Reader Mail
In Dogged Pursuit
Searching for the real Harriet Miers. Also: On Saddam's trial. Serenity seekers. Lessons in Aramaic. Plus much more.
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WHERE’S HER PEDIGREE?
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Re: Andrew Cline’s
The
Conservative Problem With Harriet Miers
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Mr. Cline makes a very good point on a Supreme Court selection. I might liken the choice of a justice to judging AKC dog breeds. One can go down to the pound or one can go to a certified breeder and get a dog. Now either will end up as a likeable, dependable pet or a candidate. But when it comes to making it to the blue ribbon or the SCOTUS it is almost a certainty that one have papers.
And that is the problem, Miers, lacking any paper trail cannot either run afoul of the confirmation nor can she be certified as a legal conservative. Now it is not required to have a legal background to the SCOTUS but it helps. But one must have a critical eye and a burning memory to at least say, “Where does it say that in the Articles?” Living in Texas, I know first hand the “get along come along” political style down here. Such attitudes are critically the last thing you want in a Supreme Court justice.
p>President Bush, you brought home a mongrel. We the base paid for an AKC registered Rotweiler, so deliver the same. br> — John McGinnis br> Arlington, Texas /p>After reading Mr. Cline’s analysis of the reasons for the conservative criticisms of the appointment of Harriet Miers, I have to respectfully disagree with him. He brings up many seemingly valid points of concern that conservatives may have with Ms. Miers, but I think that the reason for the strenuous opposition to this appointment is much simpler : disappointment.
For thirty years, conservatives have watched the court slip ever more into the morass of liberal activism. They have lost the battles over abortion, the institutional discrimination known as affirmative action, socialist practices of welfare, the rise of deviant behavior as protected speech and the removal of historical Christianity as protected speech and practice under the First Amendment. All these battles have been lost, not through the actions of the peoples’ elected representatives, but through the actions of five or six “jurists.”
