Is Miers Pro-Wife?

OpinionJournal ^ | October 18, 2005 | James Taranto

[Daralundy]

Is Miers Pro-Wife?

Here's a fascinating detail from a Reuters report on an appearance by six former Texas Supreme Court justices supporting the nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court:

The six former justices, all of them men, said they had worked with Miers while she was a lawyer in Dallas and they endorsed her Supreme Court nomination.

"I'd trust her with my wife and with my life," former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice John Hill told reporters on the White House driveway after a meeting with President George W. Bush.

"I'd trust her with my wife"? This sounds like a strong endorsement of Miers's character. But there's another theory that would explain why Hill would trust Miers with his wife--a theory that we first put forward yesterday. Could it be that President Bush has appointed a woman to the Supreme Court?

Why Intellect Matters On National Review Online, Catholic University political scientist Dennis Coyle offers a powerful rebuttal of the anti-intellectual defense of Harriet Miers's nomination:

Perhaps President Bush was conflating liberal dominion over constitutional law and activist courts since the New Deal with intellectualism. That is easy to do, given the pervasiveness of liberal ideology in legal scholarship and academia more broadly. It is tempting to blame the root for the branch. If the liberal jurisprudential establishment emerged from elite schools and journals and spoke in large words and grand theory, the thinking might go, it can only be tamed by reaching outside the Washington-New York intelligentsia to let some Texas common sense cut them down to size.

[BenLurkin]

That might explain the support she is getting from certain female democrat senators.

[Racehorse]

;-)

Maybe once upon a time.

[Alia]

I don't find it odd. I find it to be quite the character qualification I'd be looking for in a female SCOTUS member. Meaning, she wouldn't play "girlfriend" games with the wives (or husbands, should it apply) of the "connected" in order to get at information to "harm" the "connected". Meaning, Harriet Miers is a professional and has principles.

Can you imagine if at an event, the wife revealed that John wore boxers with hearts on 'em, and Harriet made sure this data went to opponents of John Roberts? "Girlgames". Blech. I hate 'em. I want a professional in the job of SCOTUS, not some flinty little bit of gust playing "feminist politics".

Meaning? The personal is NOT political. Oh thank God should that day come when we see an end to that one.

[Digger]

I just wish we could depend on a Judicial record instead of past questionnaires, friends or acquaintances.

NO. You must TRUST GW, not the people or a record. No trust someone who stated that he looked in Puttin's eyes & knew he could deal with him. Yea, put your trust in that!

[Cboldt]

It's on a par with trusting a dog not to eat your fruit salad.

LOL. Beware - some dogs will eat fruit ;-)

[trisham]

It's on a par with trusting a dog not to eat your fruit salad.

*****************

So far, fruit salad is the only thing my dogs won't eat. It could be simply that they've never had a chance, since I don't eat it.

They'll even eat plain lettuce.

[Cicero]

Our dogs love salad. Just the other day one of them snatched an avocado off the kitchen counter and devoured it.

[nosofar]

Law is not molded simply by the votes of judges and justices, but in the power and cogency of written opinions and the philosophy they express, which become the fodder of law-review articles, commentaries, and conference panels, and eventually permeate the classroom teaching that forms the next generation of judges, lawyers and scholars.

Just wanted to emphasize this point. My general sense (not terribly reliably) is that Bush sees Miers as just another vote on the SCOTUS. How effective she might be at pursuading the other justices to her position doesn't enter into it. I liked Roberts, on the other hand, because of this potential on his part. Maybe that's the idea. Put the burden of pursuasion solely on Roberts. Dumb idea if it is.