Text 15811, 236 rader
Skriven 2005-10-05 01:02:33 av Ed Hulett (1:123/789.0)
Kommentar till text 15807 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: The best he could find
==============================
Jeff Binkley -> Bob Sakowski wrote:
BS>> Preznit Lamedick says the Miers was the best person he could find for
BS>> Susan O'Connor's seat on the SCOTUS.
BS>> Question for conservative wingnuts everywhere: How does it feel to to
BS>> have those conservative judges, members of the Federalist Society,
BS>> called less qualified to sit on the SCOTUS than a 60 year old woman
BS>> who never married, never was a judge, never really had anything close
BS>> to a notable career as a lawyer?
BS>> Are you wingnuts feeling as used as a douce bag in a whorehouse about
BS>> now? That's what you get when you give your allegience to a man who
BS>> has no sense of loyalty, ethics or morality. Are you happy now?
How would a person considered the most powerful woman lawyer in the country
"never really [have] anything close to a notable career as a lawyer?"
JB> Aren't you getting tired of Bush beating you folks at every turn ? I
JB> thought liberals were supposed to be the smartest people on the planet.
JB> You know, enlightenment.
JB> ======================================
JB> http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4876
JB> Don't misunderestimate Miers
JB> October 4th, 2005
JB> President Bush is a politician trained in strategic thinking at Harvard
JB> Business School, and schooled in tactics by experience and advice,
JB> including the experience and advice of his father, whose most lasting
JB> political mistake was the nomination of David Souter. The nomination of
JB> Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court shows that he has learned his lessons
JB> well. Regrettably, a large contingent of conservative commentators does
JB> not yet grasp the strategy and tactics at work in this excellent
JB> nomination.
Today, for the first time in months, I tuned into the local talk radio station.
John Carlson, talk radio host and one time gubenatorial candidate, was talking
about the Miers nomination. He said that for conservatives who are unsure about
Miers it comes down to how much you trust George W. Bush to make a proper
choice.
From what I have heard and read about Harriet Miers, I am confident that he
has made a good choice. Bobski's claims notwithstanding, She does have an
impressive record.
JB> There is a doom-and-gloom element on the Right which is just waiting to
JB> be betrayed, convinced that their hardy band of true believers will lose
JB> by treachery those victories to which justice entitles them. They are
JB> stuck in the decades-long tragic phase of conservative politics, when
JB> country club Republicans inevitably sold out the faith in order to gain
JB> acceptability in the Beltway media and social circuit. Many on the right
JB> already are upset with the President already over his deficit spending,
JB> and his continued attempts to elevate the tone of politics in Washington
JB> in the face of ongoing verbal abuse by Democrats and their media allies.
JB> They misinterpret his missing verbal combativeness as weakness.
JB> There is also a palpable hunger for a struggle to the death with hated
JB> and verbally facile liberals like Senator Chuck Schumer. Having seen
JB> that a brilliant conservative legal thinker with impeccable elite
JB> credentials can humble the most officious voices of the Judiciary
JB> Committee, they demand a replay. Thus we hear conservatives sniffing
JB> that a Southern Methodist University legal education is just too non-Ivy
JB> League, adopting a characteristic trope of blue state elitists. We hear
JB> conservatives bemoaning a lack of judicial experience, and not a single
JB> law review article in the last decade as evidence of a second rate mind.
JB> These critics are playing the Democrats’ game. The GOP is not the party
JB> which idolizes Ivy League acceptability as the criterion of intellectual
JB> and mental fitness. Nor does the Supreme Court ideally consist of the
JB> nine greatest legal scholars of an era. Like any small group, it is
JB> better off being able to draw on abilities of more than one type of
JB> personality. The Houston lawyer who blogs under the name of Beldar
JB> wisely points out that practicing high level law in the real world and
JB> rising to co-managing partner of a major law firm not only demonstrates
JB> a proficient mind, it provides a necessary and valuable perspective for
JB> a Supreme Court Justice, one which has sorely been lacking.
JB> Ms. Miers has actually managed a business, a substantial one with
JB> hundreds of employees, and has had to meet a payroll and conform to tax,
JB> affirmative acttion, and other regulatory demands of the state. She has
JB> also been highly active in a White House during wartime, when national
JB> security considerations have been a matter of life and death. When the
JB> Supreme Court deliberates in private, I think most conservatives would
JB> agree that having such a perspective at hand is a good thing, not a bad
JB> thing.
JB> Other conservatives are dismayed that the President is playing politics
JB> (!), rather than simply choosing the “bestö candidate. But the
JB> President understands that confirmation is nothing but a political game,
JB> ever since Robert Bork, truly one of the finest legal minds of his era,
JB> was demonized and defeated.
JB> The President’s smashing victory in obtaining 78 votes for the
JB> confirmation of John Roberts did not confirm these conservative critics
JB> in their understanding of the President’s formidable abilities as a
JB> nominator of Justices. Au contraire, this taste of Democrat defeat
JB> whetted their blood lust for confirmation hearing combat between the
JB> likes of a Michael Luttig or a Janice Rogers Brown and the Judiciary
JB> Committee Democrats. Possibly their own experience of debating emotive
JB> liberals over-identifies them with verbal combat as political
JB> effectiveness.
JB> In part, I think these conservatives have unwittingly adopted the
JB> Democrats’ playbook, seeing bombast and ‘gotcha’ verbal games as the
JB> essence of political combat. Victory for them is seeing the enemy
JB> bloodied and humiliated. They mistake the momentary thrill of triumph in
JB> combate, however evanescent, for lasting victory where it counts: a
JB> Supreme Court comprised of Justices who will assemble majorities for
JB> decisions reflecting the original intent of the Founders.
JB> Rather than extend any benefit of the doubt to the President’s White
JB> House lawyer and counselor, some take her lack of a paper trail and a
JB> history of vocal judicial conservatism as a sign that she may be an
JB> incipient Souter. They implicitly believe that the President is not
JB> adhering to his promise of nominating Justices in the mold of Scalia and
JB> Thomas. The obvious differences between Souter, a man personally unknown
JB> to Bush 41, and Miers, a woman who has known Bush 43 for decades, and
JB> who has served as his close daily advisor for years, are so striking as
JB> to make this level of distrust rather startling. Having seen the Souter
JB> debacle unfold before his very eyes, the President is the last man on
JB> earth to recapitulate it.
JB> He anticipates and is defusing the extremely well-financed opposition
JB> which Democrat interest groups will use against any nominee. Yes, he is
JB> playing politics by nominating a female. A defeated nominee does him and
JB> the future of American jurisprudence no favors. By presenting a female
JB> nominee, he kicks a leg out from under the stool on which the feminist
JB> left sits. Not just a female, but a career woman, one who has not raised
JB> children, not married a male, and has a number of “firstsö to her credit
JB> as a pioneer of women's achievement in Texas law. Let the feminists try
JB> to demonize her.
JB> If they do so, almost inevitably, they will seize on her religious
JB> beliefs and practice. Some on the left will not be able to restrain
JB> their scorn for an evangelical Christian Sunday school teacher from
JB> Dallas, and this will hurt them. They will impose a religious test
JB> against a member of a group accounting of a third of the voting base.
JB> Speculation on her being a lesbian has already started. "She sure seems
JB> like a big ol' Texas lesbian to me," as one of the Kos Kidz put it.
JB> They are going to make themselves look very ugly.
JB> The President must also prepare himself for a possible third nominee to
JB> the Court. With the oldest Justice 85 years old, and the vagaries of
JB> mortality for all of us being what they are, it is quite possible that a
JB> third (or even fourth) opportunity to staff the Court might come into
JB> play. Defusing, demoralizing and discrediting the reflexive opposition
JB> groups in the Democrats’ base is an important goal for the President,
JB> and for his possible Republican successors in office.
JB> Then there is the small matter of actually influencing Supreme Court
JB> decision-making.
JB> This president understands small group dynamics in a way that fewif any
JB> of his predecessors ever have. Perhaps this is because he was educated
JB> at Harvard Business School in a legendary course then-called Human
JB> Behavior in Organizations. The Olympian Cass Gilbert-designed
JB> temple/courtroom/offices of the Supreme Court obscure the fact that it
JB> is a small group, subject to very human considerations in its
JB> operations. Switching two out of nine members in a small group has the
JB> potential to entirely alter the way it operates. Because so much of
JB> managerial work consists of getting groups of people to work
JB> effectively, Harvard Business School lavishes an extraordinary amount of
JB> attention on the subject.
JB> One of the lessons the President learned at Harvard was the way in which
JB> members of small groups assume different roles in their operation, each
JB> of which separate roles can influence the overall function. The new
JB> Chief Justice is a man of unquestioned brilliance, as well as cordial
JB> disposition. He will be able to lead the other Justices through his
JB> intellect and knowledge of the law. Having ensured that the Court’s
JB> formal leader meets the traditional and obvious qualities of a Justice,
JB> and is a man who indeed embodies the norms all Justices feel they must
JB> follow, there is room for attending to other important roles in group
JB> process.
JB> According to a source in her Dallas church quoted by Marvin Olasky,
JB> Harriet Miers is someone who
JB> taught children in Sunday School, made coffee, brought donuts: "Nothing
JB> she's asked to do in church is beneath her."
JB> As the court’s new junior member, the 60 year old lady Harriet Miers
JB> will finally give a break to Stephen Breyer, who has been relegated to
JB> closing and opening the door of the conference room, and fetching
JB> beverages for his more senior Justices. Her ability to do this type of
JB> work with no resentment, no discomfort, and no regrets will at the least
JB> endear her to the others. It will also confirm her as the person who
JB> cheerfully keeps the group on an even keel, more comfortable than
JB> otherwise might be the case with a level of emotional solidarity.
JB> But there is much more to it than group solidarity, important though
JB> that ineffable spiritual qualty may be. Ms. Miers embodies the work
JB> ethic as few married people ever could. She reportedly often shows up
JB> for work at the White House at 5 AM, and doesn’t leave until 9 or 10 PM.
JB> I have no doubt that she will continue her extraordinary dedication to
JB> work once confirmed to the Court. She will not only win the admiration
JB> of those Justices who work shorter hours, she will undoubtedly be
JB> appreciated by the law clerks who endure similar hours, working on the
JB> research and writing for the Justices. These same law clerks interact
JB> with their bosses in private, and their influence intellectual and
JB> emotional may be more profound than some Justices might like to admit.
JB> The members of the Supreme Court all see themselves as serving the
JB> public and the law to the best of their abilities. Their self-regard
JB> depends on their belief in the righteousness and fairness of their
JB> deliberations. They must listen to the arguments of the other Justices.
JB> But their susceptibility to viewpoints they had not yet considered is
JB> matter of both an intellectual and emotional character. Open-mindedness
JB> uusally requires an unfreezing of deeply and emotionally-held
JB> convictions.
JB> Having proven herself capable of charming the likes of Harry Reid,
JB> leader of the Senate Democrats, is there much room for doubt that
JB> Harriet Miers is capable of opening up opponents emotionally to hear and
JB> actually consider as potentially worthwhile the views of those they
JB> might presume to be their enemies?
JB> George Bush has already succeeded in having confirmed a spectacularly-
JB> qualified intellectual leader of the Court in Chief Justice Roberts. If
JB> conservatives don’t sabotage his choice, Harriet Miers could make an
JB> enormous contribution toward building Court majorities for
JB> interpretations of the Constitution faithful to the actual wording of
JB> the document.
JB> Thomas Lifson is the editor and publisher of The American Thinker.
Good article.
Ed
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