Patterico's Pontifications

10/14/2005

Noonan’s Dreadful Piece on Miers

Filed under: Judiciary — Patterico @ 8:20 am



Yesterday, someone recommended Peggy Noonan’s piece on the Miers nomination to me. I read it, and was not impressed.

Early in the piece, Noonan suggests that Miers withdraw her name, in a noble act of self-sacrifice, and claims:

Mr. Bush will have an open field. He could even shove Alberto Gonzales down their throats!

This is easily one of the most ridiculous things I have read in the days since Miers was nominated. The idea that conservatives would fight for the withdrawal of Miers, but would accept Gonzales as a replacement, is so bizarre it’s hard to know what to say. It’s impossible to imagine anything that could cause a more open revolt. Making things even more bizarre, Noonan says just two sentences later:

Before the Miers pick a man could have been considered, but to replace Ms. Miers now it will have to be a woman. Sometimes you just can’t add more layers to the story.)

I have heard many people say (and have made the comment myself) that Harriet Miers is just Alberto Gonzales in a dress. But what is Noonan expecting after a Miers withdrawal: literally Alberto Gonzales in a dress?

If Miers withdraws, and Gonzales makes a trip to Sweden, you’ll know what’s up.

More silliness from Noonan:

When George H.W. Bush chose Mr. Quayle to be his vice presidential candidate, the 41-year-old junior senator from Indiana should have said, “Thanks, but I’m not ready. Someday I will be, but I have more work to do in Congress and frankly more growing to do as a human being before I indulge any national ambitions.” This would have been great because it was true. When his staff leaked what he’d said, a shocked Washington would have concurred, conceding his wisdom and marking him for better things. He’d probably have run for president in 2000. He could be president now.

Yeah, that’s just what we need: Dan Quayle as President.

Come on, Peggy. Think before you tap those keys.

8 Responses to “Noonan’s Dreadful Piece on Miers”

  1. I believe you’re taking Noonan much
    too literally. In these instances,
    she’s playing the devil’s advocate
    rhetorically to make another point–
    that Miers has several theoretical
    ways to withdraw.

    Justice Frankfurter (2dcd84)

  2. No need to sugar coat it Pattrico, just go right ahead and say what you really think.

    Peggy’s contribution was in pointing out that Harriet has already hit the jackpot. She can get up from the table now with a life time payout, and avoid ever having to chance the whims of outrageous fortune on a turn of cards. Additionally, Harriet will automatically qualify for seat at the next tournament.

    Or, to put it another way. Harriet Miers can go home with the bird in hand, or chance reaching out for two in the bush. One is a sure thing and the other is a gamble.

    Now, my friends, the big question is: how do you think the smart money would play it?

    Black Jack (ee9fe2)

  3. It’s possible that a Quayle with 17 years more experience might be a reasonable candidate.

    As for Gonzales: there are basically two camps of opposition to Miers, the “she’s not a judicial conservative” camp and the “wow, she’s totally unqualified” camp. The latter group would support Gonzales even if the former did not.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  4. Maybe, but Gonzales’s qualifications aren’t all that much stronger than Miers’s; in fact, I’d argue that they’re weaker. Assuming there are some who consider Miers unqualified but Gonzales qualified, I think that’s a rather small sliver of the population at large, and a smaller sliver of the U.S. Senate. And that sliver would be offset in spades by the many liberals who oppose Gonzales even more vehemently than conservatives do. While many of us on the right may have been “spoilng for a fight” over the current nomination, none of us were itching to fight for Alberto Gonzales.

    Xrlq (e2795d)

  5. I got a different take on Noonan as well. She was hitting out at the total lack of planning by Bush. She was saying that if you can’t say anything about her but that she’s Born Again and “read my lips: she’s a conservative,” then they better use an exit strategy. This White House is clueless; one blunder after another after another. It’s not just FEMA, it’s who and how Brown was appointed; there’s another crony over at HHS in charge of Bird Flu who has no background at all; Judy Myers appointment to ICE is without parallel anywhere; I could go on but the sum is that everybody appointed by this White House is lousy and just a political throw away. Noonan’s premise is in the middle of her essay:

    in America. We don’t say, “We’ve nominated Joe because he’s a Catholic!” A better and more traditional approach is, “Nominee Joe is a longtime practitioner of the law with considerable experience, impressive credentials, and a lively and penetrating intellect. Any questions? Yes, he is a member of the Catholic church. Any other questions?”

    She’s just fed up with mediocrity, as are many of us.

    Howard Veit (baba22)

  6. Ironically, I was thinking of linking to Noonan’s column as an example of one of the better pieces I’ve read against the Miers nomination. This is not to say I disagree with Patterico’s specific criticisms of this piece – I don’t – but they struck me as relatively minor by comparison to Coulter and Frum’s whoppers, Goldberg & Lowry’s outright lies, the vapors over Laura Bush’s non-charges of sexism, and a lot of the other crap that’s passed for serious argument on both sides over the past couple of weeks. Lest anyone think I’m unfairly singling out the anti-Miers camp, I should note that I’m equally unimpressed by Ed Gillespie’s actual charges of sexism, Bush’s endorsement of Miers on account of her evangelical Christianity, or the Administration’s general failure to make the case for her appointment. I also think that even if Bush was 100% correct in his assessment of Miers, it was still a mistake to appoint her to the Supreme Court now, rather than appointing her to the DC or Fifth Circuit now with an eye to promote her to the Supreme Court a few years later.

    I also think that while Dan Quayle is no Jack Kennedy, he’s no Dan Quayle, either. From what I can tell, he made perfectly good Vice President behind the scenes, even while being the butt of many jokes over a few dumb things he had said (e.g. the Holocaust) and many dumber things that he never said (e.g., speaking Latin in Latin America). That’s almost a given, if you think about it: every Republican administration has one idiot and one evil genius. Usually the President is the idiot and the VP is the evil genuis behind the scenes, so all Quayle did in that regard was to reverse the roles. But that goes to image, not to one’s ability to do the job. While Noonan, the toe sucker and other wonks may have considered it a political mistake for Bush I to appoint Dan Quaylee or Bush II to appoint Mr. Halliburton, I take both appointments as evidence that the Bushs choose their running mates according to who they’d actually like to serve with over the next four years, rather than picking a hack who they don’t like, but who might (or, as in John Edwards’s case, might not) help them pick up an extra state or two in the election. I do agree with Noonan that by remaining on the national scene for four years after a few early, embarassing media flubs, Quayle cemented his image as the nation’s village idiot, thereby permanently removing himself from the pool of viable candidates for the Presidency. I’m not sure whether to classify that as a mistake, however, so much as an example of “taking one for the team.”

    Xrlq (ffb240)

  7. Sorry, but the idiot/evil genius tandem theory doesn’t hold up. If HW 41 had been an evil genius, he would have won in ’92.

    And I take personal the suggestion that the Veep in 43’s administration is the evil genius part of the tandem as an intended slight, and I demand a correction and an apology.

    Karl Rove (58efde)

  8. Duh. Don’t forget preview.

    Karl Rove (58efde)


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