Supreme Court Confirmation
stcynic | October 17, 2005In all the brouhaha over James Dobson being given secret information, I have maintained all along that James Dobson is lying. He first claimed to be given information by the White House that was "confidential" and that he "probably shouldn't have" that made him endorse the Miers nomination, but he couldn't say what that information was. After threats of a potential subpeona to come before the Judiciary committee and reveal what he was told (quite a reasonable threat, I might add; the White House certainly has no business sharing secret information with supporters that is not also given to the…
stcynic | October 15, 2005The latest development in the Harriet Miers confirmation fight is this ridiculous talking point from the White House, via James Dobson:
Some of the other candidates who had been on that short list, and that many conservatives are now upset about were highly qualified individuals that had been passed over. Well, what Karl told me is that some of those individuals took themselves off that list and they would not allow their names to be considered, because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter, that they didn't want to subject themselves or the members of their…
stcynic | October 14, 2005Ned Rice, who is billed as a staff writer for the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (who?), has a piece in the National Review, in which he claims to be entirely serious, urging Bush to withdraw the Miers nomination and replace her with Robert Bork, who was already shot down in 1987. In the process, he peddles the tried and true false line that Bork was undermined by lies from the left to paint him as a radical. That is nonsense. Bork is a radical. If anything, the confirmation hearings only began to scratch the surface of just how dangerous he would be on the court.
stcynic | October 12, 2005Remember the other day when I predicted that James Dobson would lie rather than give up what Karl Rove told him about the Miers nomination? Looks like I was right. Here's what Dobson says he was told:
The privileged information, Dobson said on the broadcast, was that "Harriet Miers is an evangelical Christian, that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life, that she had taken on the American Bar Association on the issue of abortion and fought for a policy that would not be supportive of abortion, that she had been a member of the Texas Right to Life."
Dobson…
stcynic | October 11, 2005Okay, this is only for those with a very dark sense of humor, and even among those, will probably only be funny either to those who've seen The Aristrocrats or know the joke that is the basis of that movie. If those things are true - and you have a strong stomach - go here. It even got Paul Provenza, the director of The Aristocrats, applauding.
stcynic | October 11, 2005Jim Lindgren of the Volokh Conspiracy has an interesting post examining what sorts of nominees ultimately end up drifting to the left once they're on the court. He looks at Republican court appointees since Eisenhower, who famously nominated the men he called his two greatest mistakes, liberal judicial heroes Earl Warren and William Brennan. Likewise, Richard Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun, Ford appointed John Paul Stevens. Reagan appointed O'Connor and Kennedy, both moderately conservative but not the sort of ideological conservatives like Thomas and Scalia that the right hopes for.
The…
stcynic | October 10, 2005Few strains run quite as deep in the American psyche as a pervasive anti-intellectualism that has somehow inverted the notion that all people are equal before the law and possessed of the same unalienable rights into the currently fashionable fake egalitarianism that lies at the heart of so much nonsense. There is a subset of Americans that reflexively recoils at "so-called experts" who "think they know more than we do." Well I'm sorry, Goober, but lots of people know more than you do about a lot of things. And herewith, the latest example of how this idea metastasizes. From Dan Coats, the…
stcynic | October 10, 2005James Dobson is one of the few religious right leaders who has endorsed the nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court (Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ being the other notable one). But Dobson has been spouting off about his inside information. We know from reports that Karl Rove was dispatched to speak to Dobson and win his support for the nomination after the furious response from other conservative leaders. We don't know what was said in those meetings, but it appears that some in the Senate would like to know:
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and several…
stcynic | October 9, 2005Robert Bork was interviewed by Tucker Carlson and didn't have good things to say about the Miers nomination:
TUCKER CARLSON, MSNBC HOST: Are you impressed by the president's choice of Harriet Miers?
JUDGE ROBERT BORK, FORMER SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: Not a bit. I think it's a disaster on every level.
CARLSON: Why? Explain the levels on which it's a disaster.
BORK: Well, the first one is, that this is a woman who's undoubtedly as wonderful a person as they say she is, but so far as anyone can tell she has no experience with constitutional law whatever. Now it's a little late to develop a…
stcynic | October 7, 2005I've noticed an interesting irony in the conservative backlash against the Miers nomination. Many of them are upset because they just don't know where Miers stands on issues like abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, and so forth. But weren't they telling us a few weeks ago that not only do those stands not matter, but it's outrageous to even ask a nominee about them? Weren't they telling us with Roberts that the only thing that matters is that he's smart, knowledgable, loyal, thrifty and brave? In fact, weren't they telling us that they didn't have any "litmus tests", that those are only…
stcynic | October 6, 2005The White House is clearly in scramble mode trying to get religious right leaders on board with the MIers nomination, so much so that they have sent envoys to meet with the leaders of various organizations in groups to attempt to calm their fears and get them on board. The Washington Post reports that it's not working very well:
The conservative uprising against President Bush escalated yesterday as Republican activists angry over his nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court confronted the president's envoys during a pair of tense closed-door meetings...
At one…
stcynic | October 4, 2005Randy Barnett has an op-ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal that absolutely shreds Bush for nominating Harriet Miers. He begins by quoting a passage from Federalist Paper 76, written by Alexander Hamilton, on why the consent of the Senate is required for appointments:
"To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from…
stcynic | October 4, 2005It's kind of fun watching the right disagreeing over the nomination of Harriet Miers. It's even more fun watching them continue to scream about the left while doing so. Here's what Jay Sekulow, head of Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice, had to say yesterday:
"Once again, President Bush showed exceptional judgment in naming Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court to replace Justice O'Connor," said Sekulow in a statement. "At a time when the high court is facing some of the most critical issues of the day - including a number of cases dealing directly with abortion and life issues…
stcynic | October 4, 2005My favorite line from Bush's speech nominating Miers yesterday was this one:
"Harriet has built a reputation for fairness and integrity. When I came to office as the governor of Texas, the Lottery Commission needed a leader of unquestioned integrity."
Seriously, how bad would life suck if you had to say things like this with a straight face? The lottery commission needed a leader of unquestioned integrity? Yeah, I'm sure the Texas lottery commission was facing a real crisis of confidence that only her steely resolve could fix. Her reputation as a straight shooter restored the confidence of…
stcynic | October 4, 2005Someone very funny has started a Harriet Miers blog. And a J. Michael Luttig blog too. Hilarious stuff.
Hat tip to Josh Claybourn.
stcynic | October 3, 2005Wow, the more I bounce around the right wing blogosphere the more vitriolic the reactions from conservatives to the nomination of Harriet Miers. Michelle Malkin's reaction:
What Julie Myers is to the Department of Homeland Security, Harriet Miers is to the Supreme Court. (Video of the announcement here via NYT).) It's not just that Miers has zero judicial experience. It's that she's so transparently a crony/"diversity" pick while so many other vastly more qualified and impressive candidates went to waste. If this is President Bush's bright idea to buck up his sagging popularity--among…
stcynic | October 3, 2005Tom Goldstein, partner in one of the top appellate practices in DC and an astute observer of such matters, writes on the SCOTUSblog that Miers is likely to face serious opposition. In fact, he predicts she will be hammered in the confirmation hearings and be rejected:
The nomination obviously will be vigorously supported by groups created for the purpose of pressing the President's nominees, and vigorously opposed by groups on the other side. But within the conservative wing of the Republican party, there is thus far (very early in the process) only great disappointment, not enthusiasm. They…
stcynic | October 3, 2005Well here's one conservative who really doesn't like the nomination. David Frum writes:
I worked with Harriet Miers. She's a lovely person: intelligent, honest, capable, loyal, discreet, dedicated ... I could pile on the praise all morning. But there is no reason at all to believe either that she is a legal conservative or--and more importantly--that she has the spine and steel necessary to resist the pressures that constantly bend the American legal system toward the left. This is a chance that may never occur again: a decisive vacancy on the court, a conservative president, a 55-seat…
stcynic | October 3, 2005Like everyone else around the country, I'm asking, "Who???", right about now. Bush has chosen another stealth candidate, but this one is about a thousand times more stealthy than the last one. Since I know virtually nothing about her, I will reserve judgement until I've got a lot more information to go on. My initial response is that she's a Bush political crony and that never sits well with me regardless of political party. White House Counsel to Supreme Court Justice is a HUGE leap. I'm sure she's very intelligent and accomplished, but I need to know a lot more about her before I jump on…
stcynic | September 19, 2005Kermit Roosevelt, who teaches con law at UPenn, has an interesting article at American Prospect about the John Roberts hearings. He points out, correctly, that the arguments for why a nominee cannot be specific about a case that may come before them on the court don't withstand scrutiny:
What these remarks suggest is that Roberts will not be a wrecking ball, not a conservative out to change the tenor of the Court. That would have been a safe bet anyway; even aggressive conservatives like the young William Rehnquist tend to grow more moderate after assuming the chief justice's chair. We have…