This absolutely childish behavior comming from leading conservatives is beginning to irritate the hell out of me. The snobbery in evidence is disgusting. Ann Coulter is mouthing insults left and right and sounds idiotic. Bill Kristol's insipidness is just embarrassing. Rush Limbaugh is just mad because GW didn't check with him first and Buchannan is mad because he doesn't care how qualified or unqualified Harriet Miers might be, he just knows that she isn't the one that will participate in the food fight he thinks conservatives are owed. He doesn't want any "steel Magnolias" screwing up his parade.
So after all the first day criticism and hand-wringing about supposedly "not knowing" where Ms. Miers stands on the conservative moral questions of the day and having that argument go nowhere, they are all attacking with the same litany of, "she has no Constitutional experience, she is not bright enough to be a justice, she isn't fill in the blank . Well BeldarBlog takes the bull by the horn and attempts to answer some of those criticisms in an excellent post entitled: A Westlaw Romp through Harriet Miers Record:
A Westlaw romp through Harriet Miers' record
Critics of SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers make much of the fact that she hasn't argued a case in the United States Supreme Court. And in fact, they've been pretty harsh, some of them, in characterizing her record as a practicing lawyer.
What's up with that? Anything to it? Well, heck, let's find out — shall we? Ever since Al Gore invented the internet, we've been living in the Information Age, so let's get some information!
A search on Ms. Miers' name, run in a Westlaw database containing both state and federal court reported decisions from Texas, pulls up 19 separate cases dating back to 1974 in which she's appeared among counsel of record. .... CONTINUE READING FULL ARTICLE
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UPDATE: If you think Harriet Miers deserves a fair hearing then let your Senators know you support her nomination, sign the petition.
UPDATE: Newsmax reports an interview with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:
“I think it’s a good thing to have people from all sorts of backgrounds [on the Court],” Scalia tells CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, as the debate rages over Miers’ lack of judicial experience.
Without mentioning the Bush nominee by name, the conservative legal icon said that the High Court needed someone who had never served as a judge to take the place of the late Justice William Rehnquist.
“There is now nobody with that [non judicial] background after the death of the previous chief,” Scalia laments to Bartiromo.
“And the reason that’s happened, I think, is that the nomination and confirmation process has become so controversial, so politicized that I think a president does not want to give the opposition an easy excuse [to say] ‘Well, this person has no judicial experience.’”
Scalia concludes: “I don’t think that’s a good thing. I think the Byron Whites, the Lewis Powells and the Bill Rehnquists have contributed to the court even though they didn’t sit on a lower federal court.”
UPDATE: GOP Rank and File Back Miers
"The Republican base across the country looks more favorably on President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court than the cluster of conservative critics who are opposing her inside the Beltway, according to a Washington Times survey of state party chairmen."
Eileen Melvin, chairwoman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party: "The president has defined what he was looking for in a Supreme Court nominee from Day One, so the folks I've spoken with understand that he knows Harriet Miers and they trust that he has nominated someone who meets his standards,"
Washington state, party Chairman Chris Vance said he e-mailed information about Miss Miers, provided by the Republican National Committee, to a statewide list of 10,000 Republican officials and grass-roots activists. "The next day, I got less than 10 e-mails out of 10,000 from people who were upset with the nomination,"
Alabama - Republican Chairman Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh said, "People respect [Mr. Bush?s] choice. A lot of people would like to know more about her, but the president has had the most personal contact with her, knows her thoughts, abilities and beliefs, and we trust him to make the right decision. Overwhelmingly, that's what I hear people saying."
Vermont, Republican state Chairman Jim Barnett says he has "heard nothing but support" from the party's base. "From my perspective, the skepticism and criticism [from conservative groups] is an inside-the-Beltway phenomenon,"
Oklahoma - "Mostly what I'm hearing is they want to hear more about her, and some are withholding judgment until they learn more about her,"
UPDATE: Poll supports the President's pick:
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UPDATE: Instapundit in a rare move opens for comments on the Miers nomination:
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UPDATE: It is nice to find out that I'm not alone in my opinion about the MSM and the vocal conservative commentators trashing Harriet Miers. Read the opinions. Here is just a sample of one out of 14 that were all pretty much saying the same thing on the Letters to the Editor page of Opinion Journal at the Wall Street Journal:
From where this grassroots Republican stands, the Miers nomination has shaped up to be the right-wing pundits' Hurricane Katrina: a perfect storm of irresponsible, self-important media jackasses giving voice to their most morbid fantasies instead of covering the news.
The only major difference I see is that instead of the bogeyman being the imaginary gang bangers committing rape, pillage and plunder in the Superdome, it is a stealth, non-Ivy League nominee moving to the left once in office because she can't possibly be strong enough to know either constitutional law or her own mind.
In both cases, the rhetoric says far more about those doing the reporting that it does about the facts in evidence.
What ticks me off the most is that so few of the voices stridently raised in opposition to President Bush have experience managing anything larger than their own mouths. Nor have most ever been held accountable for achieving results as opposed to striking attitudes. And furthermore, most make their living, to some extent, by being controversial.
In addition, I fear far too many conservatives have caught the insidious Clinton disease, that hopelessly immature need for the excitement of the endless campaign. Thus they openly stoke the fires of political strife. While this may elevate their status as commentators and garner them more appearances on obscure cable TV shows, I have not seen evidence it brings about good government. In fact, because it encourages posturing for the cameras by showboating windbags, which in turn alienates that huge segment of the governed in the ideological middle, it almost certainly has the exact opposite effect.
The president has worked with Harriet Miers for years. That counts far more to me than the speculative rantings of the professional chattering class with their Web sites, magazine columns and radio programs.
Count me as one very unhappy reader. -- Rosslyn Smith
UPDATE: Fred Barnes at The Daily Standard writes:
What Might Have Been
The Miers nomination didn't have to go this way.
UPDATE: Check out this new site devoted to information about Harriet Miers.
UPDATE: From the Washington Post "For Miers Proximity Meant Power"
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said he intends to question Miers more closely but that he believes "her experiences with the president on the issues which have come to her as White House counsel are germane" to the court. Specter said that, in his interactions -- including on the nominations of John G. Roberts Jr. to be chief justice and herself -- Miers has struck him as responsive, intelligent and a strategic thinker. "A real professional," he said.
Squiggler I am an outsider (Australian) so don't understand the US political or judicial system and am also obviously not really entitled to a view as to how you order your affairs. I was however quite taken with your comment on Instapundit and what you have to say here.
What you have to say about Meirs really resonates.
“For a woman to succeed as she has and break the ground (the glass ceiling) as she has in the era she did means she HAD TO BE much brighter, much harder working, much more savy than any of her male counterparts. That's just the way it was.”
Exactly the same story here but in our case can’t be spoken of as the way it was.
How our appointments are made to in fact all of our courts is described below by one of our leading legal academics.
“In fact, governments choose one person from a range of talented candidates and the choice is influenced by considerations ranging from politics to personal friendships. Under a process affected by who you know and your ability to navigate the male-dominated bar, it is not surprising that so few women come into contention for the High Court”
So I without the requisite knowledge certainly, but listening to the arguments being made against Meirs find, as I said, what you had to say made a lot of sense. And the notion that unless the individual attended an Ivy League uni makes the beliefs about what constitutes excellence in this field seem more Japanese than the usual perception I have of American society.
Amongst the arguments that we occasionally have here is the need to inject into the system persons who aren’t members of the “Club”. Meirs background would seem to be a very positive injection of the outsider (of the legal Club) into your system, in addition to the reality that the pool of women for selection is so constricted by the mores and memes of the ruling class of the legal fraternity.
The view that Bush is very good at finding the bright and is not afraid of surrounding himself with them is seen as reasonable by many Australians, except of course the knee jerk hate Bush crowd. I look forward to seeing if this woman is in fact a shift by Bush from the Club and whether his judgement of her capabilities is correct.
Why are your right politicians working so hard at tearing apart the coherence and, what up until recently seemed courageous and innovative approach to matters national and international, that the Republicans seemed to represent.
Posted by: Ros | 10 October 2005 at 06:10 PM
Hi ya Doll. Loved your Meirs arctile. In fact i was like many who screamned wtf, until i read that the judge that died and another famous judge also never served as judges before their appt.
Posted by: wallybanners | 11 October 2005 at 12:07 AM
I read your comment on Instapundit--I have to say I was baffled. I can't imagine how someone could get the situation so backwards!
The principled ones are the conservative commentators who have shed much of their credibility over the last few years carrying water for the G.O.P. on the war, medicare, etc. all for this moment! Finnally they have had enough and are criticizing the 'business as usual' Republicans.
In any event, since those commentators are actually making arguments, and you instead choose to attack them as egotistical children, perhaps you might think about actually forwarding an ARGUMENT about why criticizing Miers is bad for the conservative movement.
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SQUIGGLER says: Criticizing Miers at the proper time is one thing, but these brutal ad hom attacks against her before she has even appeared before one committee hearing is petty and unfair. Her accomplishments in the male dominated Texas legal profession are dismissed as inconsquential more because she succeeded over and above some of these same critics and their own egos won't let them give her the credit she is due. I'm not a dishonest blind follower of any one, least of all a political party. I have just about as many serious problems with the far right as I do with the far left. If all these critics were doing was attacking her positions on their pet subjects, that would be one thing, but that isn't what is happening. They are attacking Ms. Miers as being a lightweight and even going so far as to say she is too stupid to be a Supreme Court Justice and this is not only unfair to her as a nominee but untrue as well. They are just mad because they are still waiting to avenge Robert Bork and figured this nomination was their chance. I think we all know why Buchannan criticizes this choice, his long held resentments against the President and those who voted for him is well known and speaks volumes to his motives. Bill Kristol is so insipd and so out of touch, his comments can be dismissed as ridiculous. I don't think he even knows the woman. Charles Krauthammer is the big disappointment to me. I have always had great respect for his opinions and can't explain why he has chosen to go with the Washington crowd. My opinion of his opinions has been lowered significantly since reading his reaction. For myself, I have yet to see anything that would disqualify Harriet Miers and much to recommend her. Will my opinion be the same after I hear her testify in front of the Judiciary Committee? I can't say as I haven't heard her testimony yet, but neither have these commentators. All they do is put her down with no supporting evidence and lots of negative speculation. I'm sorry if you don't agree with me that Harriet Miers deserves a fair hearing. And I'm sorry it bothers you that I've lost complete respect for these commentators, but I have. To me they look like a bunch of petty-minded individuals who thought they saw a chance to regain some of the stature they've lost in the last few years. They may have regained some with the far right, but in doing their number on Miers, they've lost an awful lot of us who are far more moderate and make up the true base of the Republican party. I'm not alone in my estimation, read some of these comments over on the Wall Street Journal at: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007385
Posted by: JS | 11 October 2005 at 09:59 PM