Althouse: "I eagerly await the announcement of President Bush's real nominee to the Supreme Court."

October 6, 2005

"I eagerly await the announcement of President Bush's real nominee to the Supreme Court."

Says Ann Coulter.

20 comments:

JSU said...: Krauthammer:

"But nominating a constitutional tabula rasa to sit on what is America's constitutional court is an exercise of regal authority with the arbitrariness of a king giving his favorite general a particularly plush dukedom. The only advance we've made since then is that Supreme Court dukedoms are not hereditary."; 10/6/05, 6:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Do we really know more about John Roberts than Harriet Mears? SNL doesn't think so.; 10/6/05, 7:21 PM
Condoleesa said...: That is hysterical! I think most people just take EVERYTHING too seriously.; 10/6/05, 10:02 PM
Troy said...: A factual query... When will Miers or whomever eventually gets confirmed take their seat -- immediately on confirmation? mid-term? Summer? Is there a policy on this?; 10/6/05, 10:12 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Troy: Immediately on confirmation.; 10/6/05, 10:19 PM
Ruth Anne Adams said...: Professor A: I was on a national radio show today and I used your term "hyper-qualified" to describe the new Chief Justice. The host repeated it somewhat incredulously. I got on to say that I resent that now there's a "woman's seat" on the Court. If that's the case, for the sake of us women, Bush should've at least selected the *best* woman. Where is she?; 10/6/05, 10:40 PM
stealthlawprof said...: Ruth Anne Adams -- My personal opinion is that the most qualified woman for the Supreme Court is sitting in Orangeburg, South Carolina; although a compelling case can be made for many, many others. The one given is that she has not been sitting in the White House Counsel's office.

I do think Coulter is wrong to pay so much attention to the law school Miers attended. It is not her SMU degree that makes her unqualified -- any more than Karen Williams's South Carolina degree or Diane Sykes's Marquette degree would make them unqualified. It is that in a thirty plus year legal career, Miers has never (1) litigated in front of the Supreme Court, (2) made an academic study of Supreme Court jurisprudence, (3) held a responsible position in the Department of Justice, for a major federal agency, or with a Congressional committee (personal lawyer to the President does not count), or (4) served as a federal judge.; 10/6/05, 11:06 PM
goesh said...: My lovely Janice is vigorously nodding her head in approval...; 10/7/05, 6:51 AM
Pat Patterson said...: I am absolutely mystified at the conservative blogsphere's reaction to the selection of Harriet Miers. But then I realized that as a casual reader of blogs I had missed that this is not anger at the President's selection but rather the responses of people that did not have Ms. Miers on their Fantasy League Supreme Court. Do the League rules allow a retroactive draft?; 10/7/05, 7:35 AM
bearbee said...: David Frum seems among other things to characterize Miers as being a ditherer....just not able to make a decision. Seems strange in someone having been made a company president......

http://www.c-span.org/homepage.asp
(video -see Supreme Court)

In being a corporate litigator wouldn't she need to be thoroughly familiar with aspects of constitutional law?; 10/7/05, 7:43 AM
john(classic) said...: Why do academics exalt credentials?

Most people consider credentials but only as a first glance indicator, much like one might choose the more appealingly labelled can of peas in the supermarket on the hope that the contents will comport.

Most people know, having been disappointed by advertising, that the label is but a weak and unreliable indicator, to be used when nothing else is available.

Not so with academics. The label is almost conclusively dispositive. Were a person with a degree from a small local university to apply to become a faculty member at law school the disability would be well nigh fatal -- no matter how demonstrated actual suitability. This unreasoned prejudice seems to become stronger rather than weaker with time.

Is this a guild mentality? Is it a reflection of the fact that academics deal with the abstract so that the value of their work is indeterminate?; 10/7/05, 7:49 AM
john(classic) said...: Interesting background on why she may have gone to law school at SMU:

" Ms. Miers lived with her mother, Sally, and younger brother Jeb during her SMU undergraduate and law school years. Her father, Morris Miers, suffered a stroke during her freshman year, leaving the family in financial straits.

Concerned that she couldn't afford to keep her daughter in school, Ms. Miers' mother telephoned SMU President Willis M. Tate, seeking help, said the nominee's brother, Robert Miers. The president arranged a scholarship and job for the student at the university's campus computer center, Mr. Miers said. "Harriet and the family are grateful to this day." "

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/miers/stories/100605dnnatmierssmu.17658100.html; 10/7/05, 9:27 AM
Simon said...: Stormy:
I like Miers precisely because she is not a judge. And I love her for not being an acedemic scholar. Bill Gates found her qualified enough to hire.

Two things here. First, Gates hired her as a lawyer, not a judge. The two are very different; they have very different skillsets and they have diametrically opposed mindsets. A pastry chef may be the most skilled pastry chef in all of Christendom, the first call when in need of a patry chef - yet you wouldn't hire him as a mechanic, even though that, too, involves working with his hands.

You accuse critics of elitism, but your comments reek of anti-intellectualism; you like the nomination because she has never been a Judge? Because she has never been a scholar? What possible logic undergirds such statements? It's like saying that you want to be operated on by a heart surgeon, but you want one who has never been in an operating room, and who has never studied cardiology.; 10/7/05, 9:48 AM
john(classic) said...: Simon said:
"Two things here. First, Gates hired her as a lawyer, not a judge. The two are very different; they have very different skillsets and they have diametrically opposed mindsets."

Were that true, doesn't it argue that judges ought not be lawyers?; 10/7/05, 10:26 AM
Simon said...: "Were that true, doesn't it argue that judges ought not be lawyers?"

If all judges were equal, it might be. If Miers were put on a district court, and demonstrated that she could not learn the new skillset and mindset involved, then her mistakes would be fixed by the court of appeals. If she were put on a circuit court, and demonstrated that she could not learn the new skillset and mindset involved, her mistakes could be corrected by the supreme court or a hearing en banc. If she is put on the supreme court, and cannot learn the new skillset and mindset involved, who corrects her mistakes?; 10/7/05, 11:00 AM
Simon said...: "However, the likelihood that she alone will be the cause of a poor decision is zero. She needs four others to sign off on any opinion."

...And conveniently, there will be not only four, but five others on the cout who habitually reach poor decisions, three of whom were nominated by Republican Presidents who said "trust me." After Souter, we said "never again"; the supporters of Miers are saying "look, that was then; this is different! 'Never again' schmever again; let's spin the wheel one more time!"; 10/7/05, 1:23 PM
Peter Hoh said...: So if hell freezes over and her nomination is withdrawn, will we hear that the media done her wrong?

Instead of "hell freezing over," I guess I could have gone with "when pigs fly." Well, the scrambled letters are "pgski" which kind of mixes (and garbles) the metaphor, but I'm sure it means that I should have gone with "when pigs ski."; 10/7/05, 1:56 PM
john(classic) said...: Pish posh, Simon.

We should be concerned about excellence at every level of the courts. We can't afford correcting all those lawyers, ergo, being a lawyer should be disqualifying.

They just don't have the Latin for the judging.; 10/7/05, 2:09 PM
reader_iam said...: For what it's worth, I've been having a good time wading through this evaluation of the quality law school faculties:

http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/bleiter/rankings/

And, no, not because I was looking for stuff about Ann (it's not about individual evals, as presented, anyway)! In response to discussions here and elsewhere about "elite" schools etc., I was looking for something that might be more nuanced than, say, US & World Report's ranking.

Where it gets really interesting is, after perusing the overall top-20 list (in which, btw, SMU is not included, but then again, most that are aren't Ivy League, at least as I've always understood that term), going under specific specialty areas and seeing what happens. Wow! Quite a shift, in some areas (UWis, for example, shoots up notably in Critical Theories--I didn't say I wasn't curious--and comes in a smidge above Yale. It appears to shine notably in this area, based on this tool).

I also noted that single faculty members can have a tremendous impact on rankings, based on the fact that faculty moves are noted and in some cases a point is made that a particular move can drop or catapult particular schools in the rankings.

So this elite school "thing" seems to be a bit more complex to me, at least if by elite you assume people mean the Ivies (not all of which even have law schools, after all).

This is what I love about reading blogs and other material and then shooting through the Web in search of some new information or insight. Who knew when I woke up this morning where I'd find myself headed later? I think this may be a significant reasons why bloggers blog--and why blog readers, well, read. What a sense of possibility. What a rush.; 10/7/05, 3:57 PM
john(classic) said...: Beldar is both partisan and I think exaggerating abit in his review of Miers cases. But one ought read it:
http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2005/10/a_westlaw_romp_.html#more; 10/7/05, 6:15 PM