Patterico's Pontifications

10/14/2005

L.A. Times Slow on the Uptake with Miers Criticisms — But Better Late Than Never!

Filed under: Dog Trainer,Judiciary — Patterico @ 11:13 pm



The L.A. Times is a little slow on the uptake, reporting in this article concerns about Harriet Miers’s record that I first mentioned a week ago on this blog. Featured in the article are her criticisms of the Federalist Society (which I told you about a week ago, in this post), and quotes in which Miers criticized Republicans for “lawyer-bashing” (discussed here one week ago — long before any other blog had mentioned it).

It’s nice to see that Times editors are finally getting around to telling their readers about these issues. Maybe in another week or so we’ll get an article disclosing that Miers was poorly vetted. Wouldn’t that be something?

6 Responses to “L.A. Times Slow on the Uptake with Miers Criticisms — But Better Late Than Never!”

  1. Maybe once she’s written an opinion or two they’ll get around to wondering what steps the GOP might take to defeat her nomination…

    Christopher Cross (269d12)

  2. While they’re busy recycling old news about the Miers debate, maybe they’ll quote the July 4 version of David Frum who, while not terribly thrilled by the idea of a Justice Miers, but didn’t seem all that bothered by it, either.

    Xrlq (ffb240)

  3. While they’re busy recycling old news about the Miers debate, maybe they’ll quote the July 4 version of David Frum who, while not terribly thrilled by the idea of a Justice Miers, but didn’t seem all that bothered by it, either.

    You’re quite right. One could argue that a person is going to have a different reaction once someone is actually picked, but this strikes me as similar to when some of the Swift Vets were quoted as having praised Kerry in the past: it’s a valid point, and reflects poorly on his credibility.

    And I loved the Swift Vets.

    Patterico (adeded)

  4. The occasional half-praise here and there from individual vets didn’t bother me. What did and does bother me – even as I happily accepted the political result of it – was how O’Neill & Co. sat on their bombshell until after Kerry had secured the nomination, yet implausibly maintained they were not pro-Bush, pro-Republican or anti-Democrat, just opposed to John Kerry himself being in the White House. If that were really their goal, O’Neill should have released his book before the Democrat Primary, or at least dropped hints of what was coming early enough to give the Democrats a chance not to nominate him for that reason. Instead, they kept everything under wraps until the only way to keep Mr. Unfit out of Command was … all too conveniently … to re-elect George Bush.

    Similarly, the odds that Frum knew anything bad about Miers two weeks ago that he didn’t also know three months earlier are slim to none, and Slim just left town. If he really believes today that Miers is as bad of a pick as he now says, he must have believed the same thing in July, and was derelict in his duties for not saying so as soon as he realized that her nomination was a significant possibility. That he sat on this for a full three months after he admitted to knowing Miers was on Bush’s short list – yet managed to churn out a large portion of it within hours of the nomination being announced – begs the question of what Frum is actually trying to accomplish. Is he trying to sink a bad nominee for the good of the country, or is trying to embarass his former boss?

    Xrlq (428dfd)

  5. “or is trying” –> “or he is just trying”

    Xrlq (428dfd)

  6. Well am I imagining this or was it said (dang it but I can remember who!) that Miers’ input was used for most of the other canidates for appeals bench openings and for Judge Roberts?

    Jonah Goldberg over at NRO offered up the following observation: “By picking Miers, Bush threw sand in that machinery. He got into this mess in no small part by insisting on appointing a woman. He made the choice in no small part because he admired Miers’s character, not her constitutional philosophy. And now we know that some part of the decision was driven by the fact that she’s an evangelical Christian. And when people complain she’s not qualified, some Mm’Doh! sufferers respond: “But she’s a decent woman of sound character who is an evangelical Christian! What? You have a problem with those things? For shame

    Imagine conservatives tossing leftist slanders at each other… I never thought I’d live long enough to see this…

    russ (8b209b)


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