I’ve not written anything about the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court yet. I think it’s mostly because I’m not sure where my opinion is on this nomination.
Ms. Miers, on a personal level, sounds like a terrific woman who I would be happy to know, would be happy to have teach my children in Sunday School, etc. It sounds like she’s a pretty decent lawyer and a great human being. It sounds like she is genuinely an evangelical Christian, which tells me quite a bit about her beliefs…. but not much of anything about her views of the Constitution. As David Frum notes on National Review Online today: (emphasis in original)
Anthony Kennedy is personally pro-life too. That has not stopped him from reaffirming the Roe v. Wade. [sic]
The much-embattled, sometime controversial, but unquestionably brilliant Judge Robert Bork weighs in on OpinionJournal this morning, and he gives a devastating critique of both Miers and President Bush. An excerpt:
With a single stroke–the nomination of Harriet Miers–the president has damaged the prospects for reform of a left-leaning and imperialistic Supreme Court, taken the heart out of a rising generation of constitutional scholars, and widened the fissures within the conservative movement. That’s not a bad day’s work–for liberals.
There is, to say the least, a heavy presumption that Ms. Miers, though undoubtedly possessed of many sterling qualities, is not qualified to be on the Supreme Court. It is not just that she has no known experience with constitutional law and no known opinions on judicial philosophy. It is worse than that. As president of the Texas Bar Association, she wrote columns for the association’s journal. David Brooks of the New York Times examined those columns. He reports, with supporting examples, that the quality of her thought and writing demonstrates absolutely no “ability to write clearly and argue incisively.”
Yikes.
I am beginning to think that we will see an odd sight at the confirmation hearings – a bunch of Democrats who will support her confirmation, because they know that they could have done a lot worse – and then Republicans who will oppose her nomination because she doesn’t have any record of judicial philosophy to stand on.
My preference would be that she either withdraw her name or that the President withdraw her name from the proceedings. They can find her another job; some have suggested a nice Federal appeals court position where she can get some judicial experience. Then let’s get a nominee with real conservative, originalist credentials… and then let’s have a confirmation battle.