10/4/05
The nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court scares the shit out of me. Liberals and progressives are breathing a cautious sigh of relief because the right-wing nutjobs are frothing at the mouth, but I think it's a ploy and we're being had. She could be the biggest disaster on the Supreme Court since Clarence Thomas, and it'll be slipped right under our noses.
I've heard several opinions saying Miers is a "selection borne out of weakness," but when has that ever held true for the Bush/Rove administration? These are people that promised to be "uniters" in 2000 and then became the meanest bunch of motherflubbers since the Whigs. In 2004, they thought 51% of the electorate meant a "mandate." These people have never cared what anyone thought of them, shoved through as many insanely ideological circuit judges as possible, tried to outlaw gays in the Constitution, kept sending American kids to their deaths in a war that nobody wants anymore, and people think that Miers is a choice made from weakness?
"Oh, but Katrina and Iraq and Abu Ghraib and DeLay and Frist, etc.," you might say, but I think that only makes these people more brazen. They could be on a drowning raft in a lake of fire and still maintain that they create their own reality. Look at Bush's statements today: that she is "never going to change." Glad to know that arguments are useless in front of her, which is always a great characteristic for a judge hearing cases.
She is getting this job because of a decade of loyal, dogged, unwavering service to BushCo., and she's been appointed to the Supreme Court, whose main charge is to provide checks on the Presidency? And she's never argued a case? Has no paper trail? When did we become so used to this kind of unbelievable mediocrity? This is THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT. Does that mean anything anymore?
And the more I delved into my soul on this one, the more the question kept coming up: when did we become so used to such mediocrity in our entire world? I don't want to get too touch-feely and metaphysical here, but grant me this one question... in a world where everything could be so much better, why are we satisfied with things being so shitty?
There is a commercial on right now - by Toyota, for the Prius and Highlander Hybrid, no less - that asks a simple question: What would it be like if the air were clean again? It's beautifully shot, with waving wheat and sensational sunsets over Scottish shores, and though it sounds like a cliché, it really does put the viewer into a sort of reverie.
Why do we have to be scared to get on an airplane? Why are there metal detectors at schools? Why is there Islamic fundamentalism? Why do progressives and conservatives hate each other so much? Why is there any poverty in this country? Why is the Arctic ice cap melting? Because men, or mankind, causes all these things to happen, and with a few tweaks - tiny blips on the great historical timeline - we could be free of them all.
I love a conspiracy theory as much as the next red-blooded American, but I don't believe there is a 100mpg engine being hidden by Exxon-Mobil, nor do I think there is some solar panel made of spinach that achieves 85% efficiency. But having said that, WHY AREN'T THERE?
To be satisfied with the way things are, I don't know, I can't live like that. Which is why, much to the snickering of the right-wing commenters on this blog, we choose to drive a Prius and got solar panels for our house. Sure, it won't "pay for itself" in the next ten years, but that's so utterly missing the point.
There's still so many instances of such beauty in the world: state parks, basketball, that girl in the cafeteria who likes you, the Painted Desert, Lucy in her giraffe jammies... but it only serves to highlight the despicableness of everything else.
I'll stop there, because I'm sounding like one of those Kid Power public service spots they used to show after Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday mornings. But I would like to know how all of you think we got so okay with things being so rotten.
Posted by Ian Williams at October 4, 2005 11:19 PMI suppose you're kidding, but the Whigs effin' ruled!
You may be right, but at least all is not wrong in the world. Roy just signed a big man! Go Heels!
Yah, what's wth the whig bashing? I get everything else but I thought we were living the whiggy good life in meritocratous civic republican North America.
Oh, Ian, things always have been, and always will be, mediocre and fabulous, terrible and wonderful, all at the same time. Sure, long, long ago the air used to be cleaner and our natural resources used to be less exploited--and infant (and adult) mortality rates were so staggering that it was not uncommon for families to witness the births of 10-12 children only to see them all die before adulthood.
Mediocrity is a fact of life; anyone who works at any job that involves interaction with many people on a day-to-day basis knows this all too well.
Fortunately, beauty and wonder, too, are all around us--in your little Lucy, in my marriage, at the dog beach in Prospect Park, in a great piece of red velvet cake--one need only look around and appreciate it.
The best way to live is to attempt to minimize mediocrity in one's own life, and cultivate maximum appreciation of excellence.
Because we really aren't all that far from the apes.
Or -- as Western Mysticism would put it -- we still think we're separate from each other, when we are really bound together, people to animals to earth.
if you ask a president's oppponents, there is never a mandate whatever the number of votes.
if you ask his supporters, there is always a mandate whatever the number of votes.
even when a reagan or fdr gets 58-60%, their opponents talked about all the people that didn't even vote to come up with a lower number.
just for the record:
1932: FDR 57.4%, Hoover 39.7
1936: FDR 60.8%, Landon 36.5%
1976: Carter 50.1%, Ford 48.0%
1980: Reagan 50.7, Carter 41.0%, Anderson 6.6%
1984: Reagan 58.8%, Mondale 40.6%
1992: Clinton 43.0%, Bush 37.4%, Perot 18.9%
1996: Clinton 49.2%, Dole 40.7%, Perot 8.4%
2000: GW Bush 47.9%, Gore 48.4%
2004: GW Bush 50.7%, Kerry 48.3%
when clinton got 43% in 1992, the NY Times editorialized that he had a mandate to pursue the agenda he ran on. in 2004, they said the opposite about Bush's 50.7% because they oppose his agenda.
source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election%2C_2004
If the air was perfectly clean wouldn't sunsets over Scotland (and everywhere else) be LESS spectacular?
Ian, I love your idealism, and i still share it to some extent - especially in the field of Renewable energy. WHY NOT a large-scale project based on solar thermal tower technology in the US southwestern states?
The creator of this technology, German engineering firm Schlaich-Bergerman, licensed it to Australian company Euromission... Euromission is currently building the first large scale commercial application of the technology.
http://www.enviromission.com.au/
http://www.sbp.de/en/detect.html
http://www.solarmissiontechnologies.com/A US company, Solarmission, also licensed this technology. WHY NOT get behind a large scale project here in the US to build 20 towers to power 4 million homes? Crunch the numbers - it would indeed pay for itself over time, not to mention cleaning up the environment and creating large revenues.
It could be a public works program very similiar to hydroelectric power. Each tower canopy would cover about 20 acres; 400 acres for 20 towers in the desert is a drop in the bucket in terms of land use. Huge metropolitan cities like Las Vegas, LA, San Diego, Phoenix with a big tax base, serious energy costs, and proximity to a desert: WHY NOT pursue this as a public revenue bond or as a private venture capital enterprise?
Utility companies, venture capital, state governments, federal government - WHY NOT address pollution, climate change, depleted energy resources, with a proven technology?
WHY NOT spend billions of dollars on something like this, instead of the Iraq war? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind...
Greg
What Claudia said!
And how dare you mention Lucy in her giraffe pajamas without actually sharing a photo of aforementioned cutie pie in pjs!!!
"Because we really aren't all that far from the apes.
Or -- as Western Mysticism would put it -- we still think we're separate from each other, when we are really bound together, people to animals to earth."
Truest thing I've ever read.
I can't help wondering if Harriet Miers is a "paper tiger" -- so obviously wrong that she's there mainly to make it easier for the nominee after she gets hosed. "Well, at least he/she's *qualified*," we'll grudgingly admit.
I've wondered similarly about other of this admin.'s proposals, e.g. drilling in ANWR and privitizing social security. Step 1 - they ask for something completely outrageous. Step 2 - we spend all our energy fighting the paper tiger. Step 3 - they introduce something much less outrageous, and it's accepeted fairly easily.
Or maybe I'm just paranoid.
In the immortal words of the great sage billy joel, "we didn't start the fire"
well said claudia.
Claudia's finding beauty and wonder in her marriage shows her nearly limitless tolerance for the foibles of flawed people and a spiritual development so profound she can soothe the worst case of existential nausea. And she smells good, too.
Awww, shucks! Thanks, Chris M! There is definitely beauty and wonder, though, in a marriage to a man who writes about his wife like that...and makes good pizza.
Ian, I agree with LFMD--we are going to need giraffe-pajama photos.
Perhaps the scariest thing about Miers was printed in yesterday's Washington Post. Miers was quoted by some right wing nut job pal of hers as saying that GWB was the most brilliant person she ever met. How tragic for her.
This woman is potentially more dangerous than John Roberts. She drank the Kool Aid. She is locked and loaded to follow her master's voice. Even George Will wrote a column today saying that she is not qualified for the spot. But GWB knows her heart - just like he presumably knew the heart of his boy Brownie over at FEMA.
As a former resident of Nebraska, when the topic of mediocrity comes up I am reminded of the infamous quote of former Neb. senator Roman Hruska - when commenting on one of Tricky Dick's Supreme Court nominees (either Haynesworth and Carswell I can't recall) said:
"Even if he was mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises and Cardozos and Frankfurters and stuff like that there."
I think they have a bit more than a "little representation" these days. And more to come it seems.
I vote for Chris M. and Claudia -- cutest couple!
What a surprise, Ian is once again back in NPR-NY TIMES DNC talking points mode. Ian says that the nomination scares the shit out of him, but then provides no evidence against Miers or things that she has said.
All Ian can do is resort back to the old Daily Kos talking points. Ian brings up the question of metal detectors at schools ? I guess next Ian will be blaming Bush and Miers for kids bringing weapons to schools, even though it has been going on for decades. After a whole entry, Ian never once presented any real evidence against Miers, just pumped out the old recylced left-wing talking points of 2004, the NY TIMES and NPR has taught the little sheep Ian good. Always funny to hear Ian talk about the arctic ice, if global warming was real - then temperatures across the globe would be rising in correlation with the advent of automobiles. Ian knows he is caught in his own lies, that is why he always avoids mentioning the whole planet, because Ian knows that global temperatures fell between 1940 and 1970 as the car became more common all over the world. Sorry Ian, we just are not buying your lies and cherrypicking.
The thing about Miers isn't so much "mediocrity" as her complete lack of experience. She's never been a judge - any sort of judge.
Putting her in the Supreme Court would be like making someone CEO of a major corporation because of their 30 years of loyal service as a drone in accounts payable.
Or perhaps like making someone head of FEMA because they know a lot about arabian horses....
This is THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT. Does that mean anything anymore?
nope. not since they decided along strict partisan lines who the president should be in 2000. until then, i had idealized the SCOTUS as being above it all, but they proved then that they are right in the middle of it all.
As an attorney, the nomination of Miers not only scares me, it also saddens me. I have always enjoyed learning about the history of the Court, and how, despite its awful missteps (e.g. Dred Scott, Plessy), it has historically managed to correct itself and remain a vital institution. I wasn't overjoyed with the Roberts nomination, but I hadn't expected to be pleased with a Republican president's nominee. With that said, Roberts has a solid grasp on the law, has argued before the Court many times, and, for God's sake, has been a judge. But this Miers nomination is a huge slap in the face to the Court as an institution. It sickens me to know that there is now a back door even to the nation's most venerable chamber. I can only hope that the confirmation process exposes her as the unqualified sycophant that she is.
jboogie said - "Ian says that the nomination scares the shit out of him, but then provides no evidence against Miers or things that she has said."
do you have any evidence for or against her? what has she said? have you discoved some paper trail that outlines her opinions that no one else has? one thing she said (to david frum at the national review) was that GWB is the "most brilliant man she had ever met". hmmmmmm. that's a pretty scary to say. all ian's doing is expressing fear based on the fact that no one seems to know shit about her, except that bush's right-leaning cronies are taking a gigantic dump on the nomination.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/04/AR2005100400954.htmlwhy am i even responding to this weenie, folks? all i can expect in return is an illogical & soulless rant...
what an interesting line of questioning, ian. i was talking to my dad last night about the frightful statistics on how many people believe that the earth was created 6000 years ago. almost twice as many believe it now as did in 1900. and i think this points to something tied to the mediocrity question:
we are ebbing out of an age of enlightenment, away from scientific revolution and a value on eduction. we are deeply stuck in an age of entitlement.
there were times in the history of mankind that put a dogged emphasis on the pursuit of knowledge and excellence and merit and artistic expression (the renaissance, the scientific and industrial revolutions). but we are slipping back into the fears of the middle ages...
on a random, but related note, i just returned from venezuela. and i have to say that the 3rd world poverty is SO MUCH worse in the "civilized" areas than in the jungle. the indigenous people who live in the national parks and rain forest still know how to fish and live connected to and with respect for the land, whereas the rest of the venezuelans throw trash out their windows routinely. i have never seen a more spectacular archipeligo covered with waves of garbage.
sigh. i agree that, aside from raising awareness via discussion, debate, community service, volunteering, voting, etc, we can only lead the way by setting a personal example.
"The thing about Miers isn't so much 'mediocrity' as her complete lack of experience. She's never been a judge - any sort of judge."
A few other Justices without judicial experience before being nominated to the Supreme Court: John Marshall, Earl Warren, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and William Rehnquist.
I'm cautiously optimistic even though Harry Reid likes her, which would normally be enough by itself to make me worry.
Getting away from the politics, for once, and since Ian mentioned "tiny blips on the great historical timeline," I thought I might point out that there's a great series airing on the Science Channel this month: "Cosmos," with the late Carl Sagan. TiVo it, if you can. It's pretty cool.
No doubt I will learn more about Miers and I might revise my opinion, but right now, as a litigator practicing in both federal and state courts in New York, I am also disappointed with the Miers selection. I don't mind the lack of judicial experience per se. About thirty-five SCJs did not have prior judicial experience. What troubles me is the lack of any strong relevant qualification -- Earl Warren was the governor of California; Renquist was a deputy in the justice department, had a distinguished academic background, and was a very smart guy with well-developed views about constitutional jurisprudence. Apparently Miers was, along with maybe a hundred or so others, one of the really good litigators in Texas. But she was W's personal lawyer so she gets life tenure as one-ninth of one of the three co-equal branches of the federal government. If he'd put her on the federal appeals court in Texas, I'd say fine. But this is lame. Or, rather, it *looks* lame. Wonder why he would make such an obvious lame pick.
"Earl Warren was the governor of California..."
I don't know if being the governor of California is by itself a relevant qualification. After all, look at the current governor of that state. But I don't otherwise disagree with you, Chris. Miers seems like a curious and risky pick when there are so many other seemingly better qualified candidates out there. My own preference would've been Richard Posner, a highly respected and well-known appellate judge in the circuit which I practice. But, we'll just have to wait and see as we learn more about her.
As yet another litigator mucking up this blog, I have to chime in and agree with Chris M. This is a very uninspired and arguably unqualified choice for the Supreme Court. I have no problem with Dubya appointing a conservative so long as he or she is qualified and not a nut job. For this reason, I thought the Roberts appointment was a good one. By contrast, Miers is probably a very good lawyer, but she just doesn't have the pedigree one should expect in a Supreme Court justice.
BTW, Matt is wrong in saying that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had no prior judicial experience. She sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for about 12 years before being appointed to the Supremes.
Thanks for the correction, CJS.
Thanks, LFMD!
And thank you, Matt, for teaching me something. :-)
When I first started practicing law, the partner that mentored me explained a crappy result of a mediation as follows: if both sides are PO'd, then the result was probable pretty fair. Not to apply any Andy Griffith-esque rationalization to the nomination of Justice-to-be Miers, but maybe there is a pearl of wisdom there somewhere. Or, maybe not.
For constitutional law types, a valid alternative qualification and experience for a justice is having held elective political office. Another example is President Taft who was appointed to the SC after he left the White House. The rationale is that this affords the justice, and the rest of the court, the perspective of one who has actually been a legislator or an executive. That is important when a court is deciding whether to endorse or restrict the powers of the other two branches. If a nominee has other suitable qualifications, it is not so important that their elected position was a lofty one. Justice O'Connor was in the Arizona state legislature which was cited as a positive qualification along with her experience as judge. Overall her qualifications were a bit thin back then, but that was hard to avoid due to limited opportunities in the profession for women.
Miers was appointed to the Texas Lottery Commission (by Bush) and was elected to the Dallas city council. Like a lack of judicial experience, the nature of these positions are not troubling on their own. The problem is that, looking at the totality of her record, there is nothing that stands out. In 2005 there now are numerous (conservative) women who are clearly well qualified. But apparently Bush doesn't know their hearts. She may turn out to be a great justice and I hope she does, I just don't have any reasons to predict that she will.
By the way, Bush's own supporters aren't hesitating to loudly and logically criticise this nomination and, for the most part, are doing so for reasons that aren't about ideology as much as her lack of qualifications.
You've pointed out the two least impressive positions she's held, Chris. White House Counsel, President of the Texas Bar Association, clerking for a U.S. District Court Judge, and being a partner in a 400 attorney law firm are great, but not exactly stellar Supreme Court credentials. Still, they're far better than serving on a lottery commission and city council.
As I wrote earlier, I understand (and share) the disappointment. All indications are that she will be an unremarkable Justice. Republicans were hoping for more since they hold both the White House and Senate. If Democrats derail the nomination on grounds of qualifications, maybe a McConnell or Brown will be the second nominee, and be that much more difficult to defeat.
I expect Miers will prove to be a right wing hack, but so far I can't find any signs of rabies.
Besides, any nominee who has her own blog can't be all bad. http://harrietmiers.blogspot.com/
Ian, never fear. All is right with the world! Have you heard the big news? Bigger news than Harriet Miers? My man Tom Cruise has impregnated Katie Holmes! It may just be the second coming that we have all been waiting for!
LFMD--And Nick and Jessica may or may not have split up! What a day!
Nb, thanks!
You and Al Gore too, Ian
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/5/14301/6133
What profound questions Ian:
"Why do we have to be scared to get on an airplane?"
Because a guy named Bernoulli was vague, only birds are designed to fly and well...shit happens.
After 4000 hours in jets I never REALLY understood why planes fly and I'm an egineer!"Why are there metal detectors at schools?"
Because there is metal that needs detecting...duh?
"Why is there Islamic fundamentalism?"
Because evil lies in the heart of man..or something like that
"Why do progressives and conservatives hate each other so much?"
Well loath is more appropriate. I actually "hate" the Islamofacists and shitty coffee myself.
Why is there any poverty in this country?
Good question. If we knew someone hungry we'd both feed 'em, we both pay taxes which go to fund anti-poverty programs and we both give to charitable organizations..we're trying, right?
Why is the Arctic ice cap melting?
Because it always melts and then freezes..ask the dinosaurs.
"Because men, or mankind, causes all these things to happen, and with a few tweaks - tiny blips on the great historical timeline - we could be free of them all."
I ain't buying ALL that. You sound like one of them fundamentalust preachers.... Plus, I thought GW caused it all..now you have me confused!
re- Miers for SCOTUS: ain't it amazing all the discussions going on in conservative circles. Rational discussion and opinion with little hysterics (well- except for George Will and Novak)
Meanwhile you're side of the fence has that "deer in the headlights look". It's paranoia man! LOL.re- Al Gores Speech today..sounds like another pitch for that global warming movie everybody's forgotten....ho hummm...what network is that?
B2 (real)