Ilana Mercer on the Miers nomination
Ilana Mercer has a good post on the Miers nomination. While I do not fully agree with her definition of "activist judge," I think her analysis is spot on. Here is my favorite part:
To say she hasn't a discernable judicial philosophy is an understatement. But why would Bush care whether she can tell Blackstone from Bentham when he can’t? The president simply wants to ensure his appointees vote as he expects them to. Left-liberals, like Catharine Crier of Court TV, believe a judicial activist is someone who reverses precedent. George Bush thinks a judicial activist is someone who disobeys the President.(emphasis in original). This is a well-written restatement of my argument in Bush nominates Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court that Miers "will pursue Bush's political agenda from the bench."
posted by WCharles @ 10/07/2005 12:21:00 PM
9 Comments:
And Andy Rooney, a self avowed liberal, says he would consider supporting Harriet if she did something with her hair. Just wanted to add some substance to the discussion.
Three weeks ago I said some nice things about Bush, and now you're quoting Andy Rooney. Excuse while I go check to see if the sky is falling. :-)
What was that popular song during the American revolution? "The World Turned Upside Down" Or, something close to that. Politics is getting strange. I just finished reading George Will's column published yesterday. I have enjoyed Will for many years now and politically find myself in agreement with much of what he writes, though not always. He was borderline contemptuous toward Bush with his nomination of Miers and his general lack of constitutional law knowledge at this stage of his presidency. Will said, "He (Bush) has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution." And, "Furthermore, there is no reason to believe 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 refectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers' name probably would not have appeared on any of those lists."
I wish I could debate you, but I might be all alone if I tried.
Politics certainly are strange these days. I can say that it seems to me that Miers is socially conservative, which makes many of the conservative base's arguments against her puzzling to me. That being said, even if her social views were exactly like mine, I would be against her nomination because of the fact that she is utterly unqualified for the job. She is certainly capable of learning the ropes, but the the Supreme Court is no place for on the job training. To use a baseball analogy (I'm watching the Red Sox right now), the Supreme Court is the big league, and Miers is barely qualified to be playing A ball.
As I said in a previous post, compare her to Roberts and you will see there really is no comparison.
Now you've got me riled up. I'm too cheap to pay for full cable so I can't get the ball game, or any ball games today. I don't know why they don't broadcast on one of the major networks instead of showing garbage, like WWF Smackdown.
I too was confused why conservatives would be opposed to her until it clicked recently. She does seem to be a social conservative herself. I've read commentaries recently that state conservatives are opposed to her nomination for the exact same reason you are, lack of experience and with that lack of experience an uncertainty of how she will perform. Conservatives have been burned in the past generation. David Souter. Need I say more? Well, maybe there is a fear she could be the next Souter.
Game update: 0-0 after 2, two outs in the top of the third. The White Sox have had two fabulous infield plays to turn inning ending double plays. Wakefield's knuckler is dancing (though he just gave up a double off the Monster). Rain is in the area.
2-0 White Sox. Crap.
Yanks are supposed to play in NYC tonight. But, it will probably get rained out.
I wish the rain had made it to Boston. 4-2 White Sox in the 6th...
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