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October 05, 2005
Will on Miers

I saw this last night but didn't want to link until I saw it was a verified column by will, not just something that was attributed to him.

It is not important that she be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court's tasks. The president's "argument" for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons.

...

Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers's nomination resulted from the president's careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers's name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.

In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech. The day before the 2000 Iowa caucuses he was asked -- to ensure a considered response from him, he had been told in advance that he would be asked -- whether McCain-Feingold's core purposes are unconstitutional. He unhesitatingly said, "I agree." Asked if he thought presidents have a duty, pursuant to their oath to defend the Constitution, to make an independent judgment about the constitutionality of bills and to veto those he thinks unconstitutional, he briskly said, "I do."

Can This Nomination Be Justified? - George Will

I'm in agreement with Will on this issue. If Bush had demonstrated the backbone to veto a bad law, I might be trusting him on this choice. In the discussion of this article at Confirm Them some believe that the opposition is because she's not from a top law school. I could care less what law school she went to as long as it was accredited. But the fact of the matter is, she doesn't have the credentials for this position. The Supreme Court is not a place for "diversity" in picking people to appoint, which is all that this appears to be at this point.

Another concern is whether Miers would support recent bad decisions such as Kelo.

Some additional reading on this:

David Frum:

The president was visibly angry at his press conference yesterday. Nobody likes criticism, especially when it's justified. But was he convincing? He sure did not convince me. The closest thing he offered to a defense - praise for his nominee for hailing from outside the "judicial monastery" - entirely misses the point. Senator John Cornyn elaborates on this defense in the Wall Street Journal this morning, and makes it clearer than ever what is wrong with it:

"[S]ome have criticized the president because he did not select an Ivy-League-credentialed federal appeals court judge for the open seat."

The problem with Harriet Miers is not that she lacks formal credentials, although she does lack them. Had the president chosen former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, or Securities and Exchange Commission chair Christpher Cox, or former Interior Department secretary Gail Norton, nobody would complain that they were not federal appeals court judges.

Or had the president named Senator Jon Kyl (LLB, University of Arizona) or Senator Mitch McConnell (LLB, University of Kentucky) or Edith Jones Clement (LLB, Tulane), nobody would be carping at the absence of an Ivy League law degree.

Those who object to the Miers nomination do not object to her lack of credentials. They object to her lack of what the credentials represent: some indication of outstanding ability.

Frum's Diary

I can still be convinced that I'm wrong on the Miers nomination. However, as some on talk radio have raised her evangelical faith as a reason to support her, I can't do it on that basis. I know that being an evangelical Christian is not a sure fire way of knowing someone is a social conservative, a strict constructionist, or an originalist. And this is coming from an evangelical Christian.

Posted by Chris Short at October 05, 2005 10:03 AM
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