The unpronounceable xrlq of Damnum Absque Injuria finds that it’s time to stop “being a presumptive opponent of Harriet Miers, and officially move into the camp of presumptively supporting her” at least in part moved by the lousy arguments of those opposing her:
The straw that broke the camel’s back was this entry, in which the two smartest Miers opponents I know both gushed over this asstastically stupid article by David Frum, which the Clam described as “required reading†for Miers supporters and opponents alike, and which Patterico then described as “a great article.†In fact, it is neither. The article is poorly reasoned, poorly edited, poorly thought through, and smacks more of some sort of personal vendetta than of a serious critique of Harriet Miers’s qualifications, or lack thereof, for the position to which she has been nominated.
Read the whole post.
I continue to have nothing for or against Harriet Miers and continue to believe that we’re going to have to wait until the Senate confirmation hearings before we can come to any kind of reasonable judgment.
But I do have something against elitism and unwritten laws. In my view unwritten laws are just a way for people in positions of influence or authority to exercise their prejudices and wield arbitrary and autocratic power. So, with that in mind, for all of those who are opposed to the elevation of Ms. Miers to the Supreme Court (and recognizing that, as I pointed out the Constitution places no prerequisites whatsoever on the members of the Supreme Court) which of the following do you wish written into law?
- Supreme Court justices must be graduates of Ivy League law schools.
- Supreme Court justices must have prior experience as judges.
- Practicing lawyers are ineligible for appointment to the Supreme Court.
- Supreme Court justices must be published constitutional scholars.
- Supreme Court justices must have been law professors (preferably at a prestigious law school).
- Supreme Court justices must not be associated with the President or otherwise known personally to him or her.
Extra credit for determining which of the Supreme Court justices of the last 50 years didn’t satisfy all of these requirements (some didn’t satisfy any of them).
I actually think that Dean Esmay nails it here:
Methinks some people–on both the right and the left–are really just mad because they were spoiling for a fight. No, not everyone, but some of them, especially on the right, really seem mad, like they wanted an angry showdown on the Senate floor.
Since when has bomb-throwing become good governance?
SOmeone today–I forget who, probably the Wall Street Journal–made the point that about a third of all justices who’ve ever served had no prior judicial experience, and that having an experienced trial lawyer on the bench is a good idea because the court currently lacks one.
Fine point. She was named one of the top 100 trial lawyers in America recently. Presidents have the privilege of picking who they want.
Xrlq actually showed me how to pronounce it once.
The major objection to Miers from the Right seems to be that she’s not Scalia in a skirt – although this “trial lawyer” business doesn’t help, since everyone knows that trial lawyers are in the Democrats’ pocket, or vice versa.
There was an Ann Coulter column this week which said, in effect, that when it comes to SCOTUS, you better believe we’re elitists, and there’s a good reason for it. I remain unpersuaded.