Methinks the Administration Doth Protest Too Much
The Bush Administration feels it’s an important enough fact to leak to Matt Drudge that Harriet Miers voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984.
No word on who she voted for in 1980 — or in 1988, when she donated thousands to Democrats.
Is this the kind of thing that justifies our “wait and see” attitude? This is what is supposed to reassure us?
Coming next week: she voted for George W. Bush in 2004!
UPDATE: Related: A Conversation Between Two Dudes.
People who know her best believe that she is like O’Connor in terms of the abortion issue.
Paul Deignan (9e57a7) — 10/8/2005 @ 1:45 amHey, Pat — take the weekend off, why dontcha? Just kick back and pretend all this Miers stuff never happened. You’ll live longer.
Joan (1f3f15) — 10/8/2005 @ 1:48 amAh yes, but did she vote for Reagan in 1980? I’ll bet not, otherwise this would have been hilighted too. Pathetic — the Whitehouse is grasping at straws.
jd watson (e27eeb) — 10/8/2005 @ 2:21 amThat is a relief, however, that Miers was not one of the 158 people from Texas that voted for Mondale (I’m just making that fugure up, but you get my point)
Mondale did carry Minnesota and I think DC, but that was about it. It was the biggest landslide in modern American presidential elections. But can we infer that she voted for Carter in 1980? And Dukakis in 1988? Wow, that is not saying much for her.
Paul Deignan (9e57a7) — 10/8/2005 @ 4:10 amWhat’s even more telling is, since this is all a secret ballot, they didn’t even bother to lie about the rest of it.
Also, the bullshit reeks in the radio address.
Angry Clam (a7c6b1) — 10/8/2005 @ 7:35 amI would prefer to see a fight over the fb sooner rather than later, so really, at the end of the day I’m “on your side.” But the piling on is getting a little overdone, doncha think?. Let’s try a few counter-args and q’s. Bonus pts for serious answers; demerits for posturing (PD, this means you)
THE LAW:
As a Canadian layman, one thing that has always impressed me about the US Constitution is its plain-spoken simplicity. It is meant to be read and understood by its citizens, as it must be for self-govt to be possible.
L1: If Harriet Miers, uber-accomplished lawyer, cannot be said to understand it well enough to be a Justice, does this not imply that a proper understanding of the Constitution, and therefore the ability to wield it wisely, is only the province of a select few, dozens at best, and that any criticism we level at Justices more qualified than we, such as Souter, is by definition unserious? Cuz we’re pretty close to arguing just that, right now, it seems.
L2: What hope is there for self-govt if a lawyer such as HM cannot even be said to understand the Constitution well enough to enforce it properly? Shall the people just give up and trust whatever the super-nominees think? Is it not an abdication of self-govt when even a HM is deemed unable to fully understand the most basic rights and laws?
HM’s QUALIFICATIONS:
HM has a glowing resume, but is it enough as compared to other candidates? Hmm. First, see my pts above under “The Law.”
She also brings the following extra: Tho no one’s first choice, she is also no one’s last. She is a compromise candidate, as are most choices to SCOTUS in varying degrees, and is probably confirmable, as she is the only person to appear on each side’s recommended list. I think Harry Reid just plain messed up for his side in putting her there, but more on that later.
Q1: Doesn’t making both shortlists count as a qualification? Is it not the president’s duty to nominate people likely to be approved by the Senate?
HM also brings a different background to the job than do most of the others, and she was right there in the Oval Office to see what the WOT really means. Is this so bad? We scream for intellectual diversity instead of by skin color or by plumbing. And what do we do when we get it?
Q2: Is there not some measure of value in HM’s background providing intellectual diversity? How much?
OK, now on to my big point of the day: stability. By that I mean that the nominee, once confirmed, won’t ideologically drift over time, as Kennedy has done.
This seems to me by far the biggest prob with past nominees. It’s not so much who they are today that’s tough to figure out; it’s who they’ll be tomorrow.
Q3: How effective have paper trails been in the past at predicting stability? 25%? 50%? 75%? What?
One can also note that stability is kinda like loyalty, in this case – since we all want an umpire, as Roberts nicely put it – to the constitution. And as we all know, loyalty is the first virtue. Without it, all other strengths of a candidate, such as education, intelligence, persuasiveness, will be just as strong against as they would have been for.
Q4: Given reasonable legal knowledge by a nominee, how important do you rate stability?
The tough part, that I can see, is in being sure you’ve really got it. Paper trails are a familiar comfort zone for many, but their track record is, well, mixed at best. They provide something we can all look at together and discuss, and that’s in their favor, but how much overall weight does history say we should give them as compared to other info?
Bush used a different approach and, in effect, did firsthand research on HM’s stability, years of it. Unfortunately, we have only his word on this, and we do know he has a pattern of making quick decisions on people. Most of us do, but he seems to be no better, no worse, at it than anyone else, which is to say, fallible.
Q5: How would you ascertain stability? Have your preferred approaches, whatever they are, worked better in the past than Bush’s approach of getting to know the person first?
Me, I’d also add some personality profiling to the mix, looking at stable Justices of the past and trying to find markers for that quality, cuz drift seems to be based more on personality than anything else. In any event, it’s awfully idiosyncratic, which makes it frustratingly difficult to avoid. Can’t hurt to talk about it tho, and the ways in which we might improve our batting average going fw. I mean, lack of stability among past Justices is the reason these nominations have become such a big deal in the first place, isn’t it?
THE POLITICS
Like it or not, politics are driving this. Hey, it ain’t my perfect world either, but it’s what it is.
I stated above that I’d rather see the fb fight sooner rather than later and I mean that. But I expect that Bush, down there on the field of battle itself, has counted his votes very closely and is not confident of winning with another nominee, which is why he went with the compromise candidate. Let’s face it, Roberts is special. There are a few others with his level of ability – very few, I think – but to also get such a fine temperament etc … tough to do. And besides, Roberts was a conservative replacing a conservative. This seat is different.
P1: Do you think Bush counted votes beforehand? Do you think he found that he had enough to win with an “expected” candidate such as, say, Luttig or Jones?
P2: Do you think that if Bush went to the wall with an expected candidate he could force enough votes his way in the ensuing battle, get his nominee confirmed anyway, and break the fb?
P3: If your answer to P2 was yes, then: how sure are you?
My own answers, btw, are P2:yes; P3:not sure at all; really dunno.
Reid recommended HM. I think he prob did that cuz he didn’t do his homework on her. She was polite to him when they interacted, and returned his calls promptly, so he liked her. Or perhaps he added her to his list just to look good, figuring she had no chance. But he did recommend her.
And yet, she is antithetical to the D’s. You can cherry-pick a few things here & there – e.g. a friend saying SDO things about her to try and sound good and help HM out – but her record, in totality, indicates someone the Dems would normally go to war to stop.
Dunno if you guys hit the Leftie blogs from time to time. I do. They are as divided as the R’s. They know Reid messed up, and now their “leaders” – this includes the bigger Leftie bloggers, they’re formally plugged into the D’s, as you know – are trying to sell them on Bush’s personal lawyer, an Evangelical who opposes abortion and wanted gay sex to be a criminal activity. Best line from a plugged-in Leftie blogger (Jeralyn at TalkLeft): “I’m also getting tired of the abortion debate. It’s not the only important issue.” Yup, they’re flailing too.
What I’m seeing sure looks like a D leadership that knows it’s in a bind: if they fb HM, they will lose, cuz Reid recommended her, and cuz Bush could easily withdraw HM for, say, Luttig, but specifically demand that the RINOs break the fb first. So the D’s are forced to talk her up, even to the pt of telling their people that abortion ain’t really that important an issue after all.
P4: Did Harry Reid just plain mess up for his side?
P5: Can D’s torpedo this nominee, or can only R’s do so?
P6: Are the D’s just hoping that the R’s kill the nomination for them, cuz they know Reid made a mistake but they have no other way of fixing it?
UNCERTAINTY
So far, the biggest strike against HM seems to be uncertainty. She’s an unknown. That’s a really fair arg, even given that all nominees come with some uncertainty, esp re their stability, but in HM’s case I’d like to learn lots more about her judicial philosophy too, and not just a statement in favor of the constitution, either. Detailed q’s, please, they flesh things out so much better.
But I also don’t see how, with so much to learn yet, anyone can either definitively support or oppose her, and the emotional tone of so many posters and commenters here sure seems like that of someone whose mind is made up. How can that be?
U1: Is your mind made up already?
U2: What would it take to convince you definitively that HM should be confirmed?
U3: Do you have a list of detailed q’s – since it’s your field, after all – that you have submitted for HM to answer, preferably in writing and well before her hearings, by which we can learn more? Have you tried? [sorry if the tone’s a little schoolmarmish, there, can’t be helped]
SUMMARY
Look, I can do this all day long – and I apologize for such an overly long comment, but my broader pt is that there are reasonable counter-args in favor of HM, too … if she really is someone who could be a reasonably good Justice. Are those args good enough? Can’t say for sure yet; lots to learn.
If it had been up to me, I’d’a gone with someone else and put up a fight now, now, now. But Bush, closer to the action, chose a compromise candidate. Maybe he knows something I don’t; it ain’t just black & white.
You guys are great. That’s why I come here. But honestly, when I see you arguing only one side, when even little ol’ I can see the other, I gotta think you’re getting carried away. If I could flip HM, this second, for Jones or Luttig, I would, but that doesn’t nec. mean I’d be right to do so.
Take care.
ras (f9de13) — 10/8/2005 @ 10:22 amIn answer to L1 and L2:
Literate citizens should be able to read the Constitutional text and discern thier rights and responsibiities with a high degree of certainty–enough for them to know when they are being screwed as in Kelo. All laws should conform to this simple framework of rules.
The problem is not the complexity of the ruleset, it is the complexity of our society for which the Congress passess and the President approves laws which are truly very complex. These laws are generated by the society and must conform to the Constutituion for all time and all situations. In fact, there are meta-rules that are developed that also have strength so that the judiciary can act in coherence as laws are challenged, perculating up the State and Federal Courts. These meta rules must be sound and predictable for which we have the concept of stare decicisis.
Simply having a good understanding of the text of the Constitution should ensure that clear violations of the document are recognized. However, this understanding does not allow the individual to uderstand how the framework of laws must be altered to achieve maximal compliance–it is not possible to review each case that has a Constitutional claim nor is it possible to give coherent interpretations through time if all one knows the text of the Constitution and the case presented. The coherence of the meta rules are also important otherwise there would be chaos in the courts with very little resolved and with chaos in society as a result.
Finally, there is great room for interpretation in many of the clauses of the constitution. As a result many cases are indeterminate. This indeterminancy increases the necessary complexity of the regulator exponentially (The SCOTUS need to be very smart in addition to be well read).
Paul Deignan (9e57a7) — 10/8/2005 @ 11:21 amWho compromised? Normally, compromises increase agreement. This nominee as shown by the polling increases disagreement.
Paul Deignan (9e57a7) — 10/8/2005 @ 11:23 amQ2: Is there not some measure of value in HM’s background providing intellectual diversity? How much?
As a faithful crony of President Bush, Miers nomination decrease diversity between the branches. The Judiciary becomes more a rubber stamp of the executive.
Futhermore, a Justice that is not able to articulate a well thought out idea of the Constitutional issue is more like a dead spot in the intellectual spectrum. Diversity is not a function merely of attitude. True intellectual diversity demands intellect. Miers shows no intellectual power as it relates to constituional law.
Debates don’t develop into useful synthesis of ideas when there is no idea added to the mix. Opinion is just opinion–a dead end in a debate. If that is all she has to fall back on the best she is is a representative of the democratic opinions of 1 person out of 300 million in our society.
Paul Deignan (9e57a7) — 10/8/2005 @ 11:31 amPD,
Meta rules exist in the penumbra? I can’t find “meta” anywhere in the constitution. Maybe my copy hasn’t lived and breathed long enough.
Look, pls use English and stop trying to impress cuz it’s not working. I feel like I’m dealing with a dog who keeps trying to hump my leg; you won’t raise your status by trying, no matter what you think.
I’ve been a true guru in my field, several times, and worked with many other real gurus. Know what? The real ones always use plain language; it’s only the wannabes who soup up the jargon.
I ain’t no legal guru, PD, and neither are you, so pls, s-i-g-h, stop posing. My leg is my own.
ras (f9de13) — 10/8/2005 @ 11:31 amQ1: Doesn’t making both shortlists count as a qualification? Is it not the president’s duty to nominate people likely to be approved by the Senate?
Was it Reids intent to assess the nominees for quality or to lead ush to his political doom?
Politics is about power first. Reid understands this well as we can see with the other Justices that he would nominate if given his druthers. Thus we have Kelo.
Paul Deignan (9e57a7) — 10/8/2005 @ 11:34 amI’d be quite interested in comments from those whose goal is understanding rather than self-aggrandizement thru moralizing. Thx. Gotta go now, I’ll check back in later.
ras (f9de13) — 10/8/2005 @ 11:49 amras,
Frankly, the Q&A stands on its own. It is not for your favor that I addressed the questions.
Paul Deignan (9e57a7) — 10/8/2005 @ 12:04 pmHere is a simple (very simple and very plain) slide on meta-rules.
This and this is more interesting.
Paul Deignan (9e57a7) — 10/8/2005 @ 12:15 pmPD,
Meta rules are for data, not for law. Your pt is shilpit.
See? Don’t use terms just cuz you can.
My orig comment, complete with Q & A was to note that there are also valid counter-args in favor of HM, for those willing to consider both pts of view. I look fw to hearing from them.
ras (f9de13) — 10/8/2005 @ 12:46 pmras,
Meta rules (as the slide shows) are rules about rules. We form the same sort of meta rules in our brains (which might be what helps distinguish feelers from thinkers). Stare decisis is a meta rule. In fact, the algorithms that the Supremes create and their variables (clear and present, rational basis) are meta rules in themselves.
When you learn, you learn by rules and biases that you have established. These help you incorporate new data efficiently. Those rules themselves are under review constantly in the hierarcal learning process (as Roberts is well aware). For example, based on the way this discussion is going, I’m considering that my time might be better spent elsewhere–that any discussion that follows is unlikely to produce an interesting or informative result. I am learning from your posts.
The first asked some good questions that if pursued might lead to a better understanding of the judicial system. Now, after reading subsequent posts, it seems that you are not interested in this line of thinking and that you have little to provide. I learn not just that “ras” is a red herring, but that I may want to sit back and let a discussion develop before investing time–go for the ones with committed and demonstatably interesting participants.
In a sense, I just demonstrated the inertial virtues of stare decisis (since our rule based system is developed through empiracism with trancendental roots, it is analogous to an autonomous learning system).
Paul Deignan (9e57a7) — 10/8/2005 @ 1:28 pmYou have to live with the president you get, not the president you want.
Donald R. (e541fc) — 10/8/2005 @ 2:04 pmRe# 17,
That was difficult enough when Clinton was President. But we don’t have to live with GWB’s wrongheaded nominations. It is our right and our duty to object when we think a bad nomination has been made. Such is now the case, and open opposition is both appropriate and well within the scope and traditions of representative government.
Black Jack (ee9fe2) — 10/9/2005 @ 3:34 pm