Harriet Who?
Probably like many others, I'm pretty confused about the choice of Harriet Miers for Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court. At first blush, it looks like the president chose a completely unknown woman to satisfy the clamoring for a woman and make it difficult to oppose her on her unknown philosophy.
The twilight zone moments are present in the fact that, right now, there are more conservatives opposing the nomination than liberals. Stranger still is that you have both Harry Reid and James Dobson endorsing her.
Conservative opposition takes a couple of forms. Some oppose Harriet because they really wanted the huge fight that was promised over this nomination. They wanted to go head to head with the Democrats over a well known strict constructionist, partly just because they love a good fight but more because they want to force the Senate to remove the filibuster rules being used so ably by the Dems to block all sorts of planks in the conservative platform from becoming law. Other conservatives just wanted someone appointed who fits perfectly in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. Bring back Bork!
Reporting on Harriet is just as confusing. She contributed to the Gore campaign. No, she didn't, the press got her mixed up with someone else who contributed to Gore. She's a pro-life Sunday school teacher. No, she's got a history of supporting a woman's "right to choose". Bush, Cheney, and even Mitch Daniels are reassuring all of us that Harriet is a great choice for the court, based on their extensive knowledge of her through working closely with her for years. So why, then are important liberals supporting her?
Charges from both sides of cronyism seem to be justified in a way, but who ever said a president could not nominate a friend, or crony? That in itself should not disqualify an otherwise capable nominee. But that's the bottom line question - how can we know how well qualified Harriet is for the job? And we won't know her true judicial philosophy until she takes her seat on the court and begins to cast votes in important cases.
The twilight zone moments are present in the fact that, right now, there are more conservatives opposing the nomination than liberals. Stranger still is that you have both Harry Reid and James Dobson endorsing her.
Conservative opposition takes a couple of forms. Some oppose Harriet because they really wanted the huge fight that was promised over this nomination. They wanted to go head to head with the Democrats over a well known strict constructionist, partly just because they love a good fight but more because they want to force the Senate to remove the filibuster rules being used so ably by the Dems to block all sorts of planks in the conservative platform from becoming law. Other conservatives just wanted someone appointed who fits perfectly in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. Bring back Bork!
Reporting on Harriet is just as confusing. She contributed to the Gore campaign. No, she didn't, the press got her mixed up with someone else who contributed to Gore. She's a pro-life Sunday school teacher. No, she's got a history of supporting a woman's "right to choose". Bush, Cheney, and even Mitch Daniels are reassuring all of us that Harriet is a great choice for the court, based on their extensive knowledge of her through working closely with her for years. So why, then are important liberals supporting her?
Charges from both sides of cronyism seem to be justified in a way, but who ever said a president could not nominate a friend, or crony? That in itself should not disqualify an otherwise capable nominee. But that's the bottom line question - how can we know how well qualified Harriet is for the job? And we won't know her true judicial philosophy until she takes her seat on the court and begins to cast votes in important cases.
posted by Dan S. at 8:10 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home