Posted on 10/09/2005 5:31:00 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
This article “Miers espoused progressive views as elected official, record shows,” about Miers’ testimony in a 1990 voting rights lawsuit directly suggests that she would vote like O’Connor on affirmative action. Put that together with Miers’ reported advice on the Michigan Supreme Court case, and the feminist lecture series, and I think we begin to build up a substantive picture of her views.
The most telling thing about this article may be Miers’ comment that she “wouldn’t belong to the Federalist Society” or other “politically charged” groups because they “seem to color your view one way or another.” From a conversation I’ve had with someone who knows Miers well, I think Miers statement on the Federalist Society reveals her true feelings, and not simply political caution. At least on the matter of racial preferences, Miers attitude seems to be that standing up for individual rights is “political,” while race preferences are somehow apolitical and safe.
Increasingly, it looks as though we’ve got another O’Connor on our hands. I would love to be talked out of this. But the evidence mounts.
Whoa, Nelly! Harriet's got some splainin' to do. But really. This is just a rant from someone who just hates Bush and is an elitist windbag. </sarcasm>
Same as it ever was.
She is a horrible pick for the Court.
I am disgusted by her selection.
Highly selective reporting. Seem to omit anything that might contradict their preconcieved notions. NRO has a history of misjudging Scotus nominees as this illustrates:
http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com/2005/10/nattering-nro-in-1991.html
Bad pick- It took some convincing, but I've heard and seen too much. Judge Bork slammed her the other day and that was enough for me. We've not got another O'Connor on our hands, I fear we've got another Souter.
Ping
Oh good grief. Harriet Miers is not a fixed point on a spectrum. She's been in consistent motion, moving more and more to the right, from the time she was saved until now. We WANT that kind of momentum on the Court.
Bork apparently didn't even bother to research her legal career.
If she's a "progressive," there aren't enough votes to deny her the on-the-job training on the Supreme Court.
If she's a "pragmatic moderate," she held the flashlight while he signed McCain-Feingold.
I don't know, Is anyone the same as they were 15 yrs. ago?
Be nice if we weren't placed in the position of having to wonder that in the first place, wouldn't it...?
Recall that in 1996, Miers was elected president of Locke Purnell. The firm later merged with a Houston firm, becoming Locke Lidell & Sapp, and Miers became its co-manager, overseeing a team of more than 400 lawyers.
Given this background, it is interesting to take a look at where the Locke Liddell & Sapp LLP PAC put its money in the 1999-2000 election cycle. You can find this on the FEC web site: John Breux ($1,000); Hillary Rodham Clinton ($1,000); Martin Frost ($1,000); Richard A. Gephardt ($1,000); Sheila Jackson Lee ($1,000). Miers made personal contributions to this PAC in the year 2000.
"Given this background, it is interesting to take a look at where the Locke Liddell & Sapp LLP PAC put its money in the 1999-2000 election cycle. You can find this on the FEC web site: John Breux ($1,000); Hillary Rodham Clinton ($1,000); Martin Frost ($1,000); Richard A. Gephardt ($1,000); Sheila Jackson Lee ($1,000). Miers made personal contributions to this PAC in the year 2000."
I forgot the donation to MARY LANDRIEU: ($1,000).
I have never seen so many different view's about one person in my life. Someone has to be right, but most are wrong. I am going to wait and see.
I've been trying to anaylize all the little tidbits of background information on her the past few days. Based on the pros (supposedly "evagelical Christian", gave money to prolife groups, owns a gun, etc.), and cons (pushed for secular white house Christmas cards, was on Harry Reid's short list, gave money to RATs like Bentsen and Gore, support gay adoption, supported UN criminal court), I'd say it's an unwarrented gamble to put this woman on the court.
Best case scenario is we have a mildly pro-life version of O'Connor (acceptable because O'Connor is the 4th most conservaitve member of the court after Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist), Worse case scenario is we have a Stephen Breyer type nice, friendly moderate-to-liberal judge slipping in through the radar.
No matter why scenario turns out to be, we don't get a judge in the "Scalia-Thomas" mold and this doesn't move the court to the right.
Roberts should have stayed on as O'Connor's replacement.
Unfortunately, we probably won't "see" until she's already on the bench.
The "evidence mounts." /snicker
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, is a public policy research center devoted to advanced study of politics, economics, and political economy—both domestic and foreign—as well as international affairs. With its world-renowned group of scholars....
Formerly a Dewey Prize Lecturer in the social sciences at the University of Chicago, Kurtz has also won numerous teaching awards for his work in a great books program at Harvard University...
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/bios/kurtz.html
Nope, no Ivy League-think tank scholarly elitism here!
If this is "evidence," I can't wait for the verdict.
It's amazing any rational conservative couldn't come to the same conclusion. This a woman that is a hardcore supporter of affirmative action, Title IX and thought it a wonderful thing to organize a conference of radical feminist like Gloria Steinem in 1998.
Recall that in 1996, Miers was elected president of Locke Purnell. The firm later merged with a Houston firm, becoming Locke Lidell & Sapp, and Miers became its co-manager, overseeing a team of more than 400 lawyers.
'Given this background, it is interesting to take a look at where the Locke Liddell & Sapp LLP PAC put its money in the 1999-2000 election cycle. You can find this on the FEC web site: John Breux ($1,000); Hillary Rodham Clinton ($1,000); Martin Frost ($1,000); Richard A. Gephardt ($1,000); Sheila Jackson Lee ($1,000). Miers made personal contributions to this PAC in the year 2000."
This really should be a thread all its own. Title suggestion:
Miers Law Firm Donated to Hillary, Gephardt, Sheila Jackson Lee
Oh, I guess you believe that we should surrender academia completely to the radical left. Political and legal analysis should be done by whom? The fact is that conserbatives of all stripes are coming out against this nomination. You can't attribute all of that opposition to elitism. That's facile and ridiculous. Would you prefer that we dismantle the Heritage Foundation, AEI, Cato, Hudson, the Federalist Society, et al? I guess they wouldn't be elitist if they agreed with this nomination. But they don't and you can't handle it.
No what I believe is that the people behaving hysterically are academics who are snotty and elitist, because they reacted instantly by criticizing Miers for her lack of Ivy League credentials.
I believe that these scholars don't in any way represent the base that elected George Bush and never did, and that they are tolerated through our good will, and have mistaken that for agreement and encouragement to keep ranting against President Bush and Harriet Miers.
Nominating and confirming her does not mean in any way that we are surrendering to the left. Absurd.
As far as dismantling the think tanks, if this is the best they can do, maybe it's time for them to close up shop. At the very least, this should be a wakeup call for them.
We aren't the problem, and they sure as hell aren't the solution.
To put it more simply:
It's they who have and are the problem, not us. The base elected President Bush without their help and guidance, and it wasn't because we expected him to appoint people who were going to overturn R v. W or protect our gun rights.
It was President Bush's WAR ON TERROR position that helped send him back for a second time and I trust the people who made that choice, and I trust him to continue doing the right thing by selecting people who will do the right thing long after he's gone. He picked Miers, a working-class nonscholar spinster woman, who doesn't try to fit in with the snotty elitist Ivy League cocktail-party crowd.
Hope you can handle that, and if you can't, all the better.
Wasn't the Michigan racial preferences case just a couple of years ago?
The charge of elitism is getting so tired. Why don't you address the substance of what Kurtz said rather than engage in leftist tactics of character attacks??
For example, what about her position on the Michigan racial preferences case? Did you agree with O'Connor's position on that case? Am I an elitist for trying to engage in a discussion about this?
Back in 90, wasn't there still some rational argument that affirmative action was still a good program on some levels? I mean, Miers put forward those opiniosn 15 years ago. That's a LONG TIME. Has she said anything recently that would indicate she feels the same way? Again, this is very old information, and if we're going to start booting conservatives in the party to the curb because they had some not quite as conservative opinions on things decades ago, it's going to be a conservative movement with half as many people as it has today. Does anyone here today hold ALL the same positions on ALL the same issues today that they did 15 or 20 or more years ago? I sure don't. And I know that NO ONE here does.
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