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Joe Conason | Snarls from Right Wing Greet Bush's Nominee •
New York Times | A Confirmation Debate in Reverse •
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Wrong Objections
By Robert Scheer
The Los Angeles Times
Tuesday 11 October 2005
Know them by their enemies. The more I read of the vituperative right-wing
attacks on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, the more sympathetic I become.
Anyone who has incurred the wrath of Trent Lott, Gary Bauer and George Will
can't be all bad. If Robert Bork thinks she's a "disaster," maybe
there is a positive side to this nominee that I have missed.
Sure, the endorsements by Pat Robertson and James Dobson are alarming, particularly
because the latter claims he has inside information. But let's hope she's not
their kind of Christian. After all, Miers has a record of working with the gay
community rather than calling acceptance of gays "the last step in the
decline of Gentile civilization," as Robertson once did. "Dallas Gay
Leaders OK Miers Pick" read the headline in the Dallas Voice, which bills
itself as "The Community Newspaper for Gay & Lesbian Dallas."
True, what we know of her own religious convictions and the Valley View Christian
Church, to which she has been so fervently committed, would indicate that Miers
is something of a zealot and that she is personally opposed to abortion. But
that would be true of any Bush nominee. Is our recently confirmed Catholic chief
justice, John Roberts, any less fervent in his religious belief about when life
begins?
What is crucial here, and what should be fully explored in the Senate confirmation
hearings, is whether Miers will impose her personal religious views on the nation.
Or does she, as a self-avowed strict constitutionalist, accept the doctrine
of separation of church and state, which was the clearly expressed intent of
the men who drafted the Constitution?
That, not the red herring of "judicial inexperience" raised so strenuously
by her critics, should be the real deal-breaker here. If experience as a judge
is so decisive, we would never have had a William H. Rehnquist court, nor would
Roberts be replacing him as chief justice. The late Rehnquist had zero tenure
as a judge when President Nixon nominated him, and Roberts has had less than
three years on the bench.
As for the right wing's other main criticism of Miers - her supposed
lack of constitutional-law bona fides - it must be dismissed as laughable.
These same folks enthused over George H.W. Bush's 1991 nomination of rookie
judge and ex-Reagan administration bureaucrat Clarence Thomas to the high court.
What does concern me about Miers' legal background is that she advanced her
career by placing her skills in the service of the rich and powerful -
whether corporations or politicians. Also worthy of serious Senate grilling
are questions relating to Miers' role as a key White House legal advisor during
a period when torture and other human rights violations have been routinely
condoned by this administration.
The real problem with Miers is the possible conflict of interest between her
loyalty to the law and her devotion to a president she has called, according
to conservative pundit David Frum, "the most brilliant man she had ever
met." And the Los Angeles Times reports that an associate of hers said
she considers the president "a genius." Such quotes hardly leave one
sanguine about Miers' capacity for objective judgment.
The most important responsibility of the Supreme Court is to guard against
the unconstitutional abrogation of power by any of our three branches of government.
Yet here is a nominee to the high court who, with every glance, expresses fawning
admiration for a president who has shredded constitutional safeguards. (Deceiving
Congress as to the justification for a foreign invasion must leave the founders
of this nation twirling in their graves.)
Such devout loyalty to a president is quite worrisome - especially one
who only attained the Oval Office through the connivance of a Supreme Court
sufficiently politicized to interfere in the clearly defined obligation of the
states to conduct a fair vote count. And does her loyalty extend to Bush's relatives,
such as brother Jeb, who is a likely presidential candidate down the road? Or
to the growing number of allies of this president who are now in trouble with
the law?
For all of these reasons, Miers' nomination must be thoroughly scrutinized,
but we should keep an open mind. With the vicious and deceitful enemies that
this woman has made, she deserves a few honest friends.
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Snarls from Right Wing Greet Bush's Nominee
By Joe Conason
The New York Observer
Monday 10 Octob3r 2005
Just the other day my friend Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National
Committee, sent me an extremely urgent message. (He must be my friend, because
he addressed me by my first name.) Following some predictable and perfunctory
praise of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers - an "extremely well-qualified
and fair-minded individual" - he got to the point.
"President Bush selected Ms. Miers after embarking on a thorough and deliberate
thought process," wrote the R.N.C. chairman. "This confirmation however
promises to be much more contentious than the confirmation of Judge John Roberts.
Before Ms. Miers was even announced many Democrat groups said they would oppose
her. They have no interest in giving Ms. Miers a fair hearing or vote. They
are promising to throw every punch, make every accusation and pressure every
Senator to oppose this nominee no matter what her qualifications may be. We
have to be prepared to counter their actions and that is why Harriet Miers needs
your help."
Leaving aside the diction and punctuation problems in this message of alarm
- what is a "deliberate thought process," anyway? - Mr. Mehlman
seems ignorant of the fact that the angriest reaction to the Miers nomination
is coming not from "Democrat groups," but from right-wing comrades
at his rear. Recalling how the President promised them another Antonin Scalia
or Clarence Thomas, those 'wingers are wondering why he delivered an under-qualified
crony with dubious conservative credentials.
They are outraged to hear the President claim that Ms. Miers, the White House
counsel who has served as his personal attorney, is the "best qualified"
attorney he could find to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. David Frum, the former
Bush speechwriter who predicted that this might happen last July and who knew
Ms. Miers in the White House, describes himself as "shaken" by the
President's choice.
Most of these hypocrites winked when Mr. Bush's father offered the same kind
of ridiculous encomium to Mr. Thomas, who certainly wasn't the most-qualified
possible nominee. Few on the right protested that egregious fraud because they
wanted a reliable vote, regardless of his meager qualifications. Now they're
furious, not because the President has chosen a "complete mediocrity"
- as Ann Coulter snarked - but because she is ideologically unreliable.
As she endures the abuse and condescension of her fellow Republicans, it is
almost possible to feel sorry for Ms. Miers. Unfortunately, however, her right-wing
critics have a point.
By all accounts, she is a perfectly capable and very industrious attorney,
but that isn't enough to earn a seat on the Supreme Court - or shouldn't be.
New York Post columnist John Podhoretz was simply stating the obvious when he
declared that "nobody on earth aside from Bush would actually consider
Miers a suitable Supreme Court nominee."
Nor is slavish loyalty to the Bush family a sufficient credential, even in
the extreme form exemplified by Ms. Miers, who once gushed that the President
is "the most brilliant man I've ever met." (Clearly she should get
out of the office more.)
Ms. Miers reportedly worships at an evangelical church and has donated a few
dollars to the anti-abortion cause, but she has also expressed support for gay
civil rights and even gay adoption. Long ago, she even gave money to Al Gore.
She is insufficiently zealous and partisan.
What the disgruntled conservatives dislike most about Ms. Miers is that she
doesn't belong to their exclusive club. She lacks connections with the Federalist
Society, their cabal that seeks to impose its ideological test on judicial nominations.
She certainly isn't a member of their "movement."
Yet this was supposed to be the movement's big moment - an epoch-making nomination
that would restore the Supreme Court to the social and economic philosophies
of the Gilded Age, and abolish the heresies of the New Deal and the Great Society.
That is what conservative commentators mean when they ramble on about "constitutionalism"
and "originalism."
If the grumbling on the right grows much louder, Ms. Miers may feel that she
must start pandering to the extremists in her party. She will assure them that
she is an "originalist" and so on, perhaps without fully comprehending
what those right-wing code words mean.
Adhering to the "original intent" of the Constitution's framers,
as a matter of logic, means upholding their ancient prejudices about African-Americans,
women and other beings deemed inferior two centuries ago. The "constitutionalist"
- a term favored by members of the John Birch Society and worse not so long
ago - disdains the hard-won guarantees of equality for all, women and minorities
included, that Americans accept as the true meaning of the Constitution.
This poisonous theorizing deserves to be exposed in public. When Ms. Miers
appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her confirmation hearings,
someone should ask whether she thinks the Founders intended women to sit on
the Supreme Court - and if not, why a truly strict constructionist should want
to defy them now.
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A Confirmation Debate in Reverse
The New York Times
Tuesday 11 October 2005
The nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has turned the usual partisan
debate about judicial nominations inside out. Republicans have insisted for
nearly five years that the president should have broad discretion in choosing
judges. Now, charter members of the hurry-up-and-confirm-them crowd, like Senators
Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, and Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi,
are already talking about voting no, even before Ms. Miers's confirmation hearings
have begun. The same conservative legal groups that held rallies attacking Democrats
for resisting the president's choices for the bench are now talking about blocking
a Bush nominee.
During the Bush era, another constant of the confirmation process has always
been the Republicans' resistance to Democrats' attempts to learn more about
nominees, either by getting hold of documents or questioning them vigorously
at their hearings. Now it's the Republicans who are demanding more information.
After Ms. Miers visited with Mr. Brownback last week, he complained that she
would not give her views on a key Supreme Court privacy ruling and indicated
that he might vote against her.
Republicans are also complaining that Ms. Miers got her appointment based on
cronyism. It is a legitimate concern, but a new one for many of the people raising
it now. Republicans had no objections when President Bush nominated Brett Kavanaugh,
an administration operative, to the powerful Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit. Mr. Kavanaugh, a principal author of the Starr report,
was 38 at the time, and had remarkably little experience trying cases. Republicans
also eagerly rallied around the nomination of Thomas Griffith to the same court,
even though he had practiced law without the required licenses in two different
jurisdictions.
If Ms. Miers's nomination has caused Republicans to suddenly acquire standards,
it may be causing Democrats to forget theirs. Many appear to have calculated
that Ms. Miers would be a more moderate justice than anyone the Bush administration
would nominate if she were defeated. Perhaps as a result, Senate Democrats have
been remarkably restrained about criticizing Ms. Miers's close ties to the president
and the thinness of her résumé.
Even if the timing is politically opportune, it is still refreshing to hear
Republican senators talk about the importance of judges' being highly qualified,
and about their own obligation to question the president's nominees closely,
including about their views on specific legal issues. That is how judicial confirmations
are supposed to work, no matter which party is doing the nominating. The Senate
should conduct a serious and thorough review of Ms. Miers's record and her qualifications
for the job - and then do the same for every judicial nominee who follows her.
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