One word on Harriet Miers: HUH?

That's the word that comes to mind when I read about her. Her education and career seem to be pretty unremarkable. But she's a friend and confidante of Bush and a White House counsel, so supposedly this makes her a prime candidate for the Supreme Court. Right.

And, of course, the "a" word is going to come up again during her confirmation hearings. Of course, you can spin her stance any way you like: either she's a rabid pro-lifer or she just wanted ABA to be a "big tent," open to pro-choice and anti-abortion views. Somehow, I suspect the latter, and I hope to hell she's grilled on Roe vs. Wade.

Given that it's impossible for me to trust this administration, I'm kind of, uh, nervous about this choice, just as I was with the choice of Roberts. Both Roberts and Meirs have minimal paper trails and little (Roberts) or no (Miers) judicial experience. Thus, there's no way to know if they're Scalias or Souters.

Oh, and seems that Miers gave money to Democrats in 1988. Granted, that was 17 years ago, but still, if you're a wingnut, you're bound to feel a profound sense of betrayal. Or maybe you're just going to be pissed off that Bush made a weak choice.

Already, the professional conservatives are bemoaning Miers.

More choice quotes here.

For some of these guys, it's another way of saying, "Waaaaaaah! I want an activist judge! Not an ex-Democrat! Waaaaaaaaaaah!"

Meanwhile, over at Firedoglake, there's a nice little deconstruction of Miers' unremarkable career. The best quote:

Harriet Miers has the qualifications of someone who gets appointed to oversee the sale of assets for a local school board or a state agricultural department. She was a managing partner at a large-ish law firm in Dallas, requiring keen administrative and money-management skills, I'm sure, but not exactly a position of substantial Constitutional scholarship. She was appointed by Shrub to a 6-year term on the Texas Lottery Commission, so maybe she's good at picking numbered balls out of a spinning cage, if nothing else.


That's nothing. Did you hear about the guy from the Arabian Horse Association who...oh, never mind.

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