Patterico's Pontifications

10/3/2005

On Tone Deafness

Filed under: Judiciary,Law,Morons — Angry Clam @ 6:00 am



[Posted by The Angry Clam]

You know, just when I thought that the worst possible move that the Bush Administration could make would be to nominate Alberto Gonzales, he goes and shows me up.

Harriet Miers is the absolute worst thing he could have done, at the absolute worst time. Undistinguished academic record, unremarkable career shared by thousands of other attorneys, significant campaign contributions to Democratic candidates and PACs, and the whole crony-ism thing- first Michael Brown, then Julie Myers, and now this.

Remember Abe Fortas? Yeah, this is part II.

[Classic Angry Clam (read: profanity) in the extended entry. — Patterico]

I’m done with this. Goddamn. I’m off to call my senators (all four of them- thanks to a recent move) and urge them all to vote “no” on her nomination.

If you want more news, Confirm Them has the goods.

P.S.: “Judges in the mold of Scalia and Thomas” – you lying fucker.

— The Angry Clam

25 Responses to “On Tone Deafness”

  1. Unfortunately, I cannot support her either, but not for partisan reasons.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  2. Never heard of her. All I know is she is a “friend” of GWB. Damn, I wish I was a “friend” of GWB.

    Savet (ecf1ba)

  3. I think it’s entirely unfair to say Meirs is unqualified. And completely incorrecto to say unremarkable career shared by thousands of other attorneys. She is unknown to us, certainly, but not to GWB — Beldar has more on this, and he makes a lot of sense to me.

    Joan (b7e529)

  4. Let’s see what her career includes:

    SMU Law: crappy. Period. And, since we haven’t heard any crowing about her class standing, I think it’s safe to assume it isn’t near the top.

    District court clerkship? There’s about 1500 of those a year. Certainly, its a good job, but it isn’t “oh my god, awesome!” like a Supreme Court clerkship, or even the “that’s really great!” of an appellate clerkship.

    Dallas bar association president: whoopty-doo. There’s plenty of municipal/regional bar associations for lawyers to head.

    Parter in a mid-major, regional law firm: plenty of those as well, particularly in her own generic litigation practice.

    Then there’s the coattail political stuff.

    I’ll repeat: there’s nothing overly remarkable on her resume, and it contains almost nothing that thousands of other lawyers have done, and often done better.

    Angry Clam (fa7fff)

  5. Hopefully, she smoked pot or had an illegal nanny. THere’s got to be a way to beat this nomination. It would be ironic if she only gets Democrat votes. I know that Bush conferred with Reid and the Democrats — did he talk to any Republicans????

    Not Fortas — Carswell. Or as Roman Hruska said: “Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they?”

    Kevin Murphy (6a7945)

  6. This is all Laura’s fault you know.

    She was the one who had to have a woman on the S.C. So where is the conniption from the right crying “We didn’t elect her! What gives her the right…! And how many other policy decisions has she influenced?” Blah blah blah.

    Tillman (1cf529)

  7. Harriet Who?

    While Americal Center for Law and Justice Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow lauds President Bush over his “excellent choice” (is there any other kind?) to nominate Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, David Frum calls it an error, and an “un…

    damnum absque injuria (38c04c)

  8. The Fortas comparison is really, really a cheap shot.

    If you have any basis to claim that Harriet Miers is corrupt, uses her official public positions to enrich herself, or has participated in a conspiracy to commit voting fraud, then let’s have the details, Mr. Clam.

    Otherwise, that’s not a good comparison.

    Beldar (3ba93f)

  9. Saying SMU law is crappy demonstrates stupidity. As for Meirs rank in her class: in the top 10 and one of only eight women in her class. (FYI to those who have never been in law school: you don’t make Law Review, let alone editor, without outstanding grades.) She was not only president of the Dallas Bar Association but the Texas State Bar Association.

    For those of you who complain about qualifications, I present to you the late William Rehnquist: Prior to his nomination in 1971, Rehnquist’s career included one clerkship (albeit for a Supreme Court Justice), 16 years of private practice in the legal hotbed that is Arizona, and three years as Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel. Meirs resume more than exceeds that.
    Bush would probably have been better served to pick a candidate with judicial experience. But, it must be noted that the majority of attacks on her legal education demonstrate at best elitism and at worst a clear example of being uninformed.

    Bevo (593a63)

  10. Oh, by the way, did it occur to you geniuses that the reason the liberals haven’t been lobbing negative comments about Meirs is because we’re doing their dirty work for them? I thought not.

    Bevo (593a63)

  11. #52 in a field of around 170 is not all that hot, homeboy. Sorry if I offended your alma mater or something.

    And FYI to you: a lot of law schools no longer include a grade component in their law review selection, relying instead on a writing competition. The change started happening in the 1960s, although I don’t know if it happened at SMU. Do you? Also, let’s see some proof of her class standing at graduation, rather than after first year, when Law Review selects people.

    Nice job covering up the Rehnquist resume:

    – #1 in his class from Stanford. Even if Miers was in the top 10 at SMU, that blows her away.
    – Supreme Court clerkship. Miers, too, had one clerkship, but for a district court. Lame.
    – Want to talk about government service? Rehnquist worked on high level, policy-driven constitutional law issues as the head of OLC. Miers was, until the last year, a goddamned secretary, not even doing legal work.

    Her resume is no different than thousands of other attorneys, and to try and compare her to Rehnquist’s shows how idiotic you’re being.

    Angry Clam (a7c6b1)

  12. Oh yes, thousands of other attorneys run large law firms, chair their state bar associations, and represent Microsoft and Disney in complex litigation. Silly me.

    As for write-on competitions, you are correct that many law schools have done so in the past. However, SMU only initiated this policy this past year.

    As for Rehnquist, I would love to see your source regarding his “high level, policy-driven constitutional law.” As I am compiling research on past Justices and Supreme Court nominees, I want to be thorough. If you have the info, please share.

    Let me be very, very clear: I would have preferred a different nominee. However, the venom spewed by my fellow conservatives, venom I would have expected from the left, has left me wondering if I have stepped into “Bizarro World.”

    Bevo (593a63)

  13. She chaired a, at best, mid-major law firm already in its decline before she took over that got swallowed by another.

    And, as I said, none of those activities are very impressive, since they don’t have any bearing on legal acumen.

    Also, she didn’t represent Microsoft or Disney in the good litigation, but in low-end class actions. The Microsoft one, for example, was over the $9.95 update from MS-DOS 6.0 to 6.2.

    If you want to go by that standard, I’ve represented Disney in copyright and piracy cases and Merrill Lynch in a $8.9 billion dollar securities class action. All true, too, but not all that special – something like 150 attorneys were working on those matters, and they were hardly the real blockbuster litigation.

    Like I said, I’m not saying her accomplishments are nothing, only that they’re nothing special, and that there are hordes of other accomplished attorneys out there.

    On Rehnquist, what do you think OLC does all day? You should read their memoranda that go back and forth between the president and the congress sometime- there’s large amounts of separation of power issues, and they, not counsel to the president, are the ones who do it.

    Since you seem familiar with SMU law, you should drop by the law library sometime and see if they can get you a copy of the Shane & Bruff casebook on separation of power- it has a lot of those memoranda in there, and it’ll be a lot easier to use that than find them on your own.

    From there, just go look up the materials in the three year period when Rehnquist was in charge of the office. He did all that.

    Angry Clam (a7c6b1)

  14. She chaired a, at best, mid-major law firm already in its decline before she took over that got swallowed by another.

    Tell that to Beldar who, I suspect, has forgotten more about major Texas law firms than everyone else in this thread will ever know.

    Like I said, I’m not saying her accomplishments are nothing, only that they’re nothing special, and that there are hordes of other accomplished attorneys out there.

    Of course there are, though they too represent a rather small percentage of the legal profession at large. However, President Bush didn’t run on a promise to appoint the most qualified candidates he could find by any objective measure – he promised to appoint candidates who shared his judicial philosophy. That last criterion alone excludes the majority of the hordes to whom you refer. More still are excluded by the fact that he doesn’t know 99.999% of the rest nearly as well as he knows Miers. That’s why I think it’s premature to rule out the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he picked Miers in large part because she was a reasonably qualified lawyer who could be trusted to do on the bench what he said he’d appoint judges to do on the bench, rather than a maximally qualified lawyer he couldn’t trust for squat.

    Xrlq (428dfd)

  15. An interesting tidbit I found regarding the latest versions of the US News Rankings. Several friends have speculated that the changes to the ranking system were the result of pressure from the University of Texas. Not sure I buy that but it does point out potential issues with the ranking system. First the BCS, now this? 🙂

    http://www.collegejournal.com/successwork/workplacediversity/20050421-bialik.html

    Thanks for the heads up on the case book… I will track down a copy…

    Bevo (63f757)

  16. Your article there spends a lot of time on how SMU cheats on the rankings, you know.

    I’d also point out that Brian “Dude, UT is as awesome as Harvard or Yale” Leiter’s own rankings nowhere show SMU, and he’s considerably more forgiving to low-end schools than US News.

    Angry Clam (fa7fff)

  17. “Your article there spends a lot of time on how SMU cheats on the rankings, you know.” AG, from where do extrapolate that? You aren’t thinking of 1980s recruiting in the old SWC, are you?

    Bevo (8b98b6)

  18. Oh, I don’t know, maybe this passage gave me that idea:

    “We want to look good in U.S. News and World Report,” says Greg Crespi, chair of admissions at Southern Methodist in Dallas. “But we have our own agenda of diversity and holistic assessment.” With the old ranking method, “We were free to depart downwards as far as we chose in the interest of other objectives.” He also complains about being surprised by the change; U.S. News often has informed schools of past changes, but didn’t disclose this one until the magazine was printed. “We feel like we played a basketball game and they’ve gone back and taken away all our three-point shots retroactively,” he says. Referring to admissions as a game may trouble some people. But those are the incentives the rankings create.

    Mr. Crespi estimates that the change meant a difference of about 10 spots for Southern Methodist: He guesses that under the old method, SMU would have risen from 47th to about 41st, rather than falling into a tie for 52nd, and could have moved even higher. (Southern Methodist says its median LSAT was 163 this year; but U.S. News used a number of 160.) “We were hoping to make a national splash about climbing 10 places into the top 40,” Mr. Crespi says. Now, he says the school must decide whether to trim diversity or risk remaining out of the top 50. John Attanasio, dean of Southern Methodist law school, says he expects the school will prioritize diversity over the rankings.

    Mr. Morse of U.S. News points out that just four of the 178 schools had a difference between the two LSAT numbers of two points or more. (He declined to name them, but law-schools officials at Southern Methodist, Indiana University in Bloomington and the University of Denver all told me they had differences that large.) He said just a few schools have contacted him to complain, and adds, “Our intent is not to inhibit or make this a reason why schools move away or don’t accept minorities. That is in no way our goal.”

    Angry Clam (fa7fff)

  19. Oh yes, that really, really smacks of “cheating.” It would be interesting to see how dear old Harvard, Yale, or even the “Berkeley-of-the-South,” UT Austin, plays with their “diversity numbers.” No, they wouldn’t possibly do anything like that, now would they?

    Bevo (593a63)

  20. Just because they do it too doesn’t make it acceptable.

    Angry Clam (a7c6b1)

  21. Surely it must be acceptable in your eyes so long as you are in the proper tier. You made no accusations of “cheating the numbers” for top tier schools, but reserved the accusation for a school for which you apparently have a chip on your shoulder.

    Bevo (593a63)

  22. Go back and re-read it. Especially the part where only four schools had more than a point or two of movement. Here, I’ll copy it for you:

    He declined to name them, but law-schools officials at Southern Methodist, Indiana University in Bloomington and the University of Denver all told me they had differences that large.

    So, I don’t think that it’s unfair to class SMU as one of the worst offenders (along with IU and UD).

    Angry Clam (a7c6b1)

  23. So, your syllogism would look as follows:

    – Schools whose rankings change when USN&WR alters its rankings methodology cheat.
    – SMU is one of the schools who acknowledged that their rankings changed.
    – Therefore, SMU is among the “worst offenders.”

    How naive are you? EVERY school on that list not in the top ten does everything thing they can to move up, playing within the rules set up by USN≀ I would expect even those in the top 10 tweak their processes to ensure their place there. And yet, this is cheating?

    Tell me, when the manager decides to send in a left-handed reliever to face a specific hitter, is that cheating? If Notre Dame were to lower its admissions requirements for athletes to be more in line with other schools, would that be cheating? Your logic stems from a faulty premise.

    Bevo (593a63)

  24. Jeeze. First you’re mad that I say SMU is second tier, then you’re mad I say that the article argues it cheats, and now you’re mad I say it cheats more in one respect and you flip out.

    Read these comments by the SMU official again:

    With the old ranking method, “We were free to depart downwards as far as we chose in the interest of other objectives.” He also complains about being surprised by the change; U.S. News often has informed schools of past changes, but didn’t disclose this one until the magazine was printed. “We feel like we played a basketball game and they’ve gone back and taken away all our three-point shots retroactively,” he says. Referring to admissions as a game may trouble some people. But those are the incentives the rankings create.

    Now, recall that when US News changed its computation method, which he says was unfair because they didn’t warn him, SMU was one of the four most affected schools.

    Hard to argue they weren’t playing the 25-75 LSAT game pretty heavily from that.

    Just relax, though. I could tell you all sorts of similar stupid bullshit the law school I graduated from does, such as providing highly preferential admittance to students in the “Public Interest” Law Program- essentially, affirmative action for stupid, angry communists- and the like.

    Angry Clam (a7c6b1)

  25. The bad thing about faceless interactions such as this is that it is hard to get a good idea of one’s tone. How many of us have sent what we thought was an innocent e-mail only to have the recipient blast us? I am not mad but amused. I thought we were having a spirited discussion.
    My main problem with the school thing is that, like it or not, there is an elitist tone to it (not you in particular but all the commentary in this area) that I had previously only seen in more left-leaning individuals. Kinda like discovering that the really hot girl you’ve been dating shaves her chest. It’s not necessarily a deal-breaker but it does give you pause…

    No worries, AG. I’m not mad at ya. Now, if you were a liberal, well, then all bets would be off… 🙂

    Bevo (593a63)


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