Harriet Miers

What kind of political blog would this be without my two cents on the recent choice of Harriet Miers for Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court?

A unique one.

Well, I have about two cents of opinion on her nomination, so we'll see how this turns out.

First of all, pretty much most of the conservative, non-Bush hacks have panned this nomination as an opportunity lost, pandering, alienating the conservative base, yadda, yadda, yadda. There are really three areas where this will hurt Bush and the Republicans.

1) Bush cronyism. Most of the news outlets have been calling Miers one of Bush's "inner circle". That's not good in the wake of the Michael Brown FEMA shenanigans. Now, he's nominating a close friend. Sure, that means that Bush has a good idea of what Miers is capable of, but she doesn't have anything substantiative to back it up with. Supposedly, Bush liked the idea that John Roberts really didn't have any policy faux pas for the Democrats to bash Roberts over the head with. So he went with someone who also didn't have anything controversial to say on anything. Which leads to...

2) Bush taking the easy road. This is different from Bush taking the high road. That would've meant nominating someone with a solid conservative record for everyone to see, including the insane left.

At this point, since whoever Bush was going to nominate would've been the "swing vote," Democrats are going to fight this thing tooth and nail NO MATTER WHAT. So Bush was going to fight a battle no matter what. Why not stick with your principles and nominate someone with a track record? I'll tell you why...

Bush is not a leader.

He is a Republican and is a better leader than anyone currently in the Democratic Party. But that's a low standard to set. But that doesn't make him a true flag-bearer. Fact of the matter is that he's been using the Bill Clinton playbook for 5 years now and that's not going to change. Although, Bush is not saying that he's concerned about his legacy, he should be. He's going to nominate 2 people to the Supreme Court, which will have alot more to say on the future of America than most of things he has done this term (Iraq, Afghanistan, No Child Left Behind). Of course, there's the massive debt that he will be leaving behind, but apparently Americans aren't supposed to care about that.

Anyway, it's more than likely that Republicans are going to be very dissapointed with the end result of the second Bush presidency. Conservatives are probably going to be even more dissapointed with how things turned out. But onto my third reason why this pick is a flop.

3) Harriet Miers is a bureaucrat lawyer. She's basically a litigation lawyer who's "experience" is running the Texas State Bar and being an advisor to the Bush White House.

First of all, litigation lawyers are pretty much the bottom of the legal barrel. They're ambulance chasers, but Harriet Miers hasn't even done that. Instead, she's been a bureaucrat. I don't even know if she's seen the inside of a courtroom. She's like Tom Cruise's character in "A Few Good Men."

The major problem I have with this is that it appears that she has no opinion on anything constitutional. She appears to have no experience with consitutional matters. This means that, despite what anyone tells you, there is no basis for how she is going to act on the bench. This uncertainty is not good for conservatives. However, it's like father, like son. Bush II is just repeating the same mistakes of Bush I.

Which means that she's an opportunist, a hack. She's donated money to both political parties, and switched only when the Democrats were on the outs in Texas. Apparently, she's only gotten to where she is now by knowing the right people, and being a woman. Although the Consitution gives no qualifications for Supreme Court Justices, I'm sure that if there were some, Miers would not meet them.

So we have a litgation lawyer who's a political insider with no constitutional background. Not good, but does that mean that she is going to be confirmed by the Senate? I would hope not, but the political reality is that Bush will probably twist enough Senator arms to get her confirmed. He doesn't want another Bork on his hands.

I have really bad vibes about her appointment, the more I think about it. But the President has made his bed, now he must lay in it.