Junto Boys

LATEST MIERS

The White House is saying that they nominated Miers because other candidates refused the nomination. Priscilla Owen is saying that she wasn't asked. Bush is also pumping up the fact that Miers is religious.

President Bush said Wednesday his advisers were telling conservatives about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' religious beliefs because they are interested in her background and "part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."

"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers," Bush told reporters at the White House. "They want to know Harriet Miers' background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."

I know I've been the Junto Boys crank lately with my Miers concerns and baseball opinions, but the more the White House talks about Miers the more I wish we could get another nominee.

The religious thing is supposed to be some sort of code word that she's pro-life. Other sources have said as much in the last week or so. I don't want a pro-life justice, I want a justice that overturns Roe v. Wade because it's a bad law. Roe has not only changed national politics, but it has given the court carte blanche to find whatever it likes in the constitution to the point where they totally ignore what the consititution actually says in cases like Kelo.

nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

If the government could take private property to turn over to other private entities, the framers could have said "public and/or private use." To pretend it does anyway is the kind of abuse that has resulted from decisions like ROE v. WADE and other mysterious "constitutional rights."

I've read other things that suggest that she is a social conservative and a fiscal liberal. I'd much rather have it the other way. O'Connor was disappointing in cases like the University of Michigan affirmative action decision, but the White House was no better. They totally ducked the issue and Harriet Miers was probably a part of that debacle. O'Connor was on the right side of the Kelo decision, though, and I'd like to hear Miers weigh in on that one. Abortion may be grizzley, but the effects are hardest on those who choose it personally. Affirmative Action not only hurts qualified people that are passed over, it hurts the people it aims to help by putting them in situations where they're not equipped to compete with their contemporaries.

Miers herself is an affirmative action nominee because Bush wanted another female on the court. It's a shame that we give Martin Luther King a holiday and play his speech every year about judging a person's insides and then turn around and promote people based on some characteristic of their biology. And yet still he could have chosen Priscilla Owen if he absolutely needed a woman and she could have held her own. Miers seems to be a reliable vote on ROE, which the court is still a vote short on, and she'll otherwise be struggling like those quota students at the University of Michigan when it comes to writing opinions.

Two things made Bush a must in the last election. Kerry would have folded up the WAR ON TERROR tent, and he would have nominated justices that would have further eroded the meaning of the constitutional document. This open seat was an opportunity to replace O'Connor with someone that loves the Constitution more than their own inclinations.

After stumping in 2000 that campaign finance reform was unconsitutional, he refused to veto it as President, saying that the court would do so for him. So why didn't he nominate a justice with a real record on Freedom of Speech issues to see it through? Put that down with the question of why he thought we needed to expand medicare, expand the department of education, promote the searching Granny instead of Abdul and generally disappoint us with his domestic policy.