The always principled Greg Djerijian has two must read posts, the first of which focusses on Harriet Miers:
Look, it’s not even that this is so transparently placing a loyalist on the court who will be predictably Executive Branch/GWOT-friendly in her opinions (with some evangelical & crude originalist shadings perhaps? ed. note: By crude I mean originalism without the intellectual firepower of a Scalia). It’s not just that it’s a lame diversity play (Bush couldn’t stop talking about all the glass ceilings she had burst through today). It’s not even that she was never a judge, as there have been quite a few private sector attorneys appointed to the bench who served with distinction.
It’s ultimately that she’s just not Supreme Court timber. Harry Reid can cheer-lead her if he wishes, showing major Democrats don’t care a whit about serious constitutional credentials on the bench either, but those of us who are proud of this court must demand better. We should root for her defeat–perhaps by an alliance of thinking Republicans and Democrats. The Achilles heel of this President has become such displays of bovine worship at the altar of some warped conception of loyalty. Be loyal, yes, but demand excellence and competence and, yes, accountability in critical postings dear God! I’m now forced to conclude that Bush, after such a hugely good show with Roberts, is nevertheless willing to be unserious and even reckless, more so than his father, with appointments to the highest court in our land. Look, she might prove a Scalia rubber-stamp, and conservatives will be happy that she votes ‘right’ (the coded message Cheney was peddling today to Limbaugh). But a man of character and vision wouldn’t stoop to such a low threshold of what makes a good SCOTUS pick. He would look for an intellectual leader, a bona fide constitutional thinker.
Preach it.
The second post is more appalling testimonials regarding abuse:
In retrospect what we did was wrong, but at the time we did what we had to do. Everything we did was accepted, everyone turned their heads.
We got to the camp in August [2003] and set up. We started to go out on missions right away. We didn’t start taking PUCs until September. Shit started to go bad right away. On my very first guard shift for my first interrogation that I observed was the first time I saw a PUC pushed to the brink of a stroke or heart attack. At first I was surprised, like, this is what we are allowed to do? This is what we are allowed to get away with? I think the officers knew about it but didn’t want to hear about it. They didn’t want to know it even existed. But they had to.
Read the whole thing. I also like Matt Stinson’s reaction to the Mier’s pick:
Democrats were bound to fight tooth and nail against Bush’s second Supreme Court pick, but is that any reason for the President to waste the nomination on a woman, White House Counsel Harriet Miers, who is apparently neither polished nor profound, and whose main credentials seem to be that she’s a Texas political operator?
I will be back later tonight.
John S.
Perhaps the Democrats are content to sit back an let the GOP have whatever they want – secure in the belief that it will eventually blow up in their faces.
That does seem to be the modus operandi of the Republican party these days (self-immolation), so why not give them as much rope as they need to hang themselves with?
srv
KABOOM.
http://www.time.com/time/daily/docs/miersquest.pdf
Alas, the evangelicals have all they need now.
KC
From a tactical standpoint, I think what Harry Reid’s doing isn’t bad. Let Republicans take Miers down. Why let the Dems get beat up for the Prez’s poor decision?
Lines
Because for the Dem’s to start taking back at least a plurality, they need to show they have what it takes, that they can be leaders, that they can take control and act like adults, not like the children that are ruling our country right now.
Of course, maybe thats not the right tact, as so much of the US likes to go by playground rules and calling Neener Neener is more fun than rational discourse.
And you’re a poopy head.
Zach
I think Reid will end up voting against Miers but wants to lay the groundwork for it coming from the hearings. He also probably feels that the best way to torpedo the nomination is to appear in favor of iit.
Steve
Reid is simply playing the “give them enough rope” game. I saw his statement, and he didn’t wax about her credentials, or anything like that. He said that he didn’t know her very well, but that she seems like a very nice person, and she always returned his phone calls in a timely fashion. It actually seemed pretty calculated, saying nice things but making it clear that this isn’t someone with a lot of gravitas. I mean, I don’t remember anyone having to bring up the issue of whether John Roberts was good at returning calls.
jobiuspublius
Either this guy is scapegoating/smearing or dumb as a rock. Reid did the wise thing. Anybody who looks at Reid’s short lukewarm statement of support for Meirs will see that he is not cheerleading.
Hmm, I wonder if he ever disagreed with this court.
He still doesn’t get it. The SCOTUS is supposed to be INDEPENDANT!
ROFLMAO. But loyal.
wilson
Why not Mareen Mahoney in place of HM?
I think HM may be out of her depth, too reliant on clerks and others to help her draft the 9-10 opinions she may need to write per year. If she were 40 or 50, perhaps she could be trained. But 60 seems pretty high in age to try to make the leap to USSCT opinion writing.
Mahoney:
Partner
Litigation Department
Education:
JD, University of Chicago, 1978
With Honors; Order of the Coif; Member, University of Chicago Law Review
BA, Indiana University, 1974
Highest Honors; Phi Beta Kappa
Experience:
Maureen Mahoney is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins, and leads the firm’s appellate and constitutional practice. Ms. Mahoney originally joined the firm in 1980, but left in 1991 to accept an appointment as a United States Deputy Solicitor General. During her tenure in the Solicitor General’s Office, President Bush nominated Ms. Mahoney to fill a vacancy on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, but the Senate did not act on her nomination prior to the election. Ms. Mahoney returned to the partnership of Latham & Watkins in 1993.
Ms. Mahoney has handled a broad range of constitutional and appellate litigation in the Supreme Court and other courts throughout the country, representing clients as varied as the United States House of Representatives, Union Pacific Railroad Company and the Government of Saudi Arabia. She represented the University of Michigan before the Supreme Court and won the landmark case upholding the constitutionality of admissions programs that consider race as one of many factors in order to attain the educational benefits of a diverse student body. The Legal Times reported that this ruling was a “personal win” for Ms. Mahoney and called her “a skilled appellate advocate, unruffled and poised.” The Daily Journal awarded Ms. Mahoney the “Best Oral Argument” in the individual category accolade for that Supreme Court term and went on to say that she “withstood withering questioning from Justice Antonin Scalia while stressing the points relied upon by O’Connor in her opinion for the 5-4 court.” Most recently, she successfully argued her thirteenth case in the Supreme Court on behalf of Arthur Andersen in a challenge to the firm’s criminal conviction. The Legal Times described the argument in Andersen as “one of the term’s best.”
Ms. Mahoney argued her first case before the Supreme Court in 1988, when the Court specially selected her to argue a case. She won the case in a 5-4 decision, and the American Lawyer reported that “her presentation was so well-schooled, poised, and disciplined that, according to one justice, the justices passed notes among themselves during the argument praising Ms. Mahoney and asking questions about her background.” In 1993, Ms. Mahoney successfully defended a highly publicized challenge to US immigration policies. The American Lawyer reported that Ms. Mahoney used “forensic magic” in the argument, and David Broder’s Washington Post column called her argument “superb.” She also represented the House of Representatives in its successful Supreme Court challenge to the Commerce Department’s plans for the use of sampling in the 2000 census.
Ms. Mahoney is a member of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and the American College of Trial Lawyers. She has been recognized as one of the leading appellate lawyers by the Legal Times and Chambers USA; the National Law Journal identified her as one of America’s top 50 women litigators; and she received the prestigious Rex Lee Advocacy Award from the J. Rueben Clark Law Society. Ms. Mahoney was appointed by the Chief Justice to serve as the Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission and as a member of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules to the United States Judicial Conference. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Supreme Court Historical Society, served as the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Procedures for the D.C. Circuit and served on the Board of Visitors for the University of Chicago Law School.
Prior to entering private practice, Ms. Mahoney served as a law clerk to the Honorable William H. Rehnquist (then Associate Justice) and Seventh Circuit Judge Robert Sprecher (deceased).
Bob Davis
Stop your belly-aching, Miers is a great choice. She’s witty, and clean, and loyal, and smart too. She’ll pretty-up the court. I like her.
She’s in place to help craft a permanent republican majority, and that’s what she’ll do. What more do we need?
a modest experiment
tzs
Bob, to quote another well-known bit of information, you can’t get a baby by getting nine women pregnant for one month. What do you think you will show via your “modest experiment”? It’s totally irrelevant, except to get a precise distribution about results that can happen in a year.
John S.
Ahem, how would a Supreme Court justice “help craft a permanent republican majority”, exactly?
That sounds like judicial activism!
Darrell
You’ve probably read it, but Beldar makes some valid points defending Miers. Too many unknowns with her nomination. Also, it enables the Dems to pretend they are classy while Repubs do all the criticizing of her
If true, this will come out in court.
Lines
Bob’s modest experiment is a geeky attempt at humor. At least, I hope it is. Otherwise Bob needs to sit down with any half assed scientist that would explain sterility, at least to start with.
But with that link, I have to believe he’s just making his DougJ entrance.
adam
Bob’s site is a reference to Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Of course he’s joking. You people need to go back to college and take “Getting It 101.”
Oooh, burn.
JC
For Republicans who aren’t in arms about political hacks and cronies in OTHER areas – (FEMA, Justice, DOD, and many many more), it’s a bit late to get one’s knickers in a bunch about THIS particular political crony, isn’t it?
Mike S
More from the testimonial.
Nothing to see here, move along. But as many of us have said for a very long time, this is the kind of thing that bites you in the ass.
Darrell
John S wrote:
It was a tongue-in-cheek comment, but you are obviously too stupid to realize that
John S.
My retort was also a tongue-in-cheek comment, but to call you stupid would be like kicking a man while he’s down.
Lines
Darrell, after having to deal with whack jobs like yourself for awhile, it becomes easy to assume that some dumbass creationist would actually try the “modest experiment” in an attempt to debunk evolution.
So when dealing with an unknown quantity, such as HM or Bob there, you snark first and high five later.
Darrell
Easy to assume if you’re a complete dumbass, I suppose
FDRLincoln
Every single person who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 carries moral responsibility for torture.
Mike
“John S. Says:
Ahem, how would a Supreme Court justice “help craft a permanent republican majority”, exactly?”
It doesn’t as I’m sure you realize. But what it does help do is prevent stupid liberal policies from getting in place. That’s because the only way Liberals can get anything done is through the tyranny of the courts since public opinion is generally against them and they can’t win elections.
Poika
Harry Reid is playing strategy. Apparently some pundits are either trying to fool us into not recognizing this or are so blind to how politics work that they shouldn’t be writing about it.
It’s not like Harry Reid is going to get his way, so let’s not pretend he’s calling the shots here. It’s fun to see the republican loyalists get all in a lather about it. I bet Harry Reid thinks it’s kind of fun too.
That being said, she’s a bad pick. I think I speak for a lot of left leaners when I say the only thing that’s to her benefit is that she isn’t another Scalia. Maybe if another spot opens up, he’ll go for Katherine Harris. I’m just glad it’s not someone from the 5th. I think I would vote no on her, but I’m nervous about who else would get offered up. This seems like a good middle of the road court- I don’t really want it tilted in one direction or another. OK- maybe a LITTLE left…!
Bob Davis
tzs-
Our modest experiment is designed to show whether or not the Cambrian Explosion can be replicated in a lab setting. Our finest scientists from Ann Arbor, Cambridge and Berkeley have concurred.
Bob Davis
John S.
Mike says:
Whether you are pulling my leg or being serious about this, I got a good chuckle either way.
Thanks.
Lines
John S.
Mike doesn’t like it when people laugh at him. Even though people are always laughing at him, laughing and pointing, pointing and laughing, and then laughing some more, he still doesn’t like it.
Mike would like you to stop your laughing now
Have you turned the corner on laughter yet?
Rome Again
Of course it’s judicial activism, and despite their pretty words, that’s exactly what what they want. They are merely pots calling kettles black.
Rome Again
I’ll see your tyranny of the courts and raise you two Diebold elections.
Sojourner
Actually, polls consistently show that Americans prefer liberal policies (safety net programs, environmental laws, etc.). But they voted for Bush because they thought he would keep them safe. Of course, now they’ve figured out what a joke that is, hence the nose dive in his poll numbers.
DougJ
The more I read, the more I realize what fucking genius this Miers pick is. They can say that whatever liberal stuff she did 20 years ago she wouldn’t do now because she’s become an evangelical.
I’m starting to have an entirely different view of this administration. Bush and Rove: keeping America safe by hoodwinking the Christian right.
a guy called larry
Says it all.
Cyrus
Mike Says:
“Tyranny of the courts” would be bad, hypothetically speaking. I totally agree. I wonder, what’s your opinion on “tyranny of the majority”? It’s a phrase that pops up here and there in The Federalist Papers.