Miers Nomination: The Debate Continues

Will Miers be a good pick for the Supreme Court or not? Conservatives continue to debate.

 

A sheepish looking Bill Kristol didn't back down from his now infamous statement (he is disappointed, depressed and demoralized) on Miers while discussing the nomination during his regular appearance on Fox News Sunday. In his most recent article on the Weekly Standard Kristol predicts how the hearing process will go for Miers:

[W]e are headed towards hearings that will in no way resemble the recent triumph of John Roberts. These hearings will not be easy for Miers, as she will have to at once demonstrate a real knowledge of constitutional jurisprudence, reassure conservative constitutionalists, and presumably placate Democrats as well. Conservative senators will for the most part withhold judgment until the hearings are completed. Many have already said as much, leaving open the possibility of a no vote in the event things do not go well. It would be awkward, of course, if a combination of conservative and Democratic votes defeated Miers. But this is a moment where it is more important that conservatives stand for core principles than that they stand with the president.

Read Kristol's complete article: What is To Be Done?

 

Thomas Sowell offered a bit of insight last Friday as to the reason President Bush didn't nominate a conservative judicial heavweight. A precarious majority in the Senate seems more to blame than anything else.

When it comes to taking on a tough fight with the Senate Democrats over judicial nominations, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist doesn't really have a majority to lead. Before the President nominated anybody, before he even took the oath of office for his second term, Senator Arlen Specter was already warning him not to nominate anyone who would rile up the Senate. Later, Senator John Warner issued a similar warning. It sounded like a familiar Republican strategy of pre-emptive surrender.

 

Before we can judge how the President played his hand, we have to consider what kind of hand he had to play. It was a weak hand -- and the weakness was in the Republican Senators.

But as far as Sowell is concerned, conservatives should be too quick to throw up their hand is dismay.

Does this mean that Harriet Miers will not be a good Supreme Court justice if she is confirmed? It is hard to imagine her being worse than Sandra Day O'Connor -- or even as bad.

 

 The very fact that Harriet Miers is a member of an evangelical church suggests that she is not dying to be accepted by the beautiful people, and is unlikely to sell out the Constitution of the United States in order to be the toast of Georgetown cocktail parties or praised in the New York Times. Considering some of the turkeys that Republicans have put on the Supreme Court in the past, she could be a big improvement.

Read Sowell's article: Harriet who?