Miers: View From the Cheap Seats

I’ve kept out of the hair-raising debate on the Miers nomination simply because I’m one to acknowledge my own short-comings, my own gaps in knowledge. I simply am not a lawyer; I don’t even have an undergraduate degree.

Observing as those who do possess the formal credentials and/or demonstrable knowledge duke it out has been a valuable learning experience for me, however. The paid pundits on the right are, for the most part, against the nomination. Wait, allow me to rephrase that: the paid pundits on the right are, for the most part, rending their garments and tearing out their hair over the nomination.

George Will derides Miers' alleged intellectual inferiority and--sounding like the most leftist of leftists--gives her patron a kick in that area to boot.

[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.

Ann Coulter is incensed that such an inferior being—read: someone who did not attend an Ivy-league law school—has been put forth as the nominee. Coulter:

Harriet Miers went to Southern Methodist University Law School, which is not ranked at all by the serious law school reports and ranked No. 52 by US News and World Report. Her greatest legal accomplishment is being the first woman commissioner of the Texas Lottery.

And this is just unnecessary:

While Bush was still boozing it up in the early '80s, Ed Meese, Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork and all the founders of the Federalist Society began creating a farm team of massive legal talent on the right.

So let them get elected president and they can make the choice themselves.

(I used to think that Ms. Coulter used her legendary vitriol as a tool to get out the conservative message; something that I thought she believed in. Now I suspect that her vitriol is merely a character flaw, wielded against anyone who doesn’t toe her mark in the manner that she sees fit.)

Don’t our opponents claim that conservatives only believe that the privileged should be in power? It appears that, in some cases, our opponents were correct. We unwashed and uneducated masses are forced to wonder whether a complete program of law is even being taught outside of the elite list of schools. If not, why don’t we just shut down these Acme Law Schools right now and disallow any and all practice of law unless the “lawyer” in question was fortunate enough to get into Yale, Columbia, etc.?

If this nomination has no other use, it has served at least one purpose: it has revealed how certain privileged members of society view the rest of us, even those of us who are formally educated. Ms. Miers' qualifications as a Supreme Court justice are fair game; the rest is merely snobbery.

Onward.

Daniel Henninger and Virginia Postrel (read various posts) make a case against the Miers nomination that is patently 180 degrees opposite of that of Will and Coulter, that it is actually born of a different sort of snobbishness: Texas cronyism. Miers was nominated solely because she is a friend and professional colleague of the president.

Henninger notes (as Coulter also quite crudely does above) that a lot of the anger against President Bush for this nomination stems from the perception that, by nominating Harriet Miers, he is ignoring or repudiating everything that the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy has built up since the beginning of President Reagan’s first term.

In 1982, five years before Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork to the High Court, law students at several top-tier schools founded the Federalist Society, dedicated to shaping a robust, coherent conservative theory of jurisprudence. Robert Bork was a society lodestar, the most formidable conservative jurist of his generation. The Democrats destroyed his nomination by personalizing their disagreement with him. After that, reforming and retaking the Court became a personal crusade for many conservatives. [SNIP]

For nearly 25 years, conservative legal thinkers have been building an argument that liberalism transformed the Court into an instrument of national policymaking more appropriate to the nation's legislative institutions. Roe v. Wade is the most famous of those policy decisions. [SNIP]

Across these many years conservatives have been creating a structured legal edifice to stand against a liberal trend toward aggrandized federal power that began in the 1930s. [SNIP]

Harriet Miers may share these reformist views, but her contribution to them is zero. Conservatives are upset because they see this choice as frittering away an opportunity of long-term consequence.

In short, the Big Boys and Girls are ticked because, after all that hard work they did, they--or one of their number—doesn’t have sole dibs on the spoils.

Still others surmise that the nomination of someone like Miers is born of Senate Republican cravenness; their unwillingness to go against the likes of Kennedy, Schumer, Clinton, etc., to push the conservative agenda forward. Says Thomas Sowell:

When it comes to taking on a tough fight with the Senate Democrats over judicial nominations, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist doesn't really have a majority to lead. Before the President nominated anybody, before he even took the oath of office for his second term, Senator Arlen Specter was already warning him not to nominate anyone who would rile up the Senate. Later, Senator John Warner issued a similar warning. It sounded like a familiar Republican strategy of pre-emptive surrender.

Before we can judge how the President played his hand, we have to consider what kind of hand he had to play. It was a weak hand -- and the weakness was in the Republican Senators.

(The Anchoress notes that Robert Novak and Mark Levin concur.)

So what’s a literate, blue-collar sort supposed to conclude from this mish-mash of opinion, speculation, hysteria and cowardice?

Why would President Bush pick someone like Harriet Miers who has never sat on a bench and has no real legal scholarship--as opposed to either Janice Rogers Brown or Priscilla Owen, each of whom possess both qualities? Several answers come to mind:

1. Because he was told that neither of the latter two candidates (or someone like them) would make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee (unknown),
2. Because the latter two candidates (or someone like them) would have their nominations filibustered by the main body of Senate Democrats (proven),
3. Because the Senate Republicans are unwilling to go to the mat for a strong conservative choice, type of candidate that will cause the Democrats to pull out the proverbial big guns (proven),
4. Because the president doesn’t understand what his responsibilities are as president when it comes to selecting persons to sit on the High Court (unlikely, judging by the nominations he has made for lower courts and for the Chief Justice of the United States),
5. Because, for whatever reason, he wants to stick it to the conservative elites; the type who formed the Federalist society (would be an out-of-character example of stage-one thinking), and/or
6. Because he wants to light a fire under the Senate Republicans to get them to fight for the conservative agenda (I hope).

I agree with Sowell, et al., that number six is most likely true.

All the talk about Ms. Miers’ evangelical Christianity, her various first-female-lawyer milestones and the fact that she is a long-time colleague of the president’s seem merely like adequate cover against allegations of Souter-syndrome: being a liberal in conservative-clothing. (I think that most of us who know even a little bit about the judicial branch of government only want a justice who isn’t an activist even if that activist errs on the conservative side.)

I'm betting that President Bush is doing what he usually does: call people out. Why should he put a Janice Rogers Brown up to be savaged by the Democrats if the Senate GOP isn’t willing to stand with him and give Brown cover? If they can't hang, then whose problem is that? The president might as well put me up for nomination.

My predictions: if Harriet Miers is lucky enough to make it through the judiciary committee, she will be voted down by the full senate. Then what? Following the rejection, President Bush makes a phone call to Senator Frist and asks: “now are you willing to fight for the type of candidate that you claim to want?”

Then again, I could be wrong. :-)

For all their Ivy education and conceit, these screeching pundits would be road-kill in a game of chicken. Or poker. It’s sad that a decisively-elected second-term president has to resort to this type of strategy, but the president is only playing the hand that he has been dealt.

UPDATE: Thanks, Glenn!

Comments

[Mr. Hyde]

Very interesting idea. If true, it also suggests the possibility that Democrats would call the president's bluff and vote en masse to confirm...

This should be very entertaining. We are certainly blessed/cursed with interesting times.

[Kralizec]

It seems that if you were really as egalitarian as you think you are, you'd hold that elitists are as good as any of the rest of us. As it is, you look down on elitists of George Will's sort and Ann Coulter's sort, and you can't distinguish between them. You think you're better than both of them, you elitist, you!

I don't call you an elitist in order to accuse you of elitism; indeed, I'm incapable of raising elitism as an accusation. I call you an elitist in order to accuse you of shallowness: You haven't recognized your own elitism, the universality of elitism, or the meaningful differences between representatives of two different elitisms: elitism as regards profundity and elitism as regards credentials. On these points, I see more clearly than you do, and am therefore your superior in these respects. That's right, Baldilocks: You and I are both elitist, but I'm better at it than you are.

Kralizec

[Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest)]

WOW--what a smart post! Very thoughtful. You do a great job of summarizing the conservative reaction and analyzing the president's decisionmaking process -- particularly in light of his experiencce with judicial nominees.

[Matthew Goggins]

I agree with you about the craven nature of the Republican pundits' reactions. Even Charles Krauthammer seems to have come unhinged over Ms. Miers' alleged lack of credentials and qualifications.

But I disagree with you about President Bush's strategy. I think he chose Harriet Miers because he knows that she will be a most excellent Associate Justice.

The way conservatives have been dumping on Ms. Miers is shameful.

The president has exercised his judgement. He has promised a strict constructionist, and Harriet Miers appears to be one. A "paper trail" is not needed to establish either her judicial philosophy or her intellectual capacity. To insist otherwise, even before the hearings start, is insulting both to Ms. Miers and to President Bush.

I have confidence that President Bush understands that the impatient mob of legal analysts are merely exposing their poor understanding of what is truly needed on the Supreme Court (such as having a hard-working and effective legal practitioner who is directly familiar with the real-world consequences of court decisions). Perhaps six months from now he'll even get a few humble apologies from some of those who should have known better.

[baldilocks]

Kralizec: Don't bogart that thing!

Dan: Thanks!

[Kralizec]

Baldilocks: Whatever.

[California Conservative]

Brilliant. Truly. The perspective on Coulter's vitriol...very provocative and, quite possibly, right on the money. Sad. Conservatives are tearing out our own stuffing.

[baldilocks]

Kralizec: Do you have a coherent point to make or not? You get one more shot.

[AJackson]

Interesting idea - but George Bush though smart, but doesn't go in for that kind of subtlety. I think you had it with reason 3 - he doesn't trust the RINO's in the Senate, so figured a stealth candidate was the best he could do. He's worked with Miers for many, many years, so I think he'd got a good read on the kind of person she is. However, I think it's a terrible shame that it's come to this point. The Supreme Court is an EXTREMELY important position and it's a LIFE TIME appointment. I'm very disappointed the President and the GOP Senators could not get together and fight for a first rate originalist judge.

As for Coulter, she's simply the Anti-Dowd.

[teal marie]

I fully agree.

Ann Coulter, I like it when she rearranges Alan Colmes' guts for him on Shannity. Her columns; pure snot. If there is such a thing.

I trust Bush, mainly.

[John]

Those on the right who think a Luttig, McConnell, Jones, Brown or other conservative with a paper trail would have sailed through the Senate, or that the GOP would have united on the nuclear option to end any Democratic filibuster, seem to forget that Bush had to recess appoint John Bolton just a few months ago because these same senators couldn't stick together over a United Nations appointment, even with all the scandals emitting from the U.N. bureacracy.

Had Bush wanted to, I think a war of attrition might have finally gotten him a Brown, or a Luttig, or a McConnell, but only after the first two or three nominees were shot down in flames either by folks like Spector on the Judiciary Committee or by people like Hagel, Chaffee or Voinivich in the final Senate vote. If people like Coulter were willing to wait until sometime in 2006 to get their candidate seated, it probably would have worked, but given Ann's immediate gratification problems, she would have been lambasting Bush anyway for not whipping the Senate into line when the first and/or second candidates were rejected.

[Christopher Cross]

Juliette, awesome post. Though I think an Ivy League education isn't a plus factor; Miers' lack of one isn't a positive either. Where she went to school is ultimately (should be) a neutral.

Unless Harvard teaches an extra 4 amendments I'm not aware of.

John,

I think the arg that Luttig/McConnell/Brown nomination would have (potentially lethal) problems works only if they were the FIRST nominee Bush sent up. They are slightly more controversial than was Roberts--but only moderately so (Brown is the most controversial IMO)

But we have a very recent precedent of how a well-qualified nominee can handle (manhandle even) the Senate Judiciary Cmte and get through without a party line vote.

Accordingly, Luttig and McConnel have a template on which they can base much of their testimony. (Brown is a diff story because she's such a firestarter--but that's why we love her).

You just can't wage the same cartoonish opposition campaign these days that you could against Bork. Accordingly, while they might not sail through--they would get confirmed.

And Bolton is Bolton--he's an island of mustachioed masculinity that the Seante just couldn't stop, let alone contain.

[Orson]

Since when is it "elitist" to insist on elite ability to fill a lifetime post for an elite national institution with the power of life and death over all our citizens?

Archie Bunker for SCOTUS!

[Francis W. Porretto]

-- if Harriet Miers is lucky enough to make it through the judiciary committee, she will be voted down by the full senate. Then what? Following the rejection, President Bush makes a phone call to Senator Frist and asks: “now are you willing to fight for the type of candidate that you claim to want?” --

I hope you're right, love. We're looking at an opportunity that hasn't presented itself in a long, long time, and might not come again before my kids start boring their grandchildren. To squander it would cost me most of the hope I retain for the future of this country.

[Fausta]

Excellent post, Baldilocks!
As for Ivy League vs non-Ivy league, it's the student that makes the school.

[Dave]

You should try to get this post published in the Wall Street Journal or similar outlet. Why not shop it around?

This is the *best* thing I've read on the Miers flap, bar none -- whether internet post or MSM editorial. (And I've read quite a few.)

Thanks very much for taking the time to do it. Much appreciated.

Dave

[Milton]

I think you've got it right, Juliette.

Bush has set up a win-win situation although too few are recognizing it yet. If Miers does get confirmed, she's someone the President knows he can count on.

If she doesn't get confirmed he can bring out the really big guns (Brown, Luttig?) against both the weak Republicans and the Ever-Whining Democrats.

Either way we get a solid, non-activist Justice. That dumb Bush guy shore does whup them smart fellers sometimes.

[Mike in Colorado]

Very good post; thoughtful, measured and with some interesting observations and insights. I'm not sure exactly what the President's motives are in this, but if the past is any judge, with George Bush what you see is what you get, so I'm inclined to agree with Matthew Goggins above. As to elitism: when where a person went to school over 30 YEARS ago becomes an issue overshadowing their accomplishments during the ensuing 30 years, that's elitism to me. When people take the position that only law professors and/or appellate judges can do the job on the Supreme Court, when history SHOWS that this isn't true, that's elitism. Frankly, the position of many on the right in the blogosphere and the punditry is simply wrong-headed and disgusting. It makes them look petty and whining and has hurt their longer term credibility. Hugh Hewitt and Beldar are places to look for a more reasoned analysis; one with actual facts.

[Cornellian]

Good thing Bush didn't succumb to "elitism" in appointing Michael Brown to FEMA - perish that thought that someone might demand he actually have any qualifications for the job.

Let's face it, SMU isn't Harvard or Yale, and it's not Michigan or Berkeley. However, her alma mater is just a proxy for potential achievement, so I wouldn't care if she went to SMU if she had the post-graduation achievement to warrant a nomination. But she doesn't. She isn't qualified and everyone knows it, which is so much of the right is in such an uproar. Conservatives have spent decades making the argument that the left regards the law as simply an unfettered exercise of political power and that this position is wrong, that there is a law, and that judges must adhere to it. To say now that conservatives can nominate a lightweight who has never said anything of significance about constitutonal law because she's a friend of Bush, or because "she'll vote the right way" simply squanders those decades of effort and suggests conservatives really accept the very position they claim to oppose.

[John]

Chris --

I think Bush could have gotten one of the more favored nominees confirmed, but only after at least a couple of them were rejected, due to the number of Senate Republicans who go which way the polls and/or the media pressure seem to be blowing. Spector, Chaffee, Snow, Collins, Hagel and Voinivich ran for the hills on John Bolton, and there's no reason to believe they've suddenly grown spines of steel over the summer.

The deluge of opposition research and negative ads/media stories would leave nominee No. 1 dead on arrival at the Judiciary Committee, while Democrats would justify the efforts to scuttle Nominee No. 2 on the Carswell/Haynesworth dual rejections that resulted in Rhenquist joining the court. It was only when you got to Nominee No. 3 or so that something like "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" effect would take hold, and some of the wavering GOP Senators would finally step back from the media pressure and look at what they were actually doing.

So you would get a Brown, or a Luttig, or a McConnell on the court, but only after 6-8 months of angst and anger watching the Democrats kill the first few selections. Miers provides a different kind of angst going in, instead of coming out, due to her lack of a paper trail, but those who thing any high-profile conservative nominee would have gotten through with no problem due to a unified Republican front (see John Hawkins over at Right Wing News), are on the same level as Rodney Daingerfield's economic professor in "Back to School" -- desiging a plan that only works in Fantasyland.

[Tully]

Juliette, you rock. As always.

[Silicon Valley Jim]

I agree with you as regards Ann Coulter's column. Allow me to explain why this conservative doesn't like the Miers nomination.

It doesn't bother me that she took both her degrees from SMU. Nor does it bother me that she has never had prior judicial experience; there was a period of approximately six years in the 1960s during which four of the nine then-sitting Supreme Court justices (White, Black, Clark, and Warren) had had no judicial experience prior to their appointments to the Supreme Court. She has accomplished far more than the average sixty-year-old attorney. Despite what many have said, she is most definitely not a mediocrity.

What bothers me is the combination of all this with her long-standing relationship with George W. Bush - in ways that extend beyond employment at the White House. She was his attorney before he went into politics. The combination of the relationship with the lack of most of the usual credentials for a Supreme Court justice (prior judicial experience or experience as an attorney general, partnership in a top firm, or, yes, graduation from a top law school) makes this look far too much like cronyism. Perhaps I'm more concerned with the appearance than I should be, but, until now, I've been very proud of the President's performance in nominating the best candidate for a job without regard to race, sex, or personal relationship, and this sure doesn't look like that.

Ann Coulter, by the way, attended law school at the University of Michigan; she did her undergraduate work at Cornell.

[Evon]

What an excellent post. The best round-up I've read so far. Could it be that many well-known conservatives wanted a nominee they knew socially?

[Mark]

Baldilocks, great post. While I would have preferred the stellar conservatives that had paper trails and a straight up fight, I can also see how that may have failed. I'm holding my judgement until I see how she performs in the hearings.

[Justin]

Great post Baldlocks (it's good to see a conservative view Coulter like us liberals do for a change ;-)).

I think the democrats should all vote in favor of confirmation. This was the right's big opportunity to shape the Court for a generation with an Owens or Brown-like pick, and I feel like we "liberals" have really been given a gift by the president.

But, to echo SC Jim's point, I think the non-idealogical concern is Miers' closeness to Bush. The executive branch is a party to many important cases before the Court, and the Court needs to be independent of the executive.

I'm sure most here have seen this by now in editorials etc., but Hamiltons Federalist No. 76 is right on point.

"To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. . . . He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure."

[Scott Harris]

I have one other scenario which no one has considered. Maybe President Bush is trying to build a team of justices rather than select individual jurists for their own individual capabilities alone.

As a business manager, I am well aware of the fact that putting together a team of 9 leaders is a recipe for the failure of the team. You need a mix of personalities, capabilities and temperaments.

The Court already has two conservative leader/scholar types on the court - namely Roberts and Scalia. For the most part Thomas follows the lead of Scalia. Maybe Bush, having just nominated Roberts for Chief Justice, wants someone on the Court dedicated to being his (Robert's) trusted ally and deputy.

Scalia's temperament is such that he is unlikely to bend to the leadership of Roberts - especially since he has been on the Court since the 80's. Thomas has already established himself as the de facto deputy of Scalia.

Might not the "partnership" of Roberts/Miers be more conducive to Robert's success than having him compete with the personality of Luttig or McConnell as well as Scalia, not to mention the more liberal justices.

Might not one of those other judicial "stars" the pundits are lamenting feel an obligation to establish his own judicial reputation independent of that of Scalia and Roberts? Might they feel the need to demonstrate their independence from Roberts and Scalia/Thomas?

Suppose that Miers does not have the ego that requires her to prove her bona fides independently. Suppose that she is willing to follow the lead of Roberts. Suppose that she is willing to quietly offer advice to Roberts in the same manner that she has been willing to offer it to President Bush. Is it possible that Bush nominated Miers for the express purpose of being the alter ego to Roberts ego? Does President Bush foresee Miers playing the same role for Roberts as she has played for President Bush - that of consigliere?

As an individual nomination, Miers is a disappointment. But if her assigned role is to strengthen the hand of Roberts, and thus make his leadership of the Court more successful, then perhaps she truly is the best person for the job. Perhaps a partnership of Roberts/Miers will sometimes be more successful bending a Justice Kennedy to their argument than a Scalia/Thomas argument.

Is it possible that President Bush understands the dynamics of team building better than the pundits and academics? Sending up a new leader of the Court is a wonderful opportunity. Having the almost simultaneous opportunity to strengthen the hand of that new leader is almost unprecedented. Do we really need two new justices trying to establish their own independent reputations? Or might it not be better to have one justice dedicated to playing a subordinate role to the other, hence increasing the effectiveness of both?

There may yet be another opportunity to place a conservative judicial "star" on the court. But what type of production would you get trying to make a movie where every actor was insisting on the spotlight. Miers might never win the judicial "Oscar" for "best actress." But in his role as casting director, maybe "best supporting actress" is the role President Bush is aiming for. Is that necessarily a bad thing?

[Richard]

Unless something "juicy" comes out about her during the Committee hearings and/or she ends up looking like a babbling idiot, then I don't see how Miers will be rejected by the full Senate. Remember, Ginsburg got 90 votes in a Republican controlled Senate. How can any Republican Senator who voted for Ginsburg vote against Miers?? Plus I feel that the Democratic Senators are rubbing their hands in glee that the Right is attacking the President over the nomination and just may provide the needed votes to confirm her on the theory that her confirmation will anger the Right and help surpress Republican voters in the '06 midterm elections. Imagine if it is a majority of Democratic Senators that confirms Miers. Then when the next SC slot opens (Ginburg or Stevens) and Bush appoints a Luttig or Janice Rogers Brown then the Democratic Senators will be free to use every tactic in the book to oppose them, pointing to their support of Miers as proof that they are not obstructionists when the President appoints "reasonable" people to the bench.

[John McAdams]

Harriet E. Miers Helped Bring Feminist Speakers to Southern Methodist

[Laurence]

The partisans wanted a fight, wanted to destroy their enemies but I think that President Bush considers himself president of all the people and is looking to serve all the people to the best of his ability. The Democrat senators had indicated that they could suppport Miers. Since he states that he has complete confidence that she fulfills his criteria for the job, he could nominate her without compromising his principles.

[Steve Lassey]

Brilliant column! People who think the president isn't subtle are misunderestimating him again. He is very subtle, and a proven winner. Whether option 3 or option 6 is the plan, for him it is a "win-win" situation. If Miers sails through and is confirmed, he has appointed a justice he is confident will help move the country back on track. He, not Coulter and Will. If not, then the senate Republicans will have to confront the question of whether they want to be the minority party again. (unknown, they have been voting as if they had lost the last elections) It might be easier to unite them behind Janice Rogers Brown if they realize they've been had on Miers. Why Brown? I'll admit that I don't know much about Luttig or Owen or the others. They might very well be the gold standard of judges, but Brown is a known quantity - Tough and conservative. Most importantly though, opposing her will be costly enough enough that senators of both parties might think twice before filibustering or voting no. Hit me hard if I'm wrong, but Black voters will never be taken seriously by the democrats until they are willing to split their vote or even just take their ball and go home.
About Ann,I was disappointed in the shrillness of her column, but I think I know where she is coming from. She thinks that the Republicans should govern as if they had won the election. She wants to see an ideological fight, culminating with the crushing of her enemies beneath her feet, and to hear da lamentations of da women. Well, that would be nice, but in order for that really to happen, we need a 60% majority of Republicans who act like Republicans, not democrat wannabes.

[Steve]

Anne Coulter: "While Bush was still boozing it up in the early '80s"

She should not have said this. I have accepted this from her to some degree toward certain democrats. The reason why is that these targets of hers were very often democrats who were saying very wrong and unfair things in the same manner about GWB or his administration and policies.

By hitting GWB with this "boozing" remark she is hitting someone who has shown enormous restraint by being civil to others.

This might be understandable considering Anne's boyish figure is supported by her bulimia that causes her to have a low blood sugar fit every now and then. Her smoking of marijuana ought to cause her to start the cycle all over again with some binge eating that will raise her blood sugar levels and put her in a layed back mood if not also in a layed back position.

[Steve]

Sorry, I was in a bit of a fit in in a hurry. "Layed" should be laid.

[DarkStar]

Interesting post. Good post.

I used to think that Ms. Coulter used her legendary vitriol as a tool to get out the conservative message; something that I thought she believed in. Now I suspect that her vitriol is merely a character flaw, wielded against anyone who doesn’t toe her mark in the manner that she sees fit.

...

If this nomination has no other use, it has served at least one purpose: it has revealed how certain privileged members of society view the rest of us, even those of us who are formally educated.

Welcome to the DarkStar side.
Hehehehehe....

I disagree with your take that he is trying to force the hand of Senate Republicans to back him up.

The POTUS hasn't vetoed any spending bill, no matter how outrageous.

The POTUS supports illegal immigrant amnistey even if it is directly oppositional to the WOT.

The candidate Bush selected his VP the same way he chose Miers.

[sigmund, carl and alfred]

Slam dunk, all the way around.

[Tim]

Great Post & thread;

One point, Miers is a "stealth" appointment. She has no judicial or even academic baggage to slam her in the senate. I believe that she is also the only candidate that the President really knows well enough to count on to uphold his campaign promise to move the court back to interpreting rather than making law. The President knows this woman better than any other potential nominee, perhaps he simply went for the sure thing, a true team player.

[David Cobb]

Baldi,
I concur with Dave…Extraordinary post.
You appear to be among the scant few able to reason with your brain as opposed to hormones.
The white-hot hatred spewing from some folks on our side isn’t playing well in Peoria…akin to an animal eating its own limb.
Barry Goldwater shoveled horse manure between banking jobs, Ronald Reagan was an actor, hardly the best qualified backgrounds to become the spiritual backbone of conservative philosophy.
Go figure.
David Cobb

[Joatmoaf]

I think that`s exactly what Bush had in mind all along. I also think that Miers and Bush planned this out on the day Rhenquist died, and even though the idea is to let her run through the obstacle course, they`re also prepared to accept the consequences, if by some fluke, she passes muster.

He picked her because he figured her relative inexperience would go against her in the hearings, and he picked her because, just in case, she`s GOOD.

She knows her buisness. She won against Disney, more impressive, she won against Microsoft.
She never appeared before the supreme court because a "cert. denied" from the supreme court means she wins.

Beldar covers her qualifications.

[Bill Faith]

6) Because he wants to light a fire under the Senate Republicans to get them to fight for the conservative agenda

He's certainly done that, and all the better if she's confirmed. Let's not lose sight of the fact he's likely to have a couple more openings to fill between now and '08. There's still plenty of time for a Luttig or Brown, and all the hoopla now will make it easier to get them confirmed.

[Cassandra]

Shame on you Juliette. Everyone knows G-Dumbya isn't that bright.

What's gotten into you? :)

Heh...

[Veeshir]

(I used to think that Ms. Coulter used her legendary vitriol as a tool to get out the conservative message; something that I thought she believed in. Now I suspect that her vitriol is merely a character flaw, wielded against anyone who doesn’t toe her mark in the manner that she sees fit.)
I think of her as Howard Stern. She's just had to get more and more outrageous in order to get more face-time.

I have long ago given up trying to figure out what the heck Bush is doing. I generally trust him because he's been generally trustworthy, with some notable exceptions, campaign finance "reform" for instance.
I just can't figure out this nomination. I figured JRB or Priscilla Owens was going to be the nominee.
On issues like this I've started taking a "wait and see" attitude rather than hyperventilating or defending him. It's just so much more pleasant that way.

[SDN]

Ya know, Cornellian, it's amazing that Brown seemed to do all right when those 4 hurricanes hit Florida. It wasn't until he intersected with the black hole of Democratic suckitude called Louisiana (and the black hole squared of same known as N.O.) that he just couldn't handle it. Now if you want to suggest that the President should govern the country on the basis that Democrats can't manage the affairs of a hot-dog stand, I wouldn't argue.....

[MaxedOutMama]

A very good analysis.

Bush doesn't rule the Senate. His nominees up till now have been quite conservative. It is the senators who don't want to fight this battle, and now they will see where that gets them.

By the way, I don't want a conservative or a liberal activist. I just want someone who takes the text of the Constitution very seriously.

[Justin]

She knows her buisness. She won against Disney, more impressive, she won against Microsoft.
She never appeared before the supreme court because a "cert. denied" from the supreme court means she wins.

That really has nothing to do with whether she is qualified to sit on the Court--lot's of lawyers have won more impressive cases.

I think I've come to the conclusion that if you're a social conservative who was hoping for a Scalia-type nomination, Bush has let you donw big time. Rationalize it all you want, but that's what happened. I, myself, am very thankful that Bush isn't as much of a judicial idealogue as I thought he was.

[amba]

I'm only a poor moderate, but I wrote this on Oct. 5:

the snobbery factor [is] something you do not expect to find, or I didn't, anyway, on the side that prides itself on standing up for regular folks over against élites [. . .] If I were a footsoldier of the Republican base, I think I'd feel insulted and betrayed to learn that "my" pundits were just a bunch of Washington insiders obsessed with élite credentials after all. God knows qualifications matter, but there are many ways to qualify. Whatever happened to life experience credit?

[Linda F]

The elitist sniping also struck me as gratuitous. It won't destroy the Supreme Court to have members who are educated outside of the elite schools. The lack of judicial experience may be a legitimate concern, but not her non-elite background.

BTW, the trackback for this post doesn't work.
I posted on my blog.

[Justin]

I think a lot of non-lawyers don't realize the extreme and bizarre elitism that goes along with the legal profession. Whether someone went to Harvard Business School or no business school is quickly forgotten if the person is successful--but for some reason no matter how successful someone is in law, where they went to school and whether they were on law review is still a big part of the resume.

[Hank_]

Great post.

I have developed a strong regard for President Bush’s ability to change tactics while pursuing a goal. And also his tactical sense on how to get what he wants. He is the master of the political bluff, side step and rope a dope. His opposition is always surprised when he says “here your platter on a head, opps, I mean . . “

He announced a goal of a judicially conservative court. I trust his tactical sense even though I am not sure what he is doing. But if this appointment does not work.

I simply am not a lawyer; I don’t even have an undergraduate degree.

There is no legal requirement that a judge be a lawyer. What that court needs is some good senior non-com commonsense.

BALDILOCKS FOR THE SUPREME COURT

[baldilocks]

Hank: LOL! Talk about all Hades breaking loose.

[Joatmoaf]

Uh Justin?

Please be so kind as to define constitutional requirements for qualifications to become a Supreme Court Justice.

Unless you`ve got a John Edwards "Two Americas" version there are no requirements.

Lemee see... Where is that quote?

Ah, "The Constitution does not explicitly establish any qualifications for Justices of the Supreme Court."

So now that I put THAT little detail out there, what is your argument now?

OH I see. Not ConstiTUTIONAL qualifications, just yours, Right?

[sadie]

Interesting how Ann Coulter didn't attend an Ivy League law school either.