Extra Ordinary Ideas

Not A Costume

My favorite scary looking person just wrote to say that he has finished his work in Iraq. He’ll be returning to Baghdad by convoy tomorrow, and from there will fly to civilization (specifically, Germany). He hopes to be back in DC within a week, and sends greetings to everyone.

It's Over

Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court.

I’ve been more encouraged by the events of the last three weeks than by anything else that has happened in politics in years. It is good to know that a group of thoughtful, principled advocates can still change history.

Addendum: Or, as Miers would say, “More and more, the intractable problems in our society have one answer: broad-based intolerance of unacceptable conditions and a commitment by many to fix problems.” Way to go, Ms. Miers. You did well today.

Land Sale Irregularity?

This can’t possibly help:

Texas officials paid Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers’ family more than $100,000 for a small piece of land in 2000 - 10 times the land’s worth - despite the state’s objections to the way the price was determined, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported Saturday.

The three-member committee that determined the price included Peggy Lundy, a friend of Miers, and property-rights activist Cathie Adams, Knight Ridder reported. They were appointed to the panel by state District Judge David Evans, who had received at least $5,000 in campaign contributions from Miers’ law firm…

he land - which was part of a large Superfund pollution cleanup site - was valued at less than 30 cents a square foot. But the panel recommended paying nearly $5 a square foot for it.

The price was later reduced from $106,915 to $80,915, but Miers has yet to return the $26,000 difference to the state, said the story by Jack Douglas Jr. and Stephen Henderson.

Miers Futures, Miers' Future

Tradesports shows futures contracts on the confirmation of Harriet Miers at 30.6 cents on the dollar in heavy trading this morning.

Will in the WAPO

George Will has a piece in the Sunday Washington Post in which he excoriates Miers apologists for defending the indefensible. He ends with a throw down to presidential hopefuls in the Senate:

As for Republicans, any who vote for Miers will thereafter be ineligible to argue that it is important to elect Republicans because they are conscientious conservers of the judicial branch’s invaluable dignity. Finally, any Republican senator who supinely acquiesces in President Bush’s reckless abuse of presidential discretion — or who does not recognize the Miers nomination as such — can never be considered presidential material.

Youch.

Also, a couple of major right-of-center MSM organs have weighed in institutionally in the last couple of days. The WSJ editors pronounced the Miers nomination “a political blunder of the first order.” The Economist observes that Bush’s “decision to nominate a lightweight palace attendant who may not even be a conservative is forcing a wide-rangeing re-evaluation of his presidency on the right.”

Opinionism?

I’m trying to decide whether I should feel offended by these remarks from a left-leaning lady who calls herself Strange Violin Music:

I don’t really believe much in cross-party dating. I think libertarian and really conservative types, who are mostly guys, tend to be in favor of it just because there are very few single women who share their worldview - so if they insisted on dating someone who agreed with their outlook on life, they’d have to settle for dating really skinny nerd chicks who wear glasses and go around in black turtlenecks endlessly wanting to discuss the theories of Hayek.

I suppose I shouldn’t take it personally. After all, I don’t wear glasses.

Miered in Scandal

John Fund points out that an embarrassing defeat is the smallest risk the Bush administration assumes if it allows Harriet Miers’ confirmation hearings to go forward. Witnesses may be subpoenaed who claim that then-Governor Bush effectively used state funds to pay for the silence of persons who knew the details of his fortuitous acceptance into the National Guard during Vietnam. Miers can’t possibly be worth the risk. I predict this is all over by next Wednesday.

Sticking to Principle

The Weekly Standard’s Duncan Currie is correct::

So when Harriet Miers’s defenders insinuate that her qualifications are meaningless—when they hint that adding a reliably conservative vote to the Court is all they care about—they do both the nominee and American conservatism a disservice.

The extent to which conservative opposition to Miers persists following yesterday’s Roe-related disclosures will be a good measure of its highmindedness. Show us what you’re made of, ladies and gentlemen of the right.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan, like me, is optimistic:

Weirdly, I don’t think [Miers’ pro-life positions] will shore her up among the conservative establishment, who oppose her for her mediocrity, primarily.

"Why I Want To Be A Justice"

The National Review’s K-Lo has posted Harriet Miers’ Supreme Court application essay over at The Corner. My first thought upon reading it: “Isn’t anyone checking her homework?” A week after David Brooks famously savaged her vague and tortured prose, Miers still has a Yoda-like tendency to deliver non sequiturs in the passive voice.

I couldn’t resist taking a red pen to the piece. While it’s still far from adequate, I believe I’ve rendered a substantial improvement. Click here for the revision.

Miers' Smoking Revolver Found In Dallas

The WAPO has unearthed some 1989 questionaires that Harriet Miers filled out during her campaign for the Dallas City Council. Her answers are at least extremely suggestive of her position on Roe at that time. She answered “yes” to the following questions posed by Texans United for Life:

If Congress passes a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit abortion except when it was necessary to prevent the death of the mother, would you actively support its ratification by the Texas Legislature?

If the Supreme Court returns to the States the right to restrict abortion, would you actively support legislation that would reinstate our 1973 abortion law that prohibited all abortions except those necessary to prevent the death of the mother?

Now, a lawyer can simultaneously believe that 1) abortion is a protected right under the constitution, and 2) the constitution should be amended to eliminate that right. But I am inclined to doubt that a lawyer who apparently couldn’t remember the significance of the Griswold decision this week had an opinion that nuanced.

I think these answers will eliminate any chance that Senate Democrats will support Miers, and thus will probably sink her nomination. While her statements will shore up support among conservatives who care only about whether Miers is a “reliable vote” on their favorite issue, thay will do nothing to change the minds of conservatives determined to see an excellent legal scholar on the bench.

Refocusing on Quality

In coming weeks the White House will directly enagage critics’ claims that Harriet Miers is professionally unqualified to sit on SCOTUS, the WAPO reports. The administration plans to rebut the charge that their nominee is unqualified in part by releasing an endorsement signed by three members of the elected Texas Supreme Court. “We feel confident we know what it takes to be a justice — Harriet Miers exceeds that mark,” write the lone star jurists.

I am inclined to agree that Miers is well-qualified to sit on the Texas Supreme Court. Perhaps a Miers campaign for a seat is the face-saving withdrawal strategy conservatives have been seeking.

Confirmation SWAT Team Weighs In

Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff has obtained private email correspondence between a group of conservative scholars brought together by the White House to support the confirmation of its judicial nominees. Abigail Thernstrom, a distinguished conservative intellectual and member of the U.S. Civil Cights Commission, reportedly wrote:

We are keeping quiet. And hiding from the media. … As for undermining trust in the president, I am afraid he has accomplished that all on his own — without any help from us.

Legal scholar Michael Greve reportedly concurred:

It no longer matters whether she’s the second coming of John Marshall; the cronyism charge has stuck bec. it’s so obviously true.

These disclosures will suprise no one familiar with the work of these thoughtful and talented scholars.

In related news, The New York Times reports that support for Miers is nonexistent among Senate Republican staff attorneys charged with preparing the majority for uncoming confirmation hearings.

Friends and Lovers

Bruce Reed over at Slate has some bon mots regarding Miers’ putative squeeze, Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht:

Hecht and Miers describe their relationship as on-again, off-again. For Miers’s sake, let’s hope it’s off again. Nathan Hecht is the kind of friend who would make anyone believe in the right to privacy.

He told the national press, “I know her judicial philosophy.” He told conservative bloggers like Marvin Olasky that Miers’s evangelical philosophy carries over into her judicial one: “She’s an originalist – that’s the way she takes the Bible.”

Only Wonkette cares whether Hecht “knows” Miers’s judicial philosophy in the Biblical sense. But now Hecht says he knows her Biblical philosophy in the judicial sense.

Knock Knock

Senate: Who’s there?

Miers: Warren

Senate: Warren who?

Miers: Warren Peace. No, wait … Warren Burger!

from a commenter at Instapundit.

Meirs Meltdown

Family members who are usually perplexed by my indifference to current events are amused by how addicted I have become to coverage of the Miers controversy. Floods and earthquakes? Heartbreaking, certainly, but not obsessively interesting. Bad Supreme Court nomination? Fascinating.

Two thoughts on the Miers meltdown:

1) This nomination does not ‘divide the right’. Left leaning commentators are thrilled that the Miers nomination has turned erstwhile supporters against the President. It follows, they think, that the right-of-center coalition is finally disintegrating, and they are eagerly seeking the fracture. (Noam Schieber, for example, gamely tries out Christian conservatives vs. conservative intellectuals, but must rely almost exclusively on Dobson, who is already backpeddling, as evidence of Christian support.)

These scribner’s efforts will fail because the right is not divided. With the exception of the president himself and perhaps Andrew Card, no one thinks that this nomination was a good idea. Leonard Leo and Ed Gillespe have jobs with the White House, so their comments cannot be considered as reflective of their personal views. Of course, there is also the feckless James Dobson, whose endorsement of Miers on the basis of claimed secret information is doing far more harm than good to her nomination.

The coalition has not been this united in a long time. Conservative media elites, conservative legal academics, libertarians, neo-conservatives, paleo-conservatives, Christian conservatives and wing-nuts all agree that Miers was a bad-to-awful choice for the Supreme Court.

2) Objections to Miers are not credentialist. Miers’ few and largely paid defenders attempt to boil criticism down to her lack of this or that specific credential, and then claim that opponents are shallow elitists for insisting on said credential. Leading candidates are her indistinguished alma mater and lack of judicial experience.

Defenders then point to Miers’ significant professional achievements as evidence that she is an outstanding attorney. For example, she was managing partner of a 400 person Dallas law firm. She was President of the Texas State Bar Association and almost head of the ABA. Finally, she was White House counsel. How can anyone claim that Miers is unqualified in light of such a distinguished record?

This argument rebuts only a grave mischaracterization of the opposition to Miers. Clearly Miers is an unusually accomplished lawyer. But there are different ways to be a great lawyer. Some lawyers are great negotiators, cooperators and rain-makers. Others are exceptional legal minds. Everything about Miers’ record suggests that she is the former type of great lawyer. The Supreme Court needs the latter type.

Huh?

Unbelievable. Maybe more on this later.

Update: I returned from classes with my knickers still in a knot about the appalling Meiers nomination to find that the most glaringly obvious criticisms have been duly leveled by those usually considered Bush’s intellectual base.

A great appellate judge loves the law so much it practically oozes from her pores. Meirs has demonstrated no such fondness for the thinking end of lawyering. Rather, she has voluntarily spent much of her professional life sitting on committees that would’ve driven Scalia to poke his eyes out with a sharp object. Meirs is probably a good person and a good lawyer, but I can think of personal friends who’d make more promising Supreme Court nominees. The Senate should demand better.