The American Spectator

Reader Mail

The Tide Turns

10.13.05 @ 12:00AM

FAITH NO MORE
Re: Reader Mail on the Harriet Miers nomination

I have enjoyed reading your writers on line for sometime but not anymore. The hate that you all are spewing forth is too much for me. Your writers have accomplished something I didn't think possible: Outdoing the libs. You should be proud of yourselves.
-- Lou Leggett

UNEARNED
Re: Jay D. Homnick's SCOTUS Honor:

I agree. Like it or not, a nomination to the Supreme Court is a reward. It is a reward to someone who has labored long and hard in the political fields. Harriet Miers is a lawyer with all the connotations that come with the profession. First, she is a Democrat, then a Republican -- she contributes to Democrat causes AND THEN, she works quietly in the basements of power dispensing legal advice to a governor and then President.

At the same time, Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owens, et al. have stood out in front and worked to apply the law as it is written. They have suffered stinging rebukes for practicing judicial restraint. They are upstanding, elected and re-elected Conservative judges who deserve THE promotion of all time -- nomination to the Supreme Court.

Harriet Miers may be a fine Christian and a wonderful woman, but she has not earned this elevation. It has nothing to do with her gender.
-- Judy Beumler
Louisville, Kentucky

I have a friend that often sees folks getting excited over nothing and she instructs them in this manner: "Don't get your knickers in a twist!" She lets them know that things have a way of getting sorted out. I feel that way about folks fidgeting over Harriet Miers. I want to tell them to not let their knickers get in a twist. This will sort out. Let the hearings begin and either Ms. Miers will, as I suspect, be able to handle the mountains of questions about her positions, or she won't. I suspect the lady has both a backbone of steel and is firmly fixed in her ideas. After all, she didn't get to where she is floating on the ever-changing opinions of others.

So, y'all calm down and don't get your knickers in a twist, it will all sort out in the end!
-- Beverly Gunn
East Texas Rancher

Just read your article as I am waiting for the printer to complete a document and then I am heading for home. First, thanks for your comments, particularly to wait for the smoke to clear before making a decision, except as you point out, it hasn't. I will read this again in the morning; the main purpose tonight was to note the connection between your first paragraph -- the Philippine spy, and the last paragraph, sending the column to the White House in a Manila envelope. Nice!
-- Mark Davis

You are being too cute by a very large margin. "Some say that her SMU degree is a smudge in her makeup."

I am sure that you can find "some" who have said anything that you want them to have said. I am reasonably confident that you could even find "some" who would say that this latest submission of yours makes sense, from an intellectually honest point of view.

Perhaps you could identify exactly which critics of Ms. Miers are slamming her for her SMU degree. Every candidate that I have seen touted in this current mess by the conservative side is a NON IVY LEAGUE graduate. That includes the male and female candidates, the minority and majority candidates.

As far as saying that both sides are right in these diametrically opposed arguments, that is almost as silly as the nomination of Miers itself. You sound just like Ms. Miers, herself. Take two opposing sides of a debate, split the difference down the middle, and demand plaudits from both sides for your wisdom. The last person that got major plaudits for that tactic was written about in the Old Testament of the Bible. The only thing you do is to antagonize both sides and reveal yourself as too timid to make a decision. Stand in the middle of the road and see if you get hit from both directions, why don't you.
-- Ken Shreve
New Hampshire

Jay D. Homnick replies:
Here is one example of many, written by the editor of The Weekly Standard's on-line edition. (I wouldn't write that people are writing it if they weren't writing it.)

REVERSE ELITISM
Re: Lisa Fabrizio's Wishful Tinkering:

Letter to the Editor

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