Maybe It Was, Oh, I Dunno . . . The Quality of the Nominee??
The L.A. Times cluelessly compares Harriet Miers and John Roberts, here:
Administration officials acknowledge that they were caught by surprise by the deluge of criticism from activists on the right who thought her record did not demonstrate a clear and strong commitment to conservative principles. By contrast, when Roberts was nominated, he was warmly embraced by GOP activists — in part because White House operatives and allies conducted a behind-the-scenes campaign to win the allegiance of conservatives who might have favored a more stridently conservative nominee.
You don’t think they’re conducting a behind-the-scenes campaign with the Miers nomination? You don’t think that Roberts’s impressive background, court opinions, and memos showing a commitment to principles of judicial conservatism had anything to do with it?
Get a clue.
There was initial skepticism from conservatives regarding Judge Roberts but the more they learned about his background the more they warmed up to him. There was certainly more trust in the President and confidence in his judgment. It seems now that the more conservatives learn about
Ms. Miers the less they like her and the less they trust the President.
There is a way for a politically connected ambitious person to enter the judicial track. It involves being appointed or elected to a low-level judgeship while maintaining your political base which works to raise you to higher positions. It requires sacrifice (lower salary and less political involvement) and risk (again judges are very restricted in their political activity). Many aldermen, state representatives, campaign managers and even precinct captains have risen through the state and federal judiciary in this way despite less than stellar legal credentials. Most turn out to be very good judges too. (Maybe those are the judges your friend Beldar has in mind as he advocates for Ms. Miers).
That is the gap in Ms. Miers’s resume that bothers me the most. Sorry for the longwindedness but I watched the Bork hearings closely. One of the libels against him was that he never did “pro bono” work until it was pointed out that except for a short period of time when he needed money because his wife was sick he had worked in public service. Ms. Miers has undoubedly paid a certain kind of dues in her career to rise as she has but they were the wrong kind of dues for an appointment to the Supreme Court.
nk (2e1372) — 10/21/2005 @ 7:43 amI gotta tell you, my confidence in John Roberts has retroactively sunk pretty low, given what we’ve learned about the president’s stealth candidates. Imagine if the nominations had gone in the opposite order.
Agricola (62c122) — 10/21/2005 @ 8:55 amI do think the failure to build support for Miers ahead of the nomination was a political blunder that magnified the problem. Of course, that would have required the White House to pull together a compelling explanation of her qualifications, which might have caused a rethinking of the nomination if trial balloons with the Right had generated the negative feedback that instead happened after Bush had committed to the pick.
Crank (3fed2a) — 10/21/2005 @ 9:01 amMiers is a stealth candidate, being deliberately shepherded thru as with as little disclosure as possible, till she’s far enough along that it’ll be too late for the D’s to make a viable switch to open oppo.
In politics, we all know you gotta answer charges right away before silence is taken as acquiescence. A stealth nominee cannot do this. HM won’t properly defend herself, nor the WH do it for her, till her hearings at least.
ras (f9de13) — 10/21/2005 @ 9:31 amI don’t like stealth, but if you’re going to do it, here’s the right equation:
stealth + great qualifications = confirmation
On the other hand:
stealth + mediocre qualifications = disaster
We’ve had one of each so far.
Attila (Pillage Idiot) (dfa1f1) — 10/21/2005 @ 10:51 amAgricola, what’s going on now should not cause any doubts about Roberts’ qualifications. His record and the hearings tell us what we need to know. About the only thing you might draw from this as it relates to the Roberts appointment is that W either got good advice before picking Roberts that he didn’t get for the Miers nomination, or that he just got lucky with Roberts. I tend to think that the process that was working well when Roberts was chosen was dismantled or broke down subsequently.
TNugent (6128b4) — 10/21/2005 @ 10:53 amTN,
I tend to think that Bush was using the same process each time, except that the 2nd time around he had to find a woman. Man, woman, whatever: candidates like Roberts are rare, indeed.
Atilla,
You make a good pt. Let’s follow thru: If you were going to nominate a stealth woman with great credentials, who would she be?
ras (f9de13) — 10/21/2005 @ 11:38 amras, I dunno. How long had the WH been considering Roberts before the nomination?
patterico, when did “proportional” acquire the meaning that Sunstein ascribes to it? And who decided that that meaning, at least in the context of voting rights and legislative representation, was its primary, if not exclusive meaning? Was it Sunstein himself? Guinier? Maybe you know where I’m going with this — enough is enough: it’s time to kick the Leftist, group-rights advocating squatters off of this piece of English language real estate.
“Proportional representation,” using “proportional” as Miers used it, which of course is consistent with its ordinary meaning, is a far better description of what the equal protection clause requires of state legislative representation than the one man – one vote slogan. An understanding of the context is required for the slogan to make any sense; however, “proportional representation” on its face, with very little, if any, need for context, describes succinctly and clearly the constitutional requirement.
I’m not signing up with Miers supporters who say we’ve already got too many constitutional scholars on the Court. But the irritatingly hair-splitting insistence by Sunstein that a commonly used and, not coincidentally, very useful word like “proportional” is out of bounds for any discussion of voting rights or legislative representation that doesn’t kowtow to the Left’s group rights advocacy is starting to make those arguments look much more persuasive.
TNugent (6128b4) — 10/21/2005 @ 11:55 amSorry patterico, I should have put my comment to you in the “proportional” controversy thread. My bad.
TNugent (58efde) — 10/21/2005 @ 11:57 amThe Woman’s chair on SCOTUS:
The essence of Affirmative Action is that once compelling gradations in quality are now decidedly secondary or even inappropriate considerations when it comes to proportional representation. Following closely is the notion that a lack of evidence is conclusive proof of wrongdoing.
We might even have to rename the Supreme Court if the ACLU starts carping about elitism. Perhaps call it something which downplays the vertical in favor of the horizontal.
Our PC Lefty friends might enjoy an opportunity to get behind that sort of thing.
Black Jack (ee9fe2) — 10/21/2005 @ 12:16 pmBlack Jack:
Following closely is the notion that a lack of evidence is conclusive proof of wrongdoing.
I think that’s a stretch. It’s not about the changing of evidentiary burdens. Rather, AA introduces classification (i.e. membership in a group) into the calculus, together with individual quality.
The HM nomination is not really about AA, though. Sure, there’s sort of a “diversity? – check.” aspect to it. But even within AA, there’s a value placed on the best above all else, even though the “best” has been subjected to certain caveats based on “horizontal” considerations.
So, if the burden of showing that HM is qualified has somehow been flipped to the other side, it’s not because of AA. It’s because Bush’s M.O. is that the burden is on his detractors.
biwah (f5ca22) — 10/21/2005 @ 1:24 pmMiers was selected because Lionel Hutz was unavailable.
I’m certainly more tolerant of “liberal” thinking on SCOTUS than Patterico or most posters, and I’m not even horribly offended that there’s a desire to get a second female justice.
Also, I frequently argue that the skills lawyers need are to read and write (and in court-heavy assignments, like Patterico’s, talk.) I think these skills are the primary skills of a Supreme Court Justice.
Sadly, there are simply no indicia that Miers has these abilities. I don’t need another Scalia, but we need sound, thoughtful justices. Who are two more disparately qualified justices than Roberts and Miers? It’s stunning.
–JRM
John R. Mayne (de6363) — 10/21/2005 @ 1:57 pmras, I don’t have an answer about a stealth woman. As I said, I don’t like stealth.
Attila (Pillage Idiot) (dfa1f1) — 10/21/2005 @ 2:07 pmnk –
I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but I would agree that many lawyers climb a political career ladder and are rewarded with judgeships. However, I don’t think those are the kind of lawyers or judges that Beldar supports (although there certainly may be specific judges who have done that and that Beldar would support). I probably shouldn’t try to speak for him, but I suspect Beldar prefers judges that came by their positions through merit in their legal careers. That’s why he supports Harriet Miers – because she has had a successful career as a practicing lawyer.
DRJ (8b9d41) — 10/21/2005 @ 1:28 pmPatterico, Clam, I’m out on the ledge with you. I admit to being a bit of a snob when it comes to writing, and this last bit of tomfoolery almost has me convinced I should jump.
I should mention I’m reading Woodward’s The Brethren, based on your recommendation, and that’s supplied a large portion of my depression.
Bench (830cc1) — 10/21/2005 @ 2:36 pm