Stingray blogsite: Conservative Christian Commentary
Posted on 10/08/2005 12:38:58 PM PDT by DallasMike
Yikes, the Associated Press, in Senate Dems Defend Miers on Top Court Nod, points with glee how the Democrats are trying to take advantage of the rift between conservatives on Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court. Senator Mikulski is dead wrong -- the opposition to Miers doesn't relate to her gender at all, but is rather a battle between what The Black Republican calls Church Lady v. Ivy League. And, as Peggy Noonan states, there is a "great old American tradition of not really liking Church Lady. However, Mikulski is correct by saying that "a woman who was one of the first to head up a major law firm with over 400 lawyers doesn't have intellectual heft." That jab hit to the bone.
Some Senate Democrats are jumping in the middle of a Republican fray to defend Harriet Miers from conservative criticism that she isn't qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.
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Behind the scenes, a half-dozen aides to Senate Democrats — speaking on condition of anonymity to protect their jobs — admit that they are enjoying watching the GOP's right wing beat up the president. None will say whether their bosses feel the same way — or might be insincere when they heap praise on Miers and call her critics unfair.
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Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., accused critics of Miers' nomination of being "incredibly sexist."
"They're saying a woman who was one of the first to head up a major law firm with over 400 lawyers doesn't have intellectual heft," Mikulski said. "I find this a double standard."
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"I like what I hear so far," said Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark.
Many conservatives don't. Several columnists have derided Bush's decision, and some groups have called on the president to withdraw her name. Bush insists that Miers is worthy, citing her 35-year legal career and her service in city and state government as well as the White House.
"When she goes before the Senate, I am confident that all Americans will see what I see every day: Harriet Miers is a woman of intelligence, strength and conviction," the president said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "And when she is confirmed by the Senate, I am confident that she will leave a lasting mark on the Supreme Court and will be a justice who makes all Americans proud."
Peggy Noonan voiced some legitimate concerns over Miers last week that actually are worth paying attention to:
In considering who will fill one of the most consequential power positions in the country we are all reduced to, "I like this, I don't like that."
I like it that she's run a legal practice: that she has real-world experience, a knowledge of the flow of money in America, of how it's made and spent. I don't like it that she's never written an interesting thing about a great issue. I like it that she taught Sunday school. I like it that she's not Ivy League. I don't like it that she's obscure. I like it that she works so hard. But I don't like it if she's a drone. I like it that she's a woman. It doesn't matter much that she's a woman. Etc.
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No one can know how the experience of the court will affect someone--the detachment from life as lived by the proles, the respect you become used to, the Harvard Law Review clerks from famous families who are only too happy to pick up your dry cleaning and listen to the third recounting of your boring anecdote. Everyone wants you at dinner. You notice that you actually look quite good in black.
And you become used to the idea that unlike everyone else in the country, you have job security. A lifetime appointment. When people have complete professional security they are more likely in time to show a new conceit. I don't know why this is, but I think it's connected to the fact that they're lucky, and it seems somehow hardwired in human nature that when people are lucky they come to think they deserve it: It's not luck, it's virtue. And since it's virtue my decisions are by their nature virtuous. I think I'll decree that local government, if it judges it necessary, can throw grandma out of the house and turn her tired little neighborhood into a box store that will yield higher tax revenues. Thus Kelo v. New London is born. I decree it.
But I'm thinking of something different. I've noticed that we live in an age in which judges and legal minds seem to hide their own judicial philosophy from themselves. And that might explain why a Harriet Miers has reached the age of 60 and no one seems to know what she thinks.
Well, isn't that special?
Bottom line: If Republicans could support Ginsburg then they should be able to support Miers. Bush betrayed us, but there is no legitimate reason to not confirm her. Still, it makes me very angry at Bush.
A poll. Bush forgot to take a poll. How can anyone make a decision without taking a poll?
Miers is the Democrats' nominee!
Do you agree with my suspicion that this nomination is a gambit by Bush? Do you think the Dems are taking the bait?
I agree fully with your contention that Bush is playing poker with Miers. I'm just not quite sure what he's trying to accomplish with this game. Bush plays poker to win and he's almost always the one left holding the cards at the end of the game.
No, this highlights how much the Democrats want Miers on the court rather than known originalist. The Democrats can't do any better than Miers.
The Dems said the same thing about Roberts.
Bush does not need a poll. He has a master plan designed by Karl Rove. And his plan includes the democrats defending Miers. Democrats who want Miers on the court.
I don't think so.
Of course, you recognize that my comment was facetious..
Of Course!
One of the parties will be in shock if Miers get confirmed. Republican, if she turns out to be Souter v.2, the Democrat, if she turns out to be the voice of fundamentalist-evangelical-christian.
Oh please. If you think for one moment Miers would have been the 1st, 2nd or 1,000th choice for a democratic President, you're fooling yourself.
The democrats are more than happy to sit back and watch the Republicans savage this nominee as being substandard....and damned near short bus material. This is the happiest they've been in a long time.
That's assuming that every Republican in the senate votes in lockstep with the party. We know that's not going to happen.
The Doctrine of the "to me come from me" political party strikes again.
Ain't that the truth.
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