up, right? Well, no. For one thing, I'd played her in the rarified confines of one-on-one, but never doubles where the dynamic is different. For another, I misjudged how good the competition would be. For another, it was her first tourney of any kind. The upshot was that I thought I had a very sure thing when in fact I had badly, badly, badly misjudged. It wasn't on her. It was on me.
Needless to say, the winners of this tournament got a trophy and some cash, not a lifetime job and the privilege of influencing national policy and law for a generation.
That's about what I think happened here. The president did indeed divine that Miers had some unique legal insights - and good for her and him - but then he erroneously concluded (I would guess, concluded in part by not taking the SCOTUS post seriously) that nominating her would do an almost magical end-run around the ordinary dynamic that would face the nominee. No, the critics aren't sexist or elitist or anti-evangelical. This critic just believes he has badly, badly, badly misjudged.
All I could do is apologize to my partner and look forward to the next tournament. And be extremely humble going forward. The president should consider this tack.
Let's see: If Sandra Day O'Connor occupies the "female seat" on the court, can it be too long before we we get nominations focused on "the swing seat" (oops, O'Connor again), "the black seat," and the "flavor of the month" seat?
I hope not. If we're already there, we should give up the pretense of meritocracy. Even at state level, that's a difficult proposition to defend: Witness the high court in Oregon deciding that live sex shows are protected by the First Amendment. Best and brightest? I think not.
The LA Times reports today that Karl Rove told James Dobson that Harriet Miers wasn't the President's first choice for the Supreme Court seat.
And the source of this information is the goodly Doctor Dobson. Why do you think he is telling the truth?
Dobson original says he is in possession of information about Harriet Miers that he probably shouldn't be privy to. What is this information? According to James Dobson, his top-secret, shouldn't-be-privy-to information is the name of the church Harriet Miers is a member of. How believable is that?
If you can't trust James Dobson to tell the truth about his secret information, why in the world should anyone believe anything he has said?
Meanwhile, the WH claimed that the drop outs did not affect the fact that Miers was picked.
They can't both be right.
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