Saturday, October 29, 2005
final thoughts on Ms. Miers
I guess sulking and attacking nominees really does work after all. And I suppose soon there will be crying in baseball.
As a lightweight member of the praetorian guard, it was harder to speak out for Ms. Miers' virtues as a justice than to criticize the anti-Miers' brigages arguments stirred up from day one. John Podhoretz put it well on Hugh's radio show when he asked "Where is her judicial philosophy? Can I go to a chinese restaurant and find it in a fortune cookie?" That proved to be her ultimate undoing in my opinion with a judicial philosophy that had to be cobbled together from various sources, speeches to different groups and the like, she appeared to be an incoherent mess of a jurist.
Having said all of that, however much the anti-Miers critics may bay, it was an old fashioned "Borking" of the nominee, only this time she "fell" on her own sword and the critics were from the political right, not the political left. In order to agree that the assault on Miers wasn't a "borking", one has to assume that Miers wasn't qualified to sit on the court to begin with. If I don't accept that premise, then the charge hasn't been refuted. An example of the defensive posture Miers' critics have taken in regards to the borking that went on, can be seen here. From day one, the folks set the template to read that whatever Ms. Miers was saying, they were mere platitudes or she was telling people what they wanted to hear, blah, blah, blah. Contrary to Mr. Adler's assertions, the website was calling for Ms. Miers to be denied a hearing and a vote. They wanted to have Ms. Miers herself withdraw the nomination, and barring that, they wanted Senators to go to the White House to demand her nomination be withdrawn (link, link) True, the editors of the website and publication didn't advocate the use of a filibuster or advocate tying her nomination up in committee, but they did urge the use of the steps outlined above all before any testimony could be given or questions asked by Senators. This viscious attack on her record and her character had a lot of the trademarks of a borking, only done much faster in the internet age.
Beldar had it right when he said that a large problem with the nomination of Ms. Miers was the lack of imagination when it came to visualize what would make a good nominee. It would be curious to know if the editors of National Review Online can remember what they said about William Rhenquist's lack of judicial experience when was first nominated by Richard Nixon. Did they have the same kind of concerns back then that they expressed over Miers?
Seeing as how Rhenquist was the last non-judge to be nominated to the court, I wonder if the critics of the Miers nomination could come up with anyone outside of the judicial pool and come up with a "suitable" nominee. I thought Harriet Miers' lack of experience on the bench would have been a welcome breath of fresh air to the bench, but with the borking that took place, we'll never know. Beldar's article on the subject can be read here.
update:
If anyone is going to criticize Ms. Miers for supporting private affirmative action on one while saying the government has no business in it on the other really ought to rethink the last chapter of Dinesh D'Souza's The End of Racism and think about calling the author to task because his arguments in that chapter are essentially the same as Ms. Miers' views as could be cobbled together.
As a lightweight member of the praetorian guard, it was harder to speak out for Ms. Miers' virtues as a justice than to criticize the anti-Miers' brigages arguments stirred up from day one. John Podhoretz put it well on Hugh's radio show when he asked "Where is her judicial philosophy? Can I go to a chinese restaurant and find it in a fortune cookie?" That proved to be her ultimate undoing in my opinion with a judicial philosophy that had to be cobbled together from various sources, speeches to different groups and the like, she appeared to be an incoherent mess of a jurist.
Having said all of that, however much the anti-Miers critics may bay, it was an old fashioned "Borking" of the nominee, only this time she "fell" on her own sword and the critics were from the political right, not the political left. In order to agree that the assault on Miers wasn't a "borking", one has to assume that Miers wasn't qualified to sit on the court to begin with. If I don't accept that premise, then the charge hasn't been refuted. An example of the defensive posture Miers' critics have taken in regards to the borking that went on, can be seen here. From day one, the folks set the template to read that whatever Ms. Miers was saying, they were mere platitudes or she was telling people what they wanted to hear, blah, blah, blah. Contrary to Mr. Adler's assertions, the website was calling for Ms. Miers to be denied a hearing and a vote. They wanted to have Ms. Miers herself withdraw the nomination, and barring that, they wanted Senators to go to the White House to demand her nomination be withdrawn (link, link) True, the editors of the website and publication didn't advocate the use of a filibuster or advocate tying her nomination up in committee, but they did urge the use of the steps outlined above all before any testimony could be given or questions asked by Senators. This viscious attack on her record and her character had a lot of the trademarks of a borking, only done much faster in the internet age.
Beldar had it right when he said that a large problem with the nomination of Ms. Miers was the lack of imagination when it came to visualize what would make a good nominee. It would be curious to know if the editors of National Review Online can remember what they said about William Rhenquist's lack of judicial experience when was first nominated by Richard Nixon. Did they have the same kind of concerns back then that they expressed over Miers?
Seeing as how Rhenquist was the last non-judge to be nominated to the court, I wonder if the critics of the Miers nomination could come up with anyone outside of the judicial pool and come up with a "suitable" nominee. I thought Harriet Miers' lack of experience on the bench would have been a welcome breath of fresh air to the bench, but with the borking that took place, we'll never know. Beldar's article on the subject can be read here.
update:
If anyone is going to criticize Ms. Miers for supporting private affirmative action on one while saying the government has no business in it on the other really ought to rethink the last chapter of Dinesh D'Souza's The End of Racism and think about calling the author to task because his arguments in that chapter are essentially the same as Ms. Miers' views as could be cobbled together.
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