Harriett Miers

Since I am not blogging and am on sabbatical, I am not going to draft a post on Bush's Supreme Court nominee. Instead, I will use this post to collect the various comments I have posted on her elsewhere (to the extent I can remember them and then remember to place them here.)

Any questions?

From Alphecca, rebutting concerns that she was a Democrat. I've seen the reasoning I employ in defending Ms. Miers elsewhere, but haven't seen anyone express as early as I have.

n 1988 Al Gore was a much different beast than the Al Gore of the Clinton Gore years or the Al Gore of the Bush Gore season.

Instead of being a loony moonbat gun banner, Al was known as something of a firey conservative southern Democrat. He supported the war in Iraq - to the point that he had moonbats protesting at his Knoxville office rounded up and thrown in jail for a week (one of which was my neighbor) and was pretty good on the 2nd Amendment (as anyone who wanted to win the good ol boy vote was). Of course, this was before Columbine and before the party was snookered by the far left and led to believe gun control was the solution to winning national power.

In addition, in 1988 he was running against uber liberal Michael Dukakis in the Democratic primary. Dukakis went FAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR left to secure victory while Gore took a more conservative approach, hoping to hold together the Dixiecrats and sneak out a win as the more "electable" cnadidate. It didn't work, and so it wasn't surprising to see him abandon that position 12 years later.

Still, my guess is most people would be pleased with Al Gore circa 1988.

Jeff updated his post and included a statement from Todd Zywicki of the Volokh Conspiracy raising the usual academic complaint that she isn't "qualified enough." I added an additional comment.

As far as Todd's angry missive - as much as I like his writings, he is a law professor. Conservative or liberal, I think the Ivory Tower still holds itself up too high - regardless of what they think, their SHIT stinks too.

All the reasons Todd lists to be concerned about her seem like the petty bickering of a law professor with a very limited and narrow view of the world around them - heck, these are the same people (Todd isn't, he was rightly outraged, but I am speaking about law professors generally) who didn't understand why Kelo was so outrageous - not based on property rights but based on the fact that the court had been moving in that direction for years.

I think the fact that she has been in the real world applying the law - and NOT in the Ivory Tower thinking about weird hypotheticals and worrying about making sure everyone is happy - is one of the most refreshing aspects of her nomination.

Now, I still don't know if I like her or not, but I think most of the blogsphere's reaction is simply another example of the blogsphere jumping the shark.

Finally, someone criticized her for being part of the ABA at a time when the ABA supported the formation of an International Criminal Court. At the time, this seemed to be a common concern of the right. I responded by pointing out how misplaced I thought their concerns were.

If you actually follow the WND link you see that she pretty much had nothing to do with the International Court Recommendation. Sure, the ABA recommended it, but there are millions of lawyers in the ABA. She wasn't listed as the contact - or the supporter of it - she was simply an active ABA member at a time when a committee of the ABA recommended the court.

Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy posted a link to a magazine article from 1996 discussing how impressive her career had been up to that point. I thought it really cast Ms. Miers in an especially positive light and made her seem much more human than the average Sup. Court justice.

Hmmm,

Looks pretty good and I dare say she sounds better and better each day - certainly sounds like someone I'd like on the court a whole lot more than a law professor who has spent their entire career in the Ivory Tower thinking about hypotheticals and logical traps but wholly losing sight of the very personal, day to day, impact the law has on people (or corporations who are simply fictional people).

FWIW - the more I hear law professors (and Anne Coulter) complain that she isn't qualified for the court, the more I think she is.

Prof. Kerr has asked me to follow up on why I think professors lose sight of the the day to day impact law has on people. I am drafting that response now, and will post it tomorrow sometime.