Quote of the Day
[Posted by The Angry Clam]
Guess who said the following:
“Yes, I wanted Judge Luttig or Judge McConnell, but the president wanted Miers, and I don’t for a minute believe it is because of friendship, but because of [President Bush’s] understanding of the importance of the Court.”
Answer in the extended entry.
I mean, come on. It’s one thing to try to reassure us that she’ll vote properly, and not be the intellectual lightweight that we all suspect she is. It’s another to pretend that she would have been considered at all seriously if she weren’t 1) a woman and 2) a close friend of the President.
The big question is whether Hugh is just lying to us, or lying to himself about this whole thing.
— The Angry Clam
Who to side with? The Angry Clam or Hugh Hewitt? Decisions, Decisisons!! Hugh has more gravitas than Clam. Hugh’s older and wiser. Clam shots from the hip and usually misses (as do most “chicken little” conservatives), so I’ll go with Hugh. I’ll also go with Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ who knows a little more than even Hugh about these things.
Ron (096a64) — 10/4/2005 @ 6:09 amI’m not asking for your opinion on this woman.
I’m simply asking whether it is rational to believe, as Hugh does, that her affiliation with the president had absolutely nothing to do with her nomination. Of course it did.
EDIT: I should add that I was very kind to Hugh, and didn’t give this the “morons” tag.
Angry Clam (fa7fff) — 10/4/2005 @ 6:14 amThat was easy. It is basically the point I made last night.
Patterico (4e4b70) — 10/4/2005 @ 6:28 amHere’s a new quote from Hugh: Miers’ resume “is a very strong one indeed.” If that’s a very strong resume, what kind of resume does John Roberts have? How bad would your resume have to be to be just “strong”?
Agricola (62c122) — 10/4/2005 @ 8:16 amWell, look. I think she has a decent resume…
…FOR A DISTRICT COURT JUDGE.
I’d be more split on giving her anything appellate, and that would depend very much on what the nature of her practice was while in Texas.
I would never, ever consider her for the Supreme Court. Then again, very few people are. Honestly, I wouldn’t consider too seriously, either, unless I manage to, someday, sit on an appeals court for a good while.
Angry Clam (fa7fff) — 10/4/2005 @ 8:22 amShe’s overqualified for district court judge. An appellate level nomination would be a slight stretch, but no more so than it would have been to promote Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown to the Supreme Court before they’d moved into their new offices in the circuit court, no more so than it was to name John Roberts as Chief Justice rather than a lowly associate, and no more so than it would be for Californians to elect an actor with no previous experience in elective office as their governor. If Bush really thinks she is Supreme Court material, I wish he had appointed her to some appellate level court a few years back. Then her promotion to the Supremes would either be uncontroversial, or it would be a non-starter.
Xrlq (ffb240) — 10/4/2005 @ 10:26 amI withhold judgment on the district court position until I see what her practice was like. For all we know, she hadn’t touched a case in the last twenty years, and spent all her time doing rainmaking.
Angry Clam (fa7fff) — 10/4/2005 @ 10:36 amChief Justices don’t always, or even usually, start as associate justices. Before Rehnquist, you’d have to go back to 1941 to find an associate justice promoted to chief. Ability as a consensus builder seems to be a bigger factor than judicial experience. Roberts seems to have it. Scalia, for example, probably does not. And experience as a judge doesn’t seem to be a prerequisite for appointment to the court, although it doesn’t hurt – – Louis Brandeis wasn’t a judge before joining the court, neither was Robert Jackson. It would be a huge stretch to suggest that Miers qualifications compares to those of Jackson, who served as Solicitor General then AG for FDR, or those of Brandeis. As Clam says, let’s see what she’s been doing previously that weighs in favor of her being able to do this job. Friend of W who agrees with W’s “judicial philosopny” isn’t a qualification — remember, W is the president who signed the McCain-Feingold Free Speech Impairment and Incumbent Protection Act into law. That doesn’t say much for W’s “judicial philosophy.”
TNugent (58efde) — 10/4/2005 @ 12:29 pm