Back To The Drawing Board
A quick, linkless entry this morning. I was having internet trouble at home last night.
Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination for the Supreme Court. I have to say, first of all, I feel for her on a human level for the the ringer she has been put through. I can't imagine what it must be like to be so close to the brass ring, and have it yanked away from you. (Maybe Al Gore does.) I hope she realizes it isn't personal, but it doesn't help when people like Trent Lott spout out lines like, "In a month, nobody will remember the name Harriet Miers." Because of the type of person she appears to be, Miers elicits far more sympathy than Robert Bork, for instance. But this is why I thought all along she should never have accepted this nomination and have had to go through all of this. She should have known in her own mind that she did not have the right qualifications for the job. That isn't a slight on her. I have no doubt that she's a brilliant and accomplished attorney and a fine citizen, but the Constitution is not her area of expertise. I had thought that there was enough of a ruckus about her qualifications for the job coming from the Right (Ingraham, Krauthammer, etc.) for her confirmation to be rocky. But I would never have imagined that her nomination would be torpedoed, ultimately, by those who questioned her conservative credentials. Apart from a few token objections, the Dems stayed out of the fray for the most part, which will make it easier for them to raise objections to a more overtly conservative selection, which will undoubtedly come next.
I need to take a moment to question what conservatives really want in a Supreme Court justice. I'd say that most of them want someone who will have a conservative interpretation of the Constitution. But others have argued that they don't care if the justice is conservative or liberal, just as long as they interpret the Constitution as written - which will usually result in an opinion favorable to conservatives. Some have even opined that you don't even need a lawyer, just somebody with good reading comprehension skills. Really, I don't know how these folks define the term "Originalist" or "Strict Constructionist". I have seen very little in life that isn't open to some degree of interpretation. If every law were followed to the letter, there would be very few of us left who weren't either in jail or destitute from fines - and almost no cars left on the road. If that's all it took to be on the Supreme Court, computers could be employed as justices. If Jewish scholars can argue over the Talmud for two thousand years, people of good faith can have different interpretations of the more nuanced portions of the Constitution.
Everyone have a Merry Fitz-mas.
posted by Jaymeister at 10/28/2005 07:45:00 a.m.
2 Comments:
Good analysis.
I was one of the anti-anti-Miers supporters. It'll be interesting to see how all of this will play out in the end. I wonder how much damage the conservatives might have done to themselves. I certainly think we've been exposed to be hypocritical, and can no longer occupy the high road when we talk about "activist judges". Hugh Hewitt gave a nice piece in the NY Times.
I don't know if I'm one who thinks that the Constitution shouldn't be a "living, breathing" document. So much in society relies upon the ability to evolve and adapt; sometimes, tradition leads to stagnation.
I think most conservatives are fooling themselves if they really believe that what they are looking for is someone who will interpret the Constitution exactly the way the Founding Fathers intended it, rather than that they are looking for someone who will be a conservative activist judge, voting in favor of conservative principles. I think the split over Harriet Miers exposed that, wide open.
The big issue seems to be Roe v. Wade and abortion. Me? I'm kind of middle-of-the-road-conflicted on this.
Wordsmith,
Always great to hear from you. I really think the whole Roe v. Wade issue has been an unnecessary tempest. There are plenty of liberal intellectuals who believe, as a lot of conservatives do, that the main problem with the Roe decision as written is that it is bad law. Furthermore, some like Eric Alterman have argued that overturning it would be a good thing for liberal politicians because a conservative rallying cry will have been taken away. In reality, even if Roe were overturned I doubt you'd see a return to back alley abortions in many states. You say that you're middle-of-the-road on that. I believe that everything within reason should be done to prevent abortions from taking place but, ultimately, the mother should have the final say on the matter. It's not something that I take lightly, and I try to demonstrate that "pro-choice" isn't synonymous with "pro-abortion".
As for "activist judges", that's a term that politicians on both sides use to advance their agenda. It's only the result that matters. What else is new? If the 2000 election had the reverse result, do you not think that each side would have taken the very opposite position in arguing their case? Regardless of who's argument you think was right, you know that this would have happened.
More people on both sides are getting wise to this. There is plenty of disdain by bloggers for their own parties. I don't think that's a bad thing.
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