Harriet Miers, Supreme Or Not?
Main Stream Media as well as the blogosphere has been buzzing since President Bush announced his nominee to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court yesterday morning. Already more has been written and said than any normal person could possibly read or absorb.
We don’t claim to be the brightest bulb on the christmas tree, but we do try to apply some common sense when addressing issues such as a Supreme Court Nominee. You can read any article in our Saturday Evening Judicial Review Post category on your left and will soon discover how seriously we take this subject.
The stakes are high, and the nominee if confirmed, will sit on the court for the rest of her life. There are many conservatives who have raised questions and expressed doubts about whether Harriet Miers should be confirmed to the Supreme Court.
Rush Limbaugh stated yesterday that this was a choice made from weakness here. We seldom disagree with Rush, but there are times when we do. This is one of those times. How many times in the past has Rush told us how George W. Bush has outsmarted his enemies. We have watched the progress of this Presidency from 2000 onwards, when conventional wisdom said the closeness of the election would cripple anything the President would try to accomplish. Such has not been the case. It is our opinion that President Bush has made his choice from a position of brilliance.
We have read many other conservatives in the past twenty-four hours who have given valid reasons for concern. Some have questoned the President’s judgement. Others have questioned Ms. Miers experience. Some of those questioning are writers whom we have read and trusted over the past few months and years.
Erik over at Red State is a great writer, and one whom we have learned to trust in these matters. He has kept us well informed for months about Supreme Court nominees. He has written the following here:
“The White House is on a campaign to prove Miers is not only an “originalist,” but also qualified. For now it seems that will be a very tough case to make.”
You can find many more such doubts at Confirm Them, Southern Appeal, and Bench Memos. The writers at Powerline Blog have raised some doubts here and here as well.
Most of the publications mentioned above are written by lawyers, among them some of the most conservative and smartest in the country, including Mark R. Levin whose book, Men In Black has been such an inspiration for us in this battle.
That is the point that needs to be made. If one reads history, you will soon discover that this country was run by merchants, farmers, and business people who were elevated to positions of power because others could see in them a greatness of leadership and soundness of mind that made them highly qualified to hold the positions they were elected, or were appointed to.
Others whom we have read, and have come to trust in the recent past have a different view on Harriet Miers.
Hugh Hewitt writes these thoughts here:
“Conservative opposition or contingent approval was reflexive, and disappointing. Because they did not know her, they assumed she could not be worth supporting. The cronyism of the chattering class seems to have triumphed over any kind of analysis or credit-according the sort of experiences that ordinary Americans value.
I hope the disappointed right will get over its sulk quickly as the fight over Miers is going to get very ugly very quickly as both the secular left and the anti-religious left realize that the president has nominated a thorough-going Evangelical of character and tough disposition. The light is going to go off over there that the president’s eyebrows went up when Harry Reid scribbled Miers’ name on the Minority Leader’s list of acceptable nominees.
Taking the ball and going home because the nominee doesn’t know you by your first name is hardly principle at work, and the refusal to see what she brings to the table isn’t argument. It is entertaining, and also a sort of wish for a return to the days of old when the president was a Democrat and brick throwing made life as a pundit easy.”
Mr. Hewitt also includes some insight from a reader who E-Mailed these words about the same post:
“Miers was, I am sure, involved in many discussions about what it was that W wanted in a nominee. She knows that he wants an Originialist, that he wants someone in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. She also knows that the court is his legacy.
As a woman of faith and obvious integrity, do people honestly believe you would accept the nomination while knowing in her heart that she would shatter all of her president’s plans?
I doubt it. If she was going to be a Souter, don’t people realize that if she had any integrity she would say, “Thank you Mr. President, but I am not what you are looking for.”
As I recall, Bush 1 made the mistake of picking someone else’s compadre, not his own. W knows what he is doing.”
David Kopel writing for the Volokh Conspiracy has researched her view on the Second Amendment which can be found here.
Thomas Lifson writing for the American Thinker in Don’t Misunderestimate Miers says this:
“Other conservatives are dismayed that the President is playing politics (!), rather than simply choosing the “best” candidate. But the President understands that confirmation is nothing but a political game, ever since Robert Bork, truly one of the finest legal minds of his era, was demonized and defeated.
The President’s smashing victory in obtaining 78 votes for the confirmation of John Roberts did not confirm these conservative critics in their understanding of the President’s formidable abilities as a nominator of Justices. Au contraire, this taste of Democrat defeat whetted their blood lust for confirmation hearing combat between the likes of a Michael Luttig or a Janice Rogers Brown and the Judiciary Committee Democrats. Possibly their own experience of debating emotive liberals over-identifies them with verbal combat as political effectiveness.
In part, I think these conservatives have unwittingly adopted the Democrats’ playbook, seeing bombast and ‘gotcha’ verbal games as the essence of political combat. Victory for them is seeing the enemy bloodied and humiliated. They mistake the momentary thrill of triumph in combate, however evanescent, for lasting victory where it counts: a Supreme Court comprised of Justices who will assemble majorities for decisions reflecting the original intent of the Founders.”
Finally, James Dobson said yesterday as recorded on Radio Blogger regarding President Bush and his nominee:
“But on judicial appointments, this man staked out his territory in his claim in the campaign. And he has not wavered from it one inch. It’s also true of his pro-life stance. He has been absolutely consistent with what he promised to do in his campaign. I applaud him for that, and he knows Harriet Miers as well as anybody in government. He has worked with her for years. He knows who she is. I do not believe that man is going to put somebody on that Court that thirty years from now, is going to represent his legacy, and he’s going to be blamed for fooling the American people. I just do not believe that.”
From all that we have read, we still believe that President Bush has made his choice from a position of brilliance. There will still be the ugliness from the Left. There will still be the educational process for the American people, maybe more so because the Right will be researching as much as the Left. The far left will be exposed in their outrageousness simply because there is in reality, nothing to criticize. There will still be a battle, but we already know the outcome.
We leave you with this final question. What general would send his army into a bloody skirmish when he can simply outsmart his enemies without ever firing a shot?
President Bush has again outsmarted the smart guys.
