random political musings...

[lagilman]

Is anyone else bothered that Bush has chosen his former personal lawyer, a woman with no judicial experience whatsoever, for a position on the Supreme Court?


She may be a fabulous person. She may even have political and judicial views I agree with (Haven't read enough to know). But personally? I think you should have gotten in some actual job experience behind the Big Desk before you get to wear the Big Black Robe of a Supreme.


But maybe that's just me.

ETA: to clarify my position on this -- for the State level, I have fewer/no problems with a relatively inexperienced lawyer with credentials being appointed. But at the Federal level? A person of any political stripe, appointed by any political stripe, without experience or significant creds? Nuh-uh...

Comments

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

100% agreed. I can't actually express how much I agree with that. Yes, I understand 99.9% of all judges are former lawyers; they get experience on one side before moving to the other. But I thought the idea of a Supreme Court Judge was someone who'd, y'know, done some serious-ass time as a Judge, somewhere, before moving into the biggest judicial position this country has. It's not just "what has she done before" (in terms of her positions on things) but "she has no bleedin' experience BEING a judge" -- so how does anyone assess that she can do the job, itself, independent of the decisions she might make?

It really, truly pisses me off. I can't honestly see how anyone can take it seriously. This nomination makes me feel like I'm having dinner at a Chinese restaurant and the waiters keep putting down forks for me. That kind of "I think I've just been insulted" sensation...

[las.livejournal.com]

No, not just you.

But this certainly won't have been the first time Bush has put someone with no proper practical experience into an important position (*cough*FEMA*cough*).

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the part that gets me. They're still counting bodies in New Orleans and he goes ahead and nominates someone whose SOLE qualification is that they're a crony? Bwa?

And yet nobody outside the blogosphere has made that connection yet.

[debg.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't think Meiers is getting confirmed, but I also don't think Bush has any intention of having her be confirmed. I think they threw her into the mix knowing she'd get defeated; that way, they can put someone up and if the exhausted Dems in congress try to fight the actual nominee, the NeoCons can point and say, see? The Dems are obstructive. And "journalists" like Katie Couric will parrot them earnestly in the media.

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

Alas, it looks bloody likely that she *will* get confirmed. Bush's move is actually brilliant: the woman has no judicial record for the Senate to take apart, she's replacing a woman, and, for all purposes, seems moderately liberal, replacing the 'swing' vote equitably.

Lawyers, however, are quite shocked, as it goes against the system.

[debg.livejournal.com]

At this point, I've become so jaded over NeoCon tactics and what I've come to perceive as the infantalism of a large percentage of the American voting public that I've come to believe we're hosed no matter what.

I mean, suppose this wretched woman - whose job from day one seems to have been to cover up Bush bad behaviour - doesn't get confirmed. He'll just pick someone worse.

It's one reason I'm happy for a functional passport.

[wolfshaman.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. I have read somewhere that he may be using her to soften up congress for a different choice. Who knows what Bush is thinking these days?

[terri-osborne.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm in the same boat you are. I haven't had a chance to inform my opinion on the subject of her yet.

However, it could be the cynic in me, but I have a feeling this is a double-edged sword. If she gets booted for inexperience, they can argue gender discrimination. Never mind the fact that they're putting up a candidate who's never sat behind a bench in her life, and actually has NO experience for the job.

My instinct says this is the sacrificial lamb. I could be wrong, but just from what I've seen so far, I'm not convinced this is the intended nominee.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

she gets booted for inexperience, they can argue gender discrimination

But of course. Everyone knows that that's why those Dems protested Gonzalez becoming Attorney General - he's hispanic. Nevermind that he also condones torture, if you look at Faux News it was all racial.

[helcat.livejournal.com]

Apparently, Rehnquist didn't have judicial experience either. And it was the founders' will that justices be from varied backgrounds, but at this point i think "constitutional scholar" would be the only non-judicial background that I could see as making one qualified to serve for life in this capacity.

The cronyism apparent reeks of the corruption club, though. One of my coworkers yesterday observed that if we don't elevate her to the bench, however, a second nomination from Bush would necessarily be a shoe-in, and quite possibly far worse.

[lagilman]

Personally, I say it's time to treat Bush like the pinata he is, and whack the hell out of him using every tool at our disposal. Especially ones he hands us himself.

So what if a party is deemed 'obstructionist?' Obstructing what? Cronyism? Stupidity? Arrogance? Incompetence? I'm all for that, myself...

[helcat.livejournal.com]

What I love is that the conservatives are screaming that Bush didn't play by their rules. In my head, I'm hearing his voice a la Forrest Gump. "The Supreme Court is like a box of chocolates...."

I feel so helpless and useless to change anything about this train wreck administration. It's become fight the future, all the way.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Oh, lord and lady. I've been seeing him as Alfred E. Newman for years. Now, with that voice...

[deedop.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall hearing that Bush had promised Gonzales a seat, so perhaps that's the far worse second nomination we'll get. ::shudder::

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

You may like this link (http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2005/10/aug_6_2001.html) that got post to my friends list this morning.

It actually is fairly recent that Supreme Court justices had to have been judges, but it's become more rare in the 20th century, and I don't think it's happened since Earl Warren. The problem, is, of course, that one tends to have no real insight into the views of a lawyer who's never been a judge. And, in this case, the issue is that this is a lawyer who's been Bush's personal attorney, and dealt with his National Guard scandal for him, among other things. And the judicial branch is not supposed to be that loyal to the seat of political power; it breaks checks and balances to use the position as a loyalty reward.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

Many many justices on the SCOTUS had no judicial experience prior to appointment. Heck, Rehnquist didn't. I saw a list somewhere, I can find it again, of those who don't have much judicial experience before getting on the supreme court.

Which isn't to say this is the right appointee.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Of course I'm bothered. It isn't as if she's a distinguished legal scholar (I'd be delighted if they appointed say, Lawrence Tribe, which will never happen). She's a very good lawyer who happens to be Bush's friend.


This has served us *so* well in his other appointments.

Note, however, that Earl Warren had never been a judge, and I quite like him. Pure political pay-back. Similarly, Souter, whom I love, was appointed because Bush owed payback to Sununu.

[algor.livejournal.com]

I don't think they can appoint Tribe. He and Scalia would kill each other before the first day was up.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

The conservatives have made it clear that Tribe would never be confirmed -- payback for his spearheading the fight against Bork.

[algor.livejournal.com]

Well, I can see that.

Personally, I don't have a problem with Scalia. I can at least follow his logic and philosophy, and as long as I can see his angle, I'm okay with that. Bork, on the other hand, seems a bit...well, holier than thou in his pronouncements. Of course, he's a bitter one.

The one who's the cipher to me is Thomas. Usually, he'll ride with Scalia, but when he breaks, he breaks.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

God forbid I should be in the position of defending the Shrub, but there have been 30-some Supreme Court judges who had never sat behind the bench (according to NPR). Rehnquist was one.

It is disturbing to see more cronyism from this President. He appears to be so insulated from the effects of his mistakes that he can't learn from them.

[lagilman]

It's not just the lack of judicial experience that's botheirng me, though. As was pointed out in my original post, she was his personal lawyer, and then White House council. Without judicial experience, this more than screams of payback-for-services-rendered. Especially since Bush has *ahem* some less than stellar white-out marks on his pre-Presidential record.

She may have had nothing to do with them... but it does raise my eyebrows. And my cynicism.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

I agree.

I also suspect that, if she refuses to answer questions about her stands on abortion or gay marriage or whatever, the senate could simply ask the Shrub. I'm sure she's already discussed her opinions with him in detail.

[kalligraphy.livejournal.com]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100301917.html

What bothers me is that she is: deeply dedicated to the President, anti-gay, pro-life, evangelical.David Frum, a conservative commentator and former White House staffer, wrote on his blog that Miers once told him the president was the most brilliant man she knows.

Insulated? Dumb? Doesn't get out much? Out of touch with reality?

Many colleagues in the White House consider her personal views a bit of a mystery because she has subordinated them to the president's views.

She no longer thinks for herself, she follows the neo-con agenda.

He said he has attended several antiabortion dinners with Miers and noted that she has always tithed to the Valley View Christian Church in Dallas, where antiabortion literature is sometimes distributed and tapes from the conservative group Focus on the Family are sometimes screened.

So this says that she follows the christian coalition and Focus on the Family is a gay hate group.

I don't see a whole lot to be optimistic about here. I see a person who will work to subvert the rights of women and homosexuals. Considering I am both.....

[kalligraphy.livejournal.com]

Somehow part of my comment got deleted. She is an evangelical christion who gives to prolife groups and has supported anti-gay legislation. She vets Bush's judicial nominees, like Judge Pickering who once wrote that states should have the right to execute homosexuals. Yeah, I feel real optimistic.

[djonn]

Per several others, there have been quite a few Supreme Court justices -- including several of the better-known ones -- who had not previously been judges. My morning paper says that the total number of such is 41, and its selected list includes Louis Brandeis (appointed 1916), Hugo Black (1937), Felix Frankfurter and William O. Douglas (1939), Earl Warren (1953), Byron White (1962), and Lewis Powell (1972).

As to whether Miers is qualified for the position -- much depends on what qualifications one believes are needed.

If you go by strict skill-set criteria (critical thinking and analytical ability, well-developed ethical standards), it seems to me that political leadership experience is largely irrelevant on either the national or local level. Elected legislative and executive political figures need different if overlapping skill-sets -- arguably including different kinds of people-managing ability and greater emphasis on advocacy than is appropriate for judicial candidates.

On a different track, in an absolute sense, once you reach a threshold level of skill-based qualification, everybody above that point is a reasonable candidate for a given job. To use a writing-based analogy, once you eliminate the 90% or so of the slush pile that's truly unpublishable, you still have a boatload of manuscripts that are of publishable quality. True, some may be better than others, but none of them will automatically scream "unreadable!" to the average reader. And as often as not, the reason some of those stories get bought is that given editors know and like some Name Weiters better than others. This is just as much a system of cronyism as anything in the political arena, but we accept it as a fact of life and deal with it.

As to the loyalty-to-Bush issue, I confess to being somewhat puzzled by it. What's that loyalty going to buy Bush, personally, on the Court? Nothing that I can see; in fact, the logic seems to cut almost precisely the other way. If a matter of direct personal relevance to Bush makes it through the pipeline to the Supremes in the next two years, Miers (if confirmed) will almost certainly have to recuse herself from the case based on her prior status as Bush's personal counsel. And once Bush's term is up, any loyalty she might have to him personally will cease to be of political relevance.

Now, having said all that, I ought to note that none of the foregoing really speaks to Miers' qualifications (whatever they may be) in any direct sense. The difficulty we're having is that Miers' background -- private law practice, and practice in administrative and corporate law circles largely outside public scrutiny -- hasn't produced an easily accessible public record whereby those outside the process can easily evaluate her skill-based qualifications.

And that cuts both ways. We can't assume that she has the requisite skills -- but neither should we assume out of hand that she doesn't, simply because we don't have direct access to the personnel files it would take to answer the question.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

As to the loyalty-to-Bush issue, I confess to being somewhat puzzled by it. What's that loyalty going to buy Bush, personally, on the Court? Nothing that I can see; in fact, the logic seems to cut almost precisely the other way. If a matter of direct personal relevance to Bush makes it through the pipeline to the Supremes in the next two years, Miers (if confirmed) will almost certainly have to recuse herself from the case based on her prior status as Bush's personal counsel. And once Bush's term is up, any loyalty she might have to him personally will cease to be of political relevance.

Somehow I very strongly doubt that any Bush crony is a Thomas a Becket. Also, King Henry II appointed Becket to the Archbishop position, one for which Becket took formal priestly vows, and in doing doing so, Becket changed his allegiance from subject of Plantagenet King under obligations to obey his King, to shepherd of the faithful for the diocese Becket had become Archbishop; Becket considered himself to have a higher duty than loyalty to Henry the King, he had his holy vows as a priest to uphold which superseded loyalty and friendship and obligation to any mortal King.

The USA is not a medieval Kingdom with a state church, but those seem to be what Bush & associates, including probably his latest Supreme Court nonimee, want. What denomination of Evangelical Christian she is, I don't know--but a number of Evangelical denominations, as does Anton Scalia, believe that the US Constition and Bill of Rights, in matters where their religion and secular law don't agree (such as regarding abortion, prayer in school, the place of women in society, etc.) have no place, that their religion and its views take precedence and that no law which allows actions which conflist with their religious tenets, should be allowed to stand, much less be enforced. That actions allowed by civil law that conflict with particular Evangelical denomination rule and tents, are allowed or not banned by various denominations of Christianity and various other religions, matters not to evangelizing Evangelicals, they want the laws of the country in compliance with their particular religious rules and tenetss.

I suspect that someone associated with Mr Bush for so long, is likely to be of the ilk of Evangelical Christian who puts their religion as privileged about the US Constitution, Bill of Right, and the Code of Federal Regulations.

[djonn]

Actually, to the best of my reading of the reportage so far, the record suggests that Miers has generally acted to keep her personal religious views as an evangelical Christian separate from those of organizations with which she's been involved -- the story I recall had it that she explicitly opposed having the Texas Bar Association take any position, pro or con, on abortion while she was its president.

In any event, however, what we're now discussing is not loyalty to Bush per se, but loyalty to the agenda of the hard-line religious right. Unlike the former, the latter certainly is relevant to Miers' suitability for the Supreme Court, and if there is legitimate, credible evidence that Miers is a religious ideologue, that merits examination. So far, the coverage hasn't produced what I'd consider such evidence, but it's very early in the game as yet.

[necessaryspace.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite part of this whole ... thing is that he asked her while she was having dinner with him on Sunday. That bothers me on so many levels.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

He couldn't find one moderate/conservative in the top 100 judges/lawyers in the country, preferably a woman, to suggest? NOT ONE? I probably wouldn't like her, but at least I'd respect her!

Hell, yes, I'm upset. My only hope at this point is, the true conservatives jump ship, and the GOP goes down in flames in the next congressional election.

Remember the last time he said, Silly me, here's my candidate all along.? CHENEY.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

He couldn't find one moderate/conservative in the top 100 judges/lawyers in the country, preferably a woman, to suggest? NOT ONE? I probably wouldn't like her, but at least I'd respect her!

He's intentionally and willfully blind to moderates. He stated quite bluntly he wanted more Thomases and Scalias. (The latter I regard as an ideological intolerant bigoted traitorous extremist. Scalia gives every appearance of believing in censorship, gag orders, and confiscating the tapes of anyone who records remarks or speeches he makes, is committed to denying other freedom of religion, etc. Thomas has many of the same characteristics and intolerances.)

Hell, yes, I'm upset. My only hope at this point is, the true conservatives jump ship, and the GOP goes down in flames in the next congressional election.

I'd much rather see a whole bunch of Republicraps currently situated in DC, be charged with various high crimes and spend a long long time in jail for their crimes and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

I wonder what Fitzgerald's dug up--and does any of it implicate Bush's legal counsel?

Get rid of Bush, Cheney, Santorum, Blunt, Frist, DeLay, Rove, etc., and that gets rid of them putting any more candidates up for rubber stamp Congressional confirmation for appointments, and precludes them from making any more appointments.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see some indictments with teeth, but we'll have to wait and see.

My W said once that he'd be surprised if Double U would get out of office without being impeached. I thought he was just trying to cheer me up....