From the AP, “Miers known for staying out of limelight”:
Among a host of qualities that White House counsel Harriet Ellan Miers shares with new Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts is the apparent lack of any personal legal agenda. Known for an exacting, no-nonsense style, Miers—like Roberts—tends to avoid the limelight.
Once described by White House chief of staff Andrew Card as “one of the favorite people in the White House,” Miers has been there for President Bush at every turn for more than a decade.
She was Bush’s personal lawyer in Texas, took on the thankless job of cleaning up the Texas Lottery when he was governor, and followed him to Washington to serve as staff secretary, the person who controls every piece of paper that crosses the president’s desk.
In 2004, Bush appointed her White House counsel, calling her “a talented lawyer whose great integrity, legal scholarship and grace have long marked her as one of America’s finest lawyers.” He articulated his high regard for her more memorably during a 1996 awards ceremony when he called her “a pit bull in size 6 shoes.”
Miers, 60, has a string of firsts on her resume that track her quiet but steady march to the top echelons of power: first woman hired by her law firm in 1972, first woman president of the Dallas Bar Association in 1985, first woman president of the Texas State Bar in 1992, first woman president of her law firm in 1996.
Card, in a 2003 interview with the publication Texas Lawyer, said Bush’s affinity for Miers is clear in the frequent invitations she receives to visit the presidential retreat at Camp David, “a privilege that is not enjoyed by a lot of staff.”
“She’s a quiet, highly respected force and someone who is seen as not having any agenda other than the president’s,” he said.
Miers was one of the candidates put forth by Harry Reid, which, on a gut level, makes me uncomfortable with the selection; Juan Williams, too, is happy, which gives me pause as well. But I confess to knowing so little about her that it’s difficult for me to comment one way or the other.
I think many conservatives who were hoping for someone they know to be small government (like Janice Rogers Brown) will be disappointed; but Bush is extraordinarily loyal, he holds Miers in high regard, and—as the AP report notes—Miers brings with her the kind of nondescript, noncontroversial background that served John Roberts so well.
Liberal reaction, so far, has started forming around the “cronyism” meme (Naomi Wolf is calling her a “stealth candidate”)—and around intimations about Miers’ sexuality, which at least one progressive champion of tolerance has taken pains to disguise as a “thought experiment,” attributing potential outrage about her bedroom proclivities to a cartoon of Christian fundies. Here’s Pesky Apostrophe:
The very first thing I thought is that the Christian religious extremists might have a problem with Miers. She’s 60, never been married, no children? That should probably send up a red light with them. Whether it’s just that she’s extremely devoted to her career or if she bats for the other team, you know they don’t truck with women who aren’t committed to the penis and offspring and presenting the pot roast while wearing pearls.
Interesting. The very first thing I thought was “is she qualified?” But then I’m a little stodgy—and tend not to jump right to concerns over what kind of parties take place in a 60-year old cooch.
And here’s Wonkette’s, whose suggestiveness is at least clever: it seems Miers gave equally to the campaigns of Bush and Gore, and also to the Senate campaigns of Hutchison and Bentsen. Quips Wonkette, “Since Harriet Miers is a 60-year-old lifelong bachelorette, it should come as no surprise that she swings both ways. We just didn’t expect proof of it to come so soon…”
(h/t misunderestimated; Confederate Yankee)
So by saying I’m “misunderestimated,” and you implying that I hide my intelligence well?
Methinks that is not much of a compliment.
It does smack a little of cronyism, but since at that level of government it is unlikely that anyone being nominated wouldn’t be running in the same circles as the President, I’m not as concerned.
I’m more concerned that she seems unbelievably undistinguished for a job like Supreme Court justice. She was a partner at a decent firm, but no judicial experience or academic distinction. Everything else seems like political hackery (state bar hoohah and political appointments). I guess I prefer her to a genius with whom I’ll always disagree, but this seems like an insult to the institution. Anyway, it could have been worse.
I’m with Allah (damn, that feels good to type!) who is of the opinion (from over at Ace’s comments) that with the conservative “deep bench” the Prez should have been able to dig up a far better, known originalist to nominate.
At best, this demonstrates a remarkably tin ear to the current political realities. The dems will flog the cronyism theory (and honestly, its gonna resonate, with the background that Miers brings) and the base is gonna sit on its hands. Bush and the GOP better hope the hand sitting don’t last through 2006. Missed opportunity. Big time.
I’m siding with the “Who the heck is this person?” crew. She sounds nice enough, but does that really mean she’s qualified?
Jeff –
A question as regards your promotion of “intentionalism”: Is the sort of statement that I’ve quoted here at odds with it? Are you, in fact, playing a PoMo game of pretending to discern an “intimation” where a “thought experiment” was intended?
I’m not saying you’re wrong in this specific instance, but does your insistance on intentionalism require us to take the claim of a “thought experiment” or something similar at face value, or are we free to interpret it as a smear, because we know that’s the sort of thing that lefties do?
I’m not criticizing here. I’m generally confused about this aspect of the intentionalist proposition, and would appreciate some clarification.
TW: “Truth”. That thing just gets scarier by the day.
Because of her frienship with the president she is probably willing to be the sacrificial lamb to a filibuster. I doubt if any of the other stronger canidates would do the same.
This was my thought as well.
TW: “Want”. Maybe she doesn’t actually want the job.
Let’s see our President has:
Signed the biggest, most pork-laden transportation bill in history,
Declared that poverty in the Gulf region “has roots in a history of racial discrimination”, while ignoring the destructive effects of government corruption and the welfare state,
Followed the advice of Harry Reid in choosing a Supreme Court nominee.
Who won the election last year?
”…And the prize for first person ever to use the phrase, ‘60 year old cooch,’ in a discussion of Supreme Court nominations goes to…”
You interpret it based on what you think his intention is, and then you use the surrounding indicators (his other writings, his phrasing, his use of irony, his follow-up defense, etc.) to make your case that you are interpreting his intent correctly. It’s interesting you single out this piece—because the author is clearly denying the intent I’ve atrributed to him. But that just means I think he’s lying. I believe he’s trying to walk back his original post a bit now that the wingnuts have found him out and now that he realizes how crude his suggestion came across.
But what’s important is that I am NOT saying it doesn’t matter whether he “meant” it or not; I am saying that he meant it, whether he wants to admit to it now or not. I’m appealing to intent.
Had I said that whether he means it or not, his words are insensitive blah blah blah, I’d be engaging in a linguistically incoherent “interpretation,” because I’d be attributing to HIM an interpretation that relies on MY signification, not HIS.
Harriet as a stalking-horse candidate would imply some fairly evil things about Bush and his advisors. Count me in the ‘this is a political favor for good service’ camp.
I’ll be interested to hear the results of the upcoming confirmation hearings. Roberts was almost a complete known based on his past judiciary experience, so the hearings were almost a formality. But Miers needs to undergo a good grilling before I’ll be comfortable she’s qualified.
You know that there is no chance that the party will block their own nominee, right? I’m also going to assume that you further realize that if the party did block the nominee for being insufficiently conservative, Bush would hardly reward that disloyalty by folding like a card table.
If you think this is a Rovian genius stratagem – nominate someone insufficiently conservative, rile the base, pull the name, placate the base with, say, Luttig – you’ve gone farther than even I’m willing to go, and I hate that guy. (And by “that guy” I could mean anyone you are thinking of.)
I like the “sacrificial lamb” theory as an explanation for this seemingly thoughtless pick; my own thoughts turned to the notion that Bush, having won with Roberts, is anticipating an ugly mess of a battle with respect to any Justice with clear socio-conservative bona-fides (I’m really going out on a limb, there, wot?). What to do? Find an unknown, and a woman to boot, to possibly get through the approval process successfully. I mean, if the President’s ALLIES don’t know what sort of judge she is/will be, what the hell will his opponents be able to dig up to use against her during the confirmation process?
What if the Rove-puppet Bush actually knows that Miers is a staunch constitutionalist and social conservative? Based on conversations over beer and spinach-and-artichoke dip at the local Friday’s, of course. But then, I’m almost neurotically optimistic abouth these things.
TW: Stay, as in “stay the hell away from my uterus, you penis-wielding neanderthal!”
You know, I said as much last week, and got hammered for it, but even I didn’t go so far as to think Bush would name Meiers.
Ugh.
The discussion with Lowry’s source reminds me of Senator Hruska’s comment about the failed pre-Blackmun nomination of Carswell:
“On January 19, 1970, president Richard Nixon nominated G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court. While Carswell’s nomination was promptly rejected by the Senate, Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska presented a novel argument in his defense:
I meant to only steal the quote, but since I accidentally pasted more than just the Hruska quote, here is my source for it. (And it occurs to me that I posted this under the wrong entry.)
I’m far from a Bush apologist. I have criticized him for his failure to reign in Gov’t spending just as much as I have applauded him for his foreign policy initiatives. The one constant that I have seen in Bush, is that he is a man of honor. When he has said something he has meant it.
I think the “disappointment” on the Conservative side is the lack of an “in your face” nominee, like Estrada or, heaven forbid, Gonzales. I don’t know that Bush knows Estrda, Owens, Luttig or McConnel. For those choices he would have to rely on a paper trail and reccommendations from advisors. There is no question that Bush knows Meirs. Perhaps he knows, and we don’t, what kind of Justice she will be. She obviously has one qualification that those others I mentioned don’t – she will be confirmed without a filibuster.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Bush and Rove are sitting in the Oval office laughing their asses off, with Bush telling Rove how he got Reid to suggest Meirs for him. I’m not saying “Trust Bush”, I’m saying that we should look at the empirical data (his Judicial nominees), look at the quality of the man (Bush) and wake up to the fact that he has known and trusted this woman’s judgement for over 10 years. He KNOWS how she thinks, the Dems don’t.
I personally think that Bush nominated someone that shares his Judicial Philosophy that will leave the Dems shaking their heads, take the prospect of a filibuster off the table and result in a seemingly bi-partisan confirmation.
Or, I could be wrong about all of that and Bush is seriously lacking in intelligence, is politically naive and is just resulting to “cronyism” to repay a loyal attendant.
Hmmmm.
Well I certainly feel rewarded for twenty-five years of carrying the GOP on my back.
Maybe the GOP will have us conservatives build them a couple of fucking pyramids while we’re at it.
The problem, as I understand it, is that, to go back to the William Bennett thing, the lefties would also claim (and indeed have done in comments here) that Bennett is lying about his intent, and that his intent was to race bait. Granted, some other lefties would say that it doesn’t matter if he intended to or not since the set of signfiers he used to could be construed as race baiting.
Am I right in making a distinction between the two camps (not withstanding that some people may be claiming both at the same time)?
With the Bennett thing, I pointed out that thinking Bennett’s utterances were racist because one believes Bennett is racist is linguistically coherent, because it was based on a presumption of intent (conscious or unconscious) –though I believe it’s a very poor case. Those who say Bennett isn’t a racist, but who insist his words were—whether he intended them to be or not—are engaging in self-signification; attributing that to Bennett is an incoherent linguistic position.
Okay. I think I get your position now.