| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Captain Compassion" |
| Date: |
04 Oct 2005 11:38:57 AM |
| Object: |
Don't misunderestimate Miers |
Don't misunderestimate Miers
The American Thinker ^ | 9-4-05 | Thomas Lifson
President Bush is a politician trained in strategic thinking at
Harvard Business School, and schooled in tactics by experience and
advice, including the experience and advice of his father, whose most
lasting political mistake was the nomination of David Souter. The
nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court shows that he has
learned his lessons well. Regrettably, a large contingent of
conservative commentators does not yet grasp the strategy and tactics
at work in this excellent nomination.
There is a doom-and-gloom element on the Right which is just waiting
to be betrayed, convinced that their hardy band of true believers will
lose by treachery those victories to which justice entitles them. They
are stuck in the decades-long tragic phase of conservative politics,
when country club Republicans inevitably sold out the faith in order
to gain acceptability in the Beltway media and social circuit. Many on
the right already are upset with the President already over his
deficit spending, and his continued attempts to elevate the tone of
politics in Washington in the face of ongoing verbal abuse by
Democrats and their media allies. They misinterpret his missing verbal
combativeness as weakness.
There is also a palpable hunger for a struggle to the death with hated
and verbally facile liberals like Senator Chuck Schumer. Having seen
that a brilliant conservative legal thinker with impeccable elite
credentials can humble the most officious voices of the Judiciary
Committee, they deamnd a replay. Thus we hear conservatives sniffing
that a Southern Methodist University legal education is just too
non-Ivy League, adopting a characteristic trope of blue state
elitists. We hear conservatives bemoaning a lack of judicial
experience, and not a single law review article in the last decade as
evidence of a second rate mind.
These critics are playing the Democrats’ game. The GOP is not the
party which idolizes Ivy League acceptability as the criterion of
intellectual and mental fitness. Nor does the Supreme Court ideally
consist of the nine greatest legal scholars of an era. Like any small
group, it is better off being able to draw on abilities of more than
one type of personality. The Houston lawyer who blogs under the name
of Beldar wisely points out that practicing high level law in the real
world and rising to co-managing partner of a major law firm not only
demonstrates a proficient mind, it provides a necessary and valuable
perspective for a Supreme Court Justice, one which has sorely been
lacking.
Ms. Miers has actually managed a business, a substantial one with
hundreds of employees, and has had to meet a payroll and conform to
tax, affirmative acttion, and other regulatory demands of the state.
She has also been highly active in a White House during wartime, when
national security considerations have been a matter of life and death.
When the Supreme Court deliberates in private, I think most
conservatives would agree that having such a perspective at hand is a
good thing, not a bad thing.
Other conservatives are dismayed that the President is playing
politics (!), rather than simply choosing the “best” candidate. But
the President understands that confirmation is nothing but a political
game, ever since Robert Bork, truly one of the finest legal minds of
his era, was demonized and defeated.
The President’s smashing victory in obtaining 78 votes for the
confirmation of John Roberts did not confirm these conservative
critics in their understanding of the President’s formidable abilities
as a nominator of Justices. Au contraire, this taste of Democrat
defeat whetted their blood lust for confirmation hearing combat
between the likes of a Michael Luttig or a Janice Rogers Brown and the
Judiciary Committee Democrats. Possibly their own experience of
debating emotive liberals over-identifies them with verbal combat as
political effectiveness.
In part, I think these conservatives have unwittingly adopted the
Democrats’ playbook, seeing bombast and ‘gotcha’ verbal games as the
essence of political combat. Victory for them is seeing the enemy
bloodied and humiliated. They mistake the momentary thrill of triumph
in combate, however evanescent, for lasting victory where it counts: a
Supreme Court comprised of Justices who will assemble majorities for
decisions reflecting the original intent of the Founders.
Rather than extend any benefit of the doubt to the President’s White
House lawyer and counselor, some take her lack of a paper trail and a
history of vocal judicial conservatism as a sign that she may be an
incipient Souter. They implicitly believe that the President is not
adhering to his promise of nominating Justices in the mold of Scalia
and Thomas. The obvious differences between Souter, a man personally
unknown to Bush 41, and Miers, a woman who has known Bush 43 for
decades, and who has served as his close daily advisor for years, are
so striking as to make this level of distrust rather startling. Having
seen the Souter debacle unfold before his very eyes, the President is
the last man on earth to recapitulate it.
He anticipates and is defusing the extremely well-financed opposition
which Democrat interest groups will use against any nominee. Yes, he
is playing politics by nominating a female. A defeated nominee does
him and the future of American jurisprudence no favors. By presenting
a female nominee, he kicks a leg out from under the stool on which the
feminist left sits. Not just a female, but a career woman, one who has
not raised children, not married a male, and has a number of “firsts”
to her credit as a pioneer of women's achievement in Texas law. Let
the feminists try to demonize her.
If they do so, almost inevitably, they will seize on her religious
beliefs and practice. Some on the left will not be able to restrain
their scorn for an evangelical Christian Sunday school teacher from
Dallas, and this will hurt them. They will impose a religious test
against a member of a group accounting of a third of the voting base.
Speculation on her being a lesbian has already started. "She sure
seems like a big ol' Texas lesbian to me," as one of the Kos Kidz put
it.
They are going to make themselves look very ugly.
The President must also prepare himself for a possible third nominee
to the Court. With the oldest Justice 85 years old, and the vagaries
of mortality for all of us being what they are, it is quite possible
that a third (or even fourth) opportunity to staff the Court might
come into play. Defusing, demoralizing and discrediting the reflexive
opposition groups in the Democrats’ base is an important goal for the
President, and for his possible Republican successors in office.
Then there is the small matter of actually influencing Supreme Court
decision-making.
This president understands small group dynamics in a way that fewif
any of his predecessors ever have. Perhaps this is because he was
educated at Harvard Business School in a legendary course then-called
Human Behavior in Organizations. The Olympian Cass Gilbert-designed
temple/courtroom/offices of the Supreme Court obscure the fact that it
is a small group, subject to very human considerations in its
operations. Switching two out of nine members in a small group has the
potential to entirely alter the way it operates. Because so much of
managerial work consists of getting groups of people to work
effectively, Harvard Business School lavishes an extraordinary amount
of attention on the subject.
One of the lessons the President learned at Harvard was the way in
which members of small groups assume different roles in their
operation, each of which separate roles can influence the overall
function. The new Chief Justice is a man of unquestioned brilliance,
as well as cordial disposition. He will be able to lead the other
Justices through his intellect and knowledge of the law. Having
ensured that the Court’s formal leader meets the traditional and
obvious qualities of a Justice, and is a man who indeed embodies the
norms all Justices feel they must follow, there is room for attending
to other important roles in group process.
According to a source in her Dallas church quoted by Marvin Olasky,
Harriet Miers is someone who
taught children in Sunday School, made coffee, brought donuts:
"Nothing she's asked to do in church is beneath her."
As the court’s new junior member, the 60 year old lady Harriet Miers
will finally give a break to Stephen Breyer, who has been relegated to
closing and opening the door of the conference room, and fetching
beverages for his more senior Justices. Her ability to do this type of
work with no resentment, no discomfort, and no regrets will at the
least endear her to the others. It will also confirm her as the person
who cheerfully keeps the group on an even keel, more comfortable than
otherwise might be the case with a level of emotional solidarity.
But there is much more to it than group solidarity, important though
that ineffable spiritual qualty may be. Ms. Miers embodies the work
ethic as few married people ever could. She reportedly often shows up
for work at the White House at 5 AM, and doesn’t leave until 9 or 10
PM. I have no doubt that she will continue her extraordinary
dedication to work once confirmed to the Court. She will not only win
the admiration of those Justices who work shorter hours, she will
undoubtedly be appreciated by the law clerks who endure similar hours,
working on the research and writing for the Justices. These same law
clerks interact with their bosses in private, and their influence
intellectual and emotional may be more profound than some Justices
might like to admit.
The members of the Supreme Court all see themselves as serving the
public and the law to the best of their abilities. Their self-regard
depends on their belief in the righteousness and fairness of their
deliberations. They must listen to the arguments of the other
Justices. But their susceptibility to viewpoints they had not yet
considered is matter of both an intellectual and emotional character.
Open-mindedness uusally requires an unfreezing of deeply and
emotionally-held convictions.
Having proven herself capable of charming the likes of Harry Reid,
leader of the Senate Democrats, is there much room for doubt that
Harriet Miers is capable of opening up opponents emotionally to hear
and actually consider as potentially worthwhile the views of those
they might presume to be their enemies?
George Bush has already succeeded in having confirmed a
spectacularly-qualified intellectual leader of the Court in Chief
Justice Roberts. If conservatives don’t sabotage his choice, Harriet
Miers could make an enormous contribution toward building Court
majorities for interpretations of the Constitution faithful to the
actual wording of the document.
--
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy." -- John Updike
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
res0mp8t@NOSPAMverizon.net
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| User: "Jeff W." |
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| Title: Re: Don't misunderestimate Miers |
04 Oct 2005 12:28:35 PM |
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"Captain Compassion" <res0mp8t@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote in message
news:lkb5k11t166v01ljb5toi3bungjnsvmao0@4ax.com...
President Bush is a politician trained in strategic thinking at
Harvard Business School,
<laughter>
and schooled in tactics by experience and advice
<guffaw>
But seriously folks. . .
-Jeff
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