Thomas Sowell on Miers

You know Jim, I dislike arguing with you. Number 1, because I respect your opinions and consider you one of the best writers I've ever read, and 2, because I know I'm at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to debating skills. [g] I was surfing around after writing my last post this morning and found this column by Thomas Sowell over at Town Hall. He sums up some of what I've been trying to get across, plus a lot more.

Conservatives who have for years contributed time, money, and sweat to help elect Republicans have often been justifiably outraged at the way the Republicans have then let them down, wimped out, or even openly betrayed the promises on which they were elected.

Much of that frustration and anger is now being directed at President Bush for his nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Why not someone like Judge Janice Rogers Brown or any of a number of other identifiable judges with a proven history of upholding conservative judicial principles under fire?

Looming in the background is the specter of people like Justice Anthony Kennedy, who went on the High Court with a "conservative" label and then succumbed to the Washington liberal culture. But while the past is undeniable, it is also not predestination.

This administration needs to be held responsible for its own shortcomings but not those of previous Republican administrations.

I agree. This is one of my biggest arguments regarding the reaction to this nomination. Why is everyone so SURE Miers is going to be anouther Souter? No one can possibly know that, and I go back to the fact that I believe Bush is aware of how important this pick is. I don't believe he would cavalierly choose someone who is simply not qualified.

Rush Limbaugh has aptly called this a nomination made from a position of weakness. But there are different kinds of weakness and sometimes the difference matters.

President Bush has taken on too many tough fights -- Social Security being a classic example -- to be regarded as a man who is personally weak. What is weak is the Republican majority in the Senate.

Unfortunately, this is true...and it is something I've heard you repeat many times.

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.

Can you really argue with that? I can't. Even though we have a majority in the Senate, there are too many Rinos that we can't count on.

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.

Yes, she could. I am anxious to hear her speak at the hearings and see for myself.

We don't know. But President Bush says he has known Harriet Miers long enough that he feels sure.

For the rest of us, she is a stealth nominee. Not since The Invisible Man has there been so much stealth.

That's not ideal by a long shot. But ideal was probably never in the cards, given the weak sisters among the Republicans' Senate "majority."

I agree that it's not ideal. Frankly, I would have preferred one of the other candidates just like you would have. However, I'm not willing to attack my President because of this because I'm sure there are reasons for his choosing Miers that we simply don't know.

There is another aspect of this. The Senate Democrats huffed and puffed when Judge John Roberts was nominated but, in the end, he faced them down and was confirmed by a very comfortable margin.

The Democrats cannot afford to huff and puff and then back down, or be beaten down, again. On the other hand, they cannot let a high-profile conservative get confirmed without putting up a dogfight to satisfy their left-wing special interest groups.

That's true. Perhaps Bush didn't think the Senate Republicans had it in them to fight the Democrats again. Perhaps he knows Miers will vote just as conservatively (or constitutionally, if you prefer) as the other candidates, but will be much easier to confirm.

Perhaps that is why some Democrats seem to welcome this stealth nominee. Even if she turns out to vote consistently with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the Democrats are off the hook with their base because they can always say that they had no idea and that she stonewalled them at the confirmation hearings.

The bottom line with any Supreme Court justice is how they vote on the issues before the High Court. It would be nice to have someone with ringing rhetoric and dazzling intellectual firepower. But the bottom line is how they vote. If the President is right about Harriet Miers, she may be the best choice he could make under the circumstances.

That is certainly a viable possibility, and one I'm willing to consider. Again, I think Bush recognizes that his nominations to the Supreme Court are of the utmost importance, and it frankly surprises me that so many who have been his staunch supporters now all of a sudden think he went stupid on them. I just don't think so. I think he knows exactly what he's doing.