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October 4, 2005Oh, no!!! Miers GREW over time!UPDATED THROUGHOUT THE DAY: CHECK BACK PERIODICALLY FOR NEW LINKS! Drudge has the siren up because of what Harriet Miers did in 1989. 1989!!!! Ask me what I was doing in 1989! I was supporting liberal policies and writing letters critical of Reagan/Bush etc. Not every conservative was born a conservative, you know. Many, like me - and apparently like Miers - came by their conservative coming to accept Jesus Christ as Lord. Reagan wasn’t “born” a conservative! Egad! I wonder if he’d be good enough for some of our very purest folks, these days. Here is a crazy idea: How’s about we let her testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, hear her out, and THEN form our opinions yea or nea and let the Senate either confirm or dump? You know…the old-fashioned way. Seems to me a great deal of energy is being expended by everyone, on both sides of the issue, and the truth is, because she is SUCH an unknown entity all of this sound and fury doesn’t signify until we HEAR her answers and take a measure of the woman when she appears before the panel. Ah, well, Day 2 of “When Conservatives Go Ka-Boom!” - there is still lots of tempestuous writing out there about Harriet Miers, and you know what? I’m glad! I’m glad to see everyone working it - opining and sticking their tongues out at each other. Every neighborhood has to have one week where all the kids are a little crazed - it clears the air and gets everyone energized. Also, one of the beautiful things about the Miers Kerfluffle is that we don’t have to read about Cindy Sheehan’s money woes any more! Greg Wallace is not glad. In fact, he is fed up with the whole boiling lot of us as my granny used to say. I can’t say I don’t understand. John Hawkins at Right Wing News is still really unhappy and looking for ways to make the Miers appointment not come to pass. (btw, I wasn’t going to mention it, because it’s like tooting my horn, but John was kind enough - very kind - to name The Anchoress in his latest list of his favorite 40 blogs. I hope he still likes me, now!) Doug at Bogus Gold has declared that I - your modest hostess - am Full. Of. Crap but apparently he puts me in good company, as he calls Ed Morrissey “punch drunk” and Hugh Hewitt a “glass half full” optimist. I give Doug points for anger-induced moxie, but I still think Jimmie Bise gets the prize, because he uses a good analogy. I think Doug is matched in temprament, but not opinion, with Maxed Out Mama who is a snarky cookie, as ever. I like how she ends her piece: What questions can Dianne Feinstein ask Miers? “Who are you as a non-wife and non-mother?” Also, I have been reading ABC News’ immediate “crony” slam, and wondered how that complaint squared with Schumer saying that Miers was on the acceptable list from the Senate? Surely it’s either/or? Wide Awake Cafe is on the same wavelength as MOM, but she has a rather different take on some of the Miers angst: What? Harriet Miers graduated from Southern Methodist University! Shocking! She didn’t make Law Review!…She only served on the Dallas City Council. She’s a CRONY APPOINTMENT! My question is this….. Who in the official Washington D.C.Bigdom universe (and that includes people in the media as well as government) is not related to someone else who is also officially IMPORTANT? California Conservativem, in a similar vein, is concerned that some conservatives are so quick on the trigger they have written the opposition’s talking points. Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin hates this nomination even more than she did yesterday. And that’s saying a lot. Thomas Lifson, writing in American Thinker has the must-read on Miers for today, I think. Patrick Ruffini has created a new Coalition of the Chillin’ re Miers, and it has a stealable graphic. I’m not much of a joiner, myself, but if you like it, there it is. Check back here, and I’ll update throughout the day on more Miers links. http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/10/04/oh-no-miers-grew-over-time/trackback/ 13 Responses to “Oh, no!!! Miers GREW over time!” |
October 4th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
Jonah Goldberg writes that there’s some outright anti-intellectualism going around, as people defiantly wave Miers’ slender qualifications around. Technically, you don’t have to be a cardinal, bishop, or even a priest to become Pope - just a Catholic male will do. But I’ve yet to see a groundswell of support for plucking some nobody out of the pews and putting him in charge of the Catholic Church. Expertise DOES count for something, and I don’t think the rules change just because George Bush is the one putting on Amateur Hour.
October 4th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
Wanda, you have a point- but barely.
Abe Lincoln was hardly a political elite. Nor was Harry Truman, that former haberdasher. They were outsiders even in their own party, ignored by most. To this day, there are those who would keep good people are kept from running and participating, because they don’t tow the party line.
Fortunately, they love their country more than their party or the system.
For Every Kennedy- and Bush- there is an unknown, who wants nothing more to make their city or state and country, a better place.
You’d be surprised as to the quality, ability and vision people in the pews have.
October 4th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
Whatever dubious positions Mier may have held at one time, there is nothing to Drudge’s claims about 1989. Anyone who stops to read through the document behind this “scoop” will discover he is totally distorting it (It’s posted here.)
There is no indication that her “support for civil rights for gays” went beyond what I hope any of us would argue for –actual basic civil rights, NOT special consideration, much less the right to ‘gay marriage’ (which no one was even discussing in those days!). She also believed AIDS was a community concern and so supported funding related to it. Again, no problem.
Her answers to every other question make it clear that she did NOT support the “gay agenda” (and so, not surprisingly, she checks “No” when asked if she is seeking their endorsement). She opposed overturning Texas’s sodomy law, says she prefers a LEGISLATIVE solution, if necessary, to ‘housing discrimination’ issues (rather than ‘city ordinances banning discrimination’) and asserted that employers have the right to consider all relevant factors when seeking to choose the most qualified person (in place of an anti-discrimination ordinance).
Handwritten notes on the final page (which appear to be someone else’s notes on her position/statements at the hearing?), while not entirely clear, include such remarks as “my personal conviction is not consistent w homosexual lifestyle”.
So, what’s the issue??
October 4th, 2005 at 3:21 pm
Wanda,
The comparison with “plucking some nobody out of the pews” is hardly a fair analogy. You’d think the woman was ignorant and incompetent, rather than an accomplished lawyer. She may not be an “intellectual” (an academic?), but that is NOT the same as being personally uninformed or un-intellectual (much less anti-intellectual). Why not take an honest look at what she HAS done in the legal sphere, and assess her on that basis?
October 4th, 2005 at 6:31 pm
That’s just great. Now I have to see the local MSM newsreaders chuckling about Bush receiving flak from “HIS OWN PARTY!”
She is a competent lawyer and someone he has spent every day of the last ten years with. That makes a big difference to me. I remind people once again of how they praised Bush41’s choice of Sutter. Actually, it wasn’t his choice at all: He made the mistake of listening to “experts.” He was talked out of his choice, someone he knew well. Bush43 knows not to repeat that mistake.
So from this minute forward, I’m telling everyone that this is all a rope-a-dope to get Dems to jump on her bandwagon. Put this one on the board.
October 4th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
“Why not take an honest look at what she HAS done in the legal sphere, and assess her on that basis?” Well, that will be difficult, since the President seems to have gone to some trouble to find a candidate with so little public record that we are reduced to leaning on the slender reed of “Just trust me”. If her record was so spectacular and easily accessible, I wouldn’t be so worried. As it is, I feel like I’m listening to Charlotte Lucas describe her method of choosing a lifetime companion: “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.” The “wait and see” camp do not limit their recommendation to the Anchoress’s reasonable forecast of the confirmation hearings - they’re saying that we’ll be able to make an informed judgement after Miers has been on the Supreme Court for 10 years or so, and we can see what sort of record she piles up. I’m sorry if President Bush is insulted by it, but I don’t give any politician that much trust.
October 4th, 2005 at 9:04 pm
[...] There are so many posts on this topic I will not even pretend to link to them all. One of the best is by The Anchoress covering all the silly hand wringing from the right. I also want to address the abysmal behavior of weak kneed conservatives who, in their ignorance of Miers, exposed their lack of confidence and respect of Bush. [...]
October 4th, 2005 at 9:58 pm
[...] Anchoress has a great post up with some good advice for conservatives on the Miers nomination and also points out that Miers formerly being a Democrat should not be held against her (Anchoress, like me, used to be a liberal too). [...]
October 4th, 2005 at 10:24 pm
[...] The Anchoress has more. [...]
October 4th, 2005 at 10:33 pm
Media digs and Miers conservative credentials start to stand out
Ladies and gents, after a day where many conservatives (including me) wondered just what the heck he was doing, methinks the President may have very well delivered on giving us a conservative nominee - if the stories coming out about…
October 4th, 2005 at 10:56 pm
The chief end of man is to glorify God and worship Him forever. “The chief END” none of us starts out where we end up and I thank the Good Lord for it. I’m 36 and just yesterday I told my best bud that I hope to live long enough to grow as wise as her Uncle Jim and/or my grandmother. I think I actually used the word “grow”. My grandmother was 83 at her death. Uncle Jim is 70-something. I pray daily that I will grow for the rest of my life and specifically that I will grow TOWARD God and not AWAY from him. I pray the same for my husband and children and several other people.
I don’t know any more about Harriet Miers than you do, Anchoress. However, I do know that I prayed for W. to have wisdom in this pick and that God likes to answer that particular prayer affirmatively. Trust W.? Maybe, even probably from what I’ve seen since 2000. Trust God? Absolutely. Always. Unfailingly. It will work out for God’s will and that’s good enough for me. Politics is important, but there’s much more to life. Getting this hot and bothered about something you can’t change can’t possibly be good for anyone and I’m glad to see that you have kept an even keel. I was getting lonely out here, thinking I was the only one who realized that a nomination does not a confirmation make. (You’d think the Rioting Right would have learned that from the Estrada battle among others.) Since the announcement, I have prayed for wisdom for the Senators in voting yea or nay. That’s what I can do. Pray. Period. Prayer trumps all else anyway.
October 5th, 2005 at 12:25 am
[...] For instance, The Anchoress says: How’s about we let her testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, hear her out, and THEN form our opinions yea or nea and let the Senate either confirm or dump? You know…the old-fashioned way. [...]
October 5th, 2005 at 1:55 pm
As an evangelical believer, I’m disappointed in the elitist attitude of many so-called conservative blue-bloods. Anchoress, you’re refreshing. I’m planning on withholding judgment until after the Judiciary Committee hearings.