Patterico's Pontifications

10/26/2005

Harriet Miers: Telling People Just What They Want to Hear

Filed under: Judiciary — Patterico @ 7:45 am



Harriet Miers tells a pro-life group that she is in favor of a Human Life Amendment.

She tells a women’s group that decisions about abortion should be guided by principles of “self-determination.” involve a “debate . . . surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual women’s right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion.”

She tells George W. Bush that he is the greatest.

Do you see the pattern?

Now she knows that her survival depends upon convincing judicial conservatives that she will hew closely to the text of the Constitution.

What do you suppose the chances are that she is going to tell us just what we want to hear?

UPDATE: See this post below. The Washington Post ran a story this morning saying that Miers gave a speech claiming that abortion issues (among others) should be guided by principles of “self-determination.” I am not sure the Post is right about this, and I have stricken language from this post that accepted that characterization. However, I am extremely concerned by the way that Miers framed the debate, and I have added other language to the post that reflects that concern.

7 Responses to “Harriet Miers: Telling People Just What They Want to Hear”

  1. That might be right. Then again, it might be a bit more specific than that. Beth Thornburg wrote a piece in the Dallas Morning News (quoted on Volokh’s blog) in which she gave us this jaw-dropping bit of candor: “If she follows her lifelong pattern, [Miers] will bond with and start deferring to the most appealing powerful male on the court. Pundits reading tea leaves should then concern themselves with which justice she would choose . . .”

    TNugent (6128b4)

  2. What did she expect to gain from the women’s group?

    Remember, she is ambitious. You can’t tell everyone what they want to hear without contradiciting yourself, so why volunteer unnecessary contradictions?

    Paul Deignan (b2e499)

  3. Well, considering pure masculine passion and testosterone that is Stephen Breyer, I think we know the answer to that question.

    Christopher Cross (14b967)

  4. Patterico, sorry to post the following to this thread (I couldn’t locate an e-mail for you) – – feel free to move or remove due to its off-topic nature (it concerns our favorite bird-cage liner):

    UNDISCLOSED DEMOCRAT CONTRIBUTER QUOTED IN L.A. TIMES IN ROVE STORY

    The Los Angeles Times chose a Democrat Party contributor to quote in today’s article describing the Fitzgerald investigators’ questioning of Plame and Wilson neighbors about their knowledge of Plame’s CIA association. It calls into question whether the quote is representative of the neighbors. The Times uses the information in its article to refocus their spotlight on Karl Rove.

    Here’s the quote from the L.A. Times article:

    “But neighbors contacted by The Times said they told the FBI agents that they had no idea of her agency life, and that they knew her as a mother of twins who worked as an energy consultant.

    The agents “made it clear they were part of the Fitzgerald investigation, and they were basically tying up loose ends,” said David Tillotson, a lawyer and neighbor who was among those interviewed Monday.

    “They really only had one interest, and that was to know whether Valerie’s identity, on what she did for a living, was known prior to the Novak article. It seemed they were trying to establish clearly that prior to the Novak article she was not widely known on the cocktail circuit,” Tillotson said.

    “And I pointed out, we were good friends, we socialized with them, and we just had no idea” until her status was made public in the Novak column, Tillotson said. “To that moment, we had no idea whatsoever that Valerie did anything for the government.“” – Los Angeles Times, “Focus of Prosecutor in CIA Leak Inquiry Appears to Shift to Rove”, October 26, 2005.

    According to opensecrets.org, Tillotson (including through his wife) coontributed $2000 to John Kerry, and $500 to the DNC Services Corp, in the 2004 election:

    TILLOTSON, DAVID
    WASHINGTON,DC 20007
    SELF EMPLOYED/ATTORNEY
    4/30/2004
    $2,000
    Kerry, John

    Tillotson, David Mrs
    Washington,DC 20007
    Self/Attorney
    9/21/2004
    $250
    DNC Services Corp

    Tillotson, David Mr
    Washington,DC 20007
    Self/Attorney
    9/21/2004
    $250
    DNC Services Corp

    Interestingly, note how ABC NEWS The Note cleverly introduces the Tillotson quote in their pointer to the L.A. Times Article today:

    “According to one neighbor who is clearly well-schooled in the investigation…” – ABC News The Note, Octoberr 25, 2005

    Trained Auditor (118a22)

  5. Miers’ 1993 Speech

    When the White House puts up a stealth candidate, it can’t complain when people start parsing what little evidence we have about the candidate’s views. The blogosphere is paying a lot of attention today to a speech SCOTUS nominee Harriet

    ProfessorBainbridge.com (af7df9)

  6. I agree one of the problems with Miers is that we don’t know exactly where she stands on a whole lot of issues, in large part because, as you point out, she’s been playing to her audience for an awful long time… where does she stop and her client / benefactor begin?

    To the extent her real thoughts vary from her public words, she’s been keeping them rather close to her vest (dress?), and it would be awkward at best were she to come out now and openly repudiate/contradict her remarks from days gone by.

    And this is a problem shared by a lot of potential nominees, as lots of them have jobs that often requires them to tell their audience what the audience wants to hear: politicians do it with voters, lawyers do it with managing partners and (often) with their clients, writers at think tanks do so to the donors, workers do it with the boss, association presidents do it with their members.. and so on and so on.

    This leads me to conclude that if we’re looking for someone who hasn’t felt it necessary to suck up to the boss and whose writings and speeches could safely be inferred as being their own, the pool might be need to be restricted to tenured law professors and sitting federal judges… and not recent recipients/appointees, but rather those who have been free to express themselves for quite a while.

    Boy, Beldar isn’t going to like this…

    steve sturm (e37e4c)

  7. Since she likes to say anything to win friends and favors, just think how popular she’d be after saying: “I Withdraw”.

    She’d have a gazillion friends after that. Certainly a lot less enemies.

    Kathy (59cee4)


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