Patterico's Pontifications

10/26/2005

How’s About It, Hugh?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 5:05 pm



Hugh Hewitt,

I’d like to echo Feddie’s question: how do you feel about that 1993 Miers speech? Specifically, what is your reaction to her statement that decisions about abortion involve a debate . . . surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual womens right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion”? Doesn’t that sound like the rhetoric of a pro-choicer? Given the importance you have attached to the goal of reversing Roe (and rightly so), does this characterization of the abortion debate concern you at all?

UPDATE: The answer, obviously, is no. I’m listening to Hugh defending Miers right now on the radio. (David Frum is doing quite well.)

Incidentally: here is what Hugh just said he will require of Miers from the hearings: 1) she must stand firm and not answer questions about how she will rule; and 2) she must tell Senators she will observe a conservative judicial philosophy. She will, of course, do both — so really, for Hugh, the hearings are irrelevant. He will support her no matter what.

UPDATE x2: Now Hugh has Ed Whelan on, who is newly off the fence today and opposes Miers. Hugh seems to be saying: 1) the speech was made before she served 5 years in a White House fighting a war; and 2) speeches often get tossed off casually. He hasn’t directly addressed the language I quoted above, and called the self-determination language “opaque.” I think that, deep down inside, Hugh has to be troubled by the quote about once and for all guaranteeing an individual woman’s right to choose.

28 Responses to “How’s About It, Hugh?”

  1. Either the ’93 speech does bother Hugh and he won’t say so–in which case he’s being flat out dishonest.

    Or it doesn’t bother Hugh, in which case he’s being intellectually dishonest (insofar as the speech is irreconcilable with a conservative legal philosophy).

    Christopher Cross (ee574f)

  2. HH would defend her if she advocated a judicial takeover of the Defense Department.

    By the way, did that crap about the glass ceiling remind anyone of Liddy Dole, circa 1990?

    Attila (Pillage Idiot) (471b7c)

  3. 2) speeches often get tossed off casually.

    Isn’t Hugh the same guy that launched/promoted a boycott/letter writing campaign based on a comencement speech by the CFO of Pepsi likening the US to the world’s middle finger? Didn’t he also do something similar re the Eason Jordan comments (which were NOT prepared remarks)?

    At what point does the “hack” label fit, because I don’t wanna be premature with it…

    Christopher Cross (ee574f)

  4. All Hugh does is take each criticism of Miers and then dialectic it away..It is a dishonest form of debate. He tries to call From on the carpet for what? Not doing a complete lexus search on Miers or making a trip to Dallas to do investigative reporting when he felt she MIGHT be on the short list. When From answered that he did’nt take it seriously, Hugh tries to act like a prosecutor and make him cry because he did’nt ring the alarm bells before she was nominated? I did’nt take her name seriously either…who did? Hugh did’nt…And what would Hugh have said if NR would have started critiquing Harriet and she was’nt the nominee? Hugh likes to put people on the defensive and the best way to debate him is to put him in the corner.

    Then, he tries to argue that since she’s been working in the WH for the last 5 years, she’s now even more conservative..more aware of the enemy?
    As I can recall a few people have worked in the WH, under Republican administrations, and they did’nt develop any heightened sense of loyalty or conservativism? Look at Nixon’s Dean or deepthroat.and i’m sure others can name more. Soon This is no legitimate argument…..I’m sorry, i’m not an attorney nor a intellectual but I do recognize BS when I hear it.

    alexandra morris (8d0335)

  5. When I first saw the title of the post, I didn’t think to immediately connect it to Hugh Hewitt’s stance on Miers, but rather thought it to be about (or by) Dafydd ab Hugh. I can’t think of any practical way to correct that, though.

    TribeHasSpoken (5bc778)

  6. I read Hugh Hewitt’s blog regularly over the last year. Again and again he championed Luttig or McConnell as the reason for supporting the GOP and GWB. What does he really think now? I honestly can’t imagine.

    Here’s a quote from his archives on why a sitting senator should not be selected for SCOTUS:

    http://www.hughhewitt.com/old_site/cgi-bin/calendar.pl?month=7&view=Event&event_id=804

    “From ConfirmThem, a question on why so little buzz about senators for SCOTUS, in this case, Senator Martinez.

    A few points.

    First, From OpenSecrets.org comes the news that Senator Martinez raised more than $12 million to fund his successful Senate campaign. Thousands of people volunteered for the effort as well. It isn’t quite right to say thanks, I think I’ll be a judge now.

    Second, and far more to the point, senators like to be liked. And they like to be liked by the right sort of people. In the world of judges, the right sort of people tend to on the left –the folks running the ABA, the prestige law schools, the summer institutes in the best resorts, etc. It takes a very thick skin to put up with academic and elitist disdain. When senators are among the public, which is at worst evenly split on politics, it is easier to get some positive reinforcement for your views. Not so in the unusual world of the legal elite.

    Finally, federal judges have done the job. Surprises can still occur –who knows what happened to Harry Blackman? (Maybe this?) But those radical shifts are much less likely to occur with a nominee who has been putting on a robe for awhile like Judges Garza and Luttig, or, as with relatively new jurists like McConnell and Roberts, who spent years appearing before the United States Supreme Court.

    It is a very elite club at the summit of the legal profession, and its membership is not limited to the nine. It is best if the nominee comes from within the club.”

    Bring back the old Hugh please!

    Agricola (c302b4)

  7. Or lock him in a room with HM for an hour. That does the trick for everyone else.

    Kathy (59cee4)

  8. George Bush was the first Republican I ever voted for. I think it is safe to say my politics have changed a great deal in the last 12 years.

    However, the attacks on Harriet Miers in the last few days have made me wonder if I want to be associated with the right in the future.

    I remember listening to the lefties go after Bush’s speeches, parsing words, taking statements out of context and doing their best to find inconsistencies, poor syntax… anything, something they could attack.

    Now I see hypocrties on the right doing the same thing to Harriet Miers.

    The woman makes a speech in front a womans group 12 years ago and people go nuts.

    So self determination is a bad thing? Legislating morality if a good thing? I mean come on, this is getting stupid. I do not approve of abortion on demand, but I do believe that people need to be responsible for themselves and I don’t think that government needs to be involved in all aspects of our lives either.

    BTW, I remember the 90’s and a lot of people did think the anti abortion people were terrorists. But Harriet Miers was not one of them.

    This woman is being treated in a way that I find morally offensive. I believe the president has a right to his nominee and the nominee has a right to a fair hearing and a vote, not by mouthy pundits but by people someone actually voted for.

    When John Kerry was running I swore I would never vote for a Democrat again, but if someone like Evan Bayh could get nominated I might change my mind.

    And before people tell me don’t let the door hit in the way out honey thing it should be remembered that without people like me in the middle, people on the extreme right can’t win the White House in which case they can kiss putting their dream candidates on the Supreme Court.

    I hear Janice Rogers Brown trashed the New Deal in a speech. Considering how most Americans feel about unemployment insurance and Social Security, do you think they would think of returning to the good ol Days of the Great Depression?

    But then again would it be fair to her to use that speech that way?

    Terrye (64e2e0)

  9. I just sent his email to Mr. Hewitt:

    “Let me preface this by saying, I am a lawyer, a ’94 grad of the Notre Dame Law School. I chose ND because of its more conservative faculty, though I am more of a libertarian than a true conservative. Con Law has long been my passion. While I am in some respects socially liberal, I recognize Roe and Casey for the, well, abortions that they are.

    Until today, I was concerned about, but not opposed to, the Miers nomination. If you do not see utterly pitiful writing “skills,” and a complete bankruptcy of serious jurisprudential thought in those Miers speeches reported by WaPo, and if her well-documented views on quotas and affirmative action do not make any dent, then I don’t think you can be reached.

    Roberts was a stealth nomination, to some extent. (He certainly did not win me with his views on the Commerce Clause as testified to before the Senate.) But he is brilliant and qualified, and so there was simply no basis on which conservatives could oppose him. But he is NO SCALIA OR THOMAS. That is what I was promised by George W Bush, and was part of the reason I voted for him. But ok, there was another nomination coming, so maybe Thomas in a skirt was now to be sent up.

    So what did we get next? Harriet Miers. She likes quotas, radical feminists are her heroes, and she thinks abortion is a matter of “self-determination” proper to be imposed on all states by our courts, especially since science cannot settle the matter and religion is involved, doncha know. Oh, but a few years before she speechified in that vein, she supported a Human Life Amendment. Yes, this is surely a woman who knows her own mind, and who won’t change once on the High Court.

    Are you seriously trying to tell the conservative base that this was the best, or even the “good enough,” that Bush could do? I don’t buy it, and neither do other informed persons, especially a whole bunch of your fellow lawyers.

    You admonish that Patterico ought worry about setting a standard? Please, Patterico — set it! You say Miers is being “neo-borked?” Robert Bork knows more than a few things about borking, and I believe you know his opinion on the instant nomination.

    I request that you do not use my name if you quote from or publish this email. [I signed with my surname, which I do not do in Internet postings.]”

    Mona (b974fa)

  10. You people are so paranoid, this is bizarre.

    The Demcorats will vote against her because she is too conservative and supported the Sodomy Law in Texas and an abortion ban..

    The right will vote against her because she does not belong to some far right extremist view that it is not even close to mainstream.

    I say that and I voted a straight Republican ticket.

    So keep digging and come up with more and more dirt. Smear the woman for daring to not be one of you.

    Remember Bork? How many decisions has he made?

    sheesh people, it was an unimportant speech from 12 years ago, to a group of professional women. This is character assasination, pure and simple.

    Harriet Miers ran a firm of hundreds of lawyers, she was self made, she is no fool. And I admire her for her years of public service and her accomplishments.

    She does not deserve this. It is tacky in the extreme.

    After you help Hillary win…I wonder who she will pick?

    Terrye (64e2e0)

  11. BTW, Miers does not like quotas.

    The Texas Bar was not supporting quotas.

    Terrye (64e2e0)

  12. As Judge Bork stated when asked whether Miers was being “Borked”:

    “No, nobody is lying about her record.”

    Christopher Cross (5dc409)

  13. Hey, that’s nothing compared to a Zell Miller speech from the same period. I suggest we lynch Zell instead.

    George Turner (cd45de)

  14. Patterico:

    Would you please explain to me how a decision about abortion doesn’t involve a debate?

    For God’s sake, Patterico, unless you want the Supreme Court to nakedly outlaw all abortion — that is, if you really mean what you say that it will be up to the states to decide — then how the bloody hell can you imagine this will happen without a debate between those people who want to “criminalize” the killing of an unborn child and those people who want freedom for women to choose what they do to their own bodies?

    You expect people to just have a nice, serene vote without any debate at all?

    Honest to God, I do not understand you. Any of you. I’m tempted to conclude that you all believe your pro-life position is so obvious that debate and voting should not even be allowed.

    This is nuts. If Roe is overturned — as I sincerely hope it will be — then there will be massively multi-sided debates all over the country that go on for years and years, with votes taken, retaken, untaken, and all of it will end up in court again and again. Surely you already know this? Surely you don’t think that once Roe is overturned, the whole country will breathe a sigh of relief and instantly, without discussion, outlaw all abortion from the moment of conception?

    You look at words saying that the decision will involved a “debate” — but what you parse is that we should have abortion on demand right up until six months after birth.

    How do you explain yourself?

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  15. To Christopher Cross.

    It’ aint premature to use the label – Hewitt has officially become a hack. Embarassing for conservative movement.

    Justin Levine (ee9fe2)

  16. I’m solid Republican and conservative. We elect a President to do the job we want him to do, but in the end he ‘calls the shots’ if he is the true Leader. He’s not always right. In W’s case, he’s not always right, but he’s the man and he knows this nominee better than most Presidents have known their nominees–That’s got to have some weight, right or wrong! He has the ‘right’ to select his nominee regardless of what I think or the rest of the Conservative Right thinks! Time will judge whether he was right.

    The thing that irks me, is that my idols in the Right have lowered themselves to the level of the radical left because their ‘choices’ seem so much better than the President’s and further, that he has ‘let them down’ by not making an obvious ‘qualified’ choice. Sounds like a bunch of whining and intellectual lefties to me–just who the ‘h—‘ are they to act like spoiled brats and dumb enough to play into the hands of the Left and the Dems?!

    Thanks for nothing Mr. Crystal, Mr. Will, and the rest of you who are taking your negative campaign to our enemy, the Mainstream Media. You let your personal emotion over-ride reason–just like a Dem and a Leftie. You should be working behind the scenes creating your ‘pressure on the White House’ and if that effort doesn’t work, don’t damage the Party and the President because you didn’t get your way and air you disgust in the public. Where is your character and class?

    I’m not an intelect, nor an attorney, nor an expert on what a Supreme Court Justice should, nor do I know how intellegent a nominee should be, but I do know that some of the most intellegent people make the worst Presidents, the worst professors, the worst leaders and the poorest judgements when you look history. I say give the President and Mrs. Miers their ‘day in court’ and let the process work and live with the outcome. Where the ‘h—‘ were you when Gisberg, etc. were allowed to sail through? Save your rath and anger for the Dems–if you would go after the Kennedys, Leahys and Bidens they way you are after Miers and the President maybe you’d light a fire in the Republican Base!

    Jock (4f0e07)

  17. Hugh called himself “seriously pro-life”, what he meant was that he is “seriously personally pro-life”.

    Paul Deignan (b2e499)

  18. This nomination is a disgrace.

    Now we know she’s not only spoken out in support of affirmative action but also in favor of abortion. Hewitt seems to think that being in the White House during the WOT has changed her views on domestic policy. If so she’s a rudderless ship.

    Moreover, look at the term she uses to discuss abortion; “self-determination”. That’s the language people use to talk about fundamental human rights, like, you know, voting.

    We’re supposed to buy that experience in the White House during the last few years has changed her core view of what she sees as a fundamental rights issues here at home? Even assuming that were true (and I don’t buy it for a minute) what does that say about her core beliefs, or her ability to stand up the loony lefties on the court? The best that can be said about it is that if we can get her isolated on the court with the “right” people she’ll follow them. Well gee that’s just great.

    But of course that’s a bunch of BS anyway. What’s happened here is we’ve got a SCOTUS nominee that may be slightly to the right of Ginsberg, appointed by George W. Bush. The truth is Bush has apparently just made a pro-abortion and pro-racial remedies appointment to the SCOTUS – a liberal Democrat.

    Dwilkers (a1687a)

  19. It could just as easily be argued that prolifers don’t really give a damn about the babies once they are born.

    After all social programs are seen as socialism by the pure conservatives, ergo they may obsess about the unborn’s well being so long as that means they can harass a pregnant woman, but once the baby is born he is on his own.

    These are the kind of thoughts these debates can conjure up and like it or not the rigid our way or the highway originalist can scream at everyone else that they are right all they want…they are not a majority.

    So fine take it to the voters, you will lose.

    That is why you might be better off trusting Bush on this. Say what you will he has been more loyal to his party than many of its pundits have been to him.

    Profiles in back stabbing.

    Terrye (59675e)

  20. Dwilkers:

    She has done no such thing. I read that speech and no where in that did she support abortion. As for affirmative action, she has never supported quotas.

    You people are over the edge.

    I take it then that self determination should be a crime? That could mean a lot of things.

    I have to stop looking at these blogs because I get the same feeling when I read these kind of comments that I get when I look at Kos.

    Terrye (59675e)

  21. Dafydd — How do I explain myself? Nobody, and I mean nobody, who is in the mold of “Scalia or Thomas” could have or would have given a speech about the judiciary in general, and specifically and APPROVINGLY linking SCOTUS abortion law with “self-determination,” as Miers did. Roe is not just about abortion; it is a proxy for determining judicial philosophy. Any who think Roe constitutes legit jurisprudence are very, very unlikely to parse other issues with restraint. (A few exception, e.g. Glenn Reynolds.)

    Mona (3e84ec)

  22. Thank you Lord………….bring on Janice Rogers Brown

    alexandra morris (8d0335)

  23. As Judge Bork stated when asked whether Miers was being “Borked” …

    Now there’s a guy to ask for an objective opinion on what does or does not constitute a “borking.” Of all the people in the world you could look to, you cite the guy who was on the receiving end of one borking, and who actively supports the other. What the hell else was he going to say?

    Xrlq (6c76c4)

  24. I’d say Bork is a fairly good person to ask if what Miers has experienced is analogous to what he experienced myself.

    Dwilkers (a1687a)

  25. Why on earth?! Of course he’s going to say that what happened to him was bad, and when it happens to someone he opposed it was good. Just about anybody on the planet, save Bork himself, could at least be expected to accept the possiblity that there can be “good” borkings here and “bad” borkings there, but it’s a tall order to expect Bork himself to be that charitable. To a guy named Bork, all “borkings” are inherently bad, so any borking Bork feels is justified cannot be considered a “borking,” by definition.

    Xrlq (e2795d)

  26. Now there’s a guy to ask for an objective opinion on what does or does not constitute a “borking.” Of all the people in the world you could look to, you cite the guy who was on the receiving end of one borking, and who actively supports the other. What the hell else was he going to say?

    By your statement, you are begging the question, that what happened to Miers was a “borking.”

    I cite to Bork to provide the definition of what happened to him since well, it happened to him. He may not be objective, but that doesn’t make him wrong.

    Maybe we disagree on what constitutes a “borking”–I’d argue it’s as the man himself said, when one’s record is distorted and lied about such that it bears no relation to what the nominee actually said.

    That didn’t happen to Miers.

    Christopher Cross (ee574f)

  27. For the last 5 years all I have emailed my 2 senators here in Wahington was give the nominees their hearings and just give them an up or down vote based on the constitution and information and dialog they had. My feeling still stands and I believe the anti Miers people have destroyed that argument. I guess I’ll just keep my emails to myself and let the 2 groups rip my country apart.

    steve (152a9f)

  28. My initial reaction to the speeches was that they were awful. But a great deal of that can be explained by:

    a) the audience
    b) that it’s a transcript and not her prepared speech (typos are certainly the fault of the transcriber, and grammatical problems may be as well)
    c) the speech may have been given simply from notes rather than being a prepared speech.

    That said, I’m glad this issue is over.

    Brainster (ffe146)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0913 secs.