Another heavweight against.
For half a century, liberals have corrupted the courts by turning them into an instrument of radical social change on questions -- school prayer, abortion, busing, the death penalty -- that properly belong to the elected branches of government. Conservatives have opposed this arrogation of the legislative role and called for restoration of the purely interpretive role of the court. To nominate someone whose adult life reveals no record of even participation in debates about constitutional interpretation is an insult to the institution and to that vision of the institution.
There are 1,084,504 lawyers in the United States. What distinguishes Harriet Miers from any of them, other than her connection with the president? To have selected her, when conservative jurisprudence has J. Harvie Wilkinson, Michael Luttig, Michael McConnell and at least a dozen others on a bench deeper than that of the New York Yankees, is scandalous.
What's great about this process is that conservatives like Krauthammer aren’t arguing her beliefs but her qualifications. You'd never hear a debate like this on the Left. As long as a nominee supports convenience store abortions they’re in. The Left is missing a big chance to criticize a Bush nominee here, because they'd rather have a lightweight than Luttig.
1 comment:
The debate over qualifications is bewildering. Aren't the real issues (1) whether this nomination successfully moves the court to the right and (2) whether it is important to have the bench-clearing brawl over ideology?
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