If it really mattered anymore, I might care.
Marcus, at this point who can say. I just worry that five people in black robes can make the calls for 200 million people. I really don't think our founding fathers had this in mind. 9-4=5.
Myself, I just wished we could get some folks who would read our cons ution and rule accordingly. It is not a living do ent, it has served us well for many years up until we got people who thought they knew more than the founders. But I am just one voice. But I will continue to speak.
I agree with Extra Stout. As just a personal issue, this nomination leaves me a bit cold because it appears to "dumb down" the expected level of discourse on significant issues that is imperitive at the Supreme Court. Miers may be an extremely bright individual and she may have some hobby in delving into the nuances of federal cons utional law, but I doubt it. There is a monumental difference, IMO, between being bright and understanding in a process-oriented, structural sense what the Cons ution is and does. I don't think that having that background requires that one have been a judge before joining the Court, but I do think that having some cons utional moorings (not just a political sense of the Cons ution, but an historical and philosophical belief in how the Cons ution operates) should be essential. Perhaps Miers has that or is learning that -- I suspect that she is being tutored for the confirmation hearings, since I'd be shocked if she could dance through the issues in the same way that Chief Justice Roberts did -- but I'm with Extra Stout in wondering where her soul is on those issues.
I think the appointment brings about another problem and that is the precedent of using blatant cronyism to justify appointments to the Supreme Court. The 9 precious seats on that Court should not be used as a means for doling out the political equivalent of a gold watch. It should take much, much more than a closeness to the President to support an appointment to that Court. If Miers had no association with Bush at all, there's no doubt that she would have never received any consideration for that position. I would hate to see the United States Supreme Court become the crony den that the Texas Supreme Court has become for some of Rick Perry's political allies.
I agree with Tom Goldstein's analysis that Miers runs a grave risk of not being confirmed by the Senate. Partisan politics aside, if the hearings go as it would appear they will and unless Miers is hiding her pedigree as a cons utional law wiz, she will likely be made to look exceedingly bad by very difficult questions that cannot be adequately answered without significant philosophical reflection. A confirmation isn't just a game of Cons utional Jeopardy; it's an explication of the very essence of the Cons ution -- the answers shouldn't be just sound bites or regurgitations of trivia. I wonder whether Miers will be able to handle that sort of inquiry (I know I wouldn't be able to).
Bush has a history of appointing people without experience to high posts.
So what happens if she's rejected by the Senate? He has to pick someone else?
Bush's obvious deference to a crony is put into steeper relief by the sizable pool of relatively young brilliant cons utional-law experts from which he had the chance to pick.
If George W. Bush ever joins a fantasy football league, I want in. Apparently he'd make all his draft picks based upon which players he gets along with the best.
, if you were chummy enough with him in that League, you might get an office in Washington yourself.
Ok, I can buy into that FWD. You have a much better grasp on the process than I do.
True.
FWD, maybe if you could suspend your ethics and principles for a while, and go to the White House for a couple years and do nothing but kiss Bush's ass and tell him how smart and cute he is, you too could become a Supreme Court Associate Justice!
I think I stopped caring the moment an allegedly "conservative" SC determined that a developer could force a town to take someone's property and give it to them.
She looks like a zombie!
freakin scary
'She looks like a zombie!"
TX chicks don't know how to do makeup.
She needs to drop the heavy mascara, eye-liner. Halloween is still 4 weeks away.
By the way, I was wrong, the scotusblog entry was by Lyle Denniston, but it is pretty direct in calling President Bush crude for the way that he handled this appointment and suggests that there may be a long term consequence for that decision:
scotusblog
I've already purchased my plane ticket and sold my house. . . . now, should I go to Florida and get chummy with Jeb? to DC to glom on with some member of the Administration? or to New York to find Senator Clinton?
Last edited by FromWayDowntown; 10-03-2005 at 08:59 PM.
boutons, don't forget to order yourself up a new "pocket pussy". Assuming, of course, that you find the real thing interesting...
SCOTUS too much resembles SCROTUM.
In their defense, all three conservative justices voted against that.
It does bring up the question why out of the six appointments by Republicans, they've only managed three conservatives.
Before Rehnquist went six feet under, GOP presidents had appointed seven of the nine justices and ended up with only 3 'true' conservatives...
She looks like she's about to croak.
Actually, the founding fathers made SURE it WOULD be a living do ent by allowing for amendability. Take a freaking civics course. You do realize that the slaves are free now?It is not a living do ent, it has served us well for many years up until we got people who thought they knew more than the founders.
I know that you've slapped a coat of varnish on the way you look at things and declared it good, but please don't drag the rest of us down your kneejerk path.
No, Einstein, they hoped the do ent wouldn't have to be amended but, it beat the crap out of having people just read into the rest of the do ent whatever the they wanted. Amendments require the consent of the governed...intepretation by a black robe doesn't have that luxury.Actually, the founding fathers made SURE it WOULD be a living do ent by allowing for amendability. Take a freaking civics course. You do realize that the slaves are free now?
I know that you've slapped a coat of varnish on the way you look at things and declared it good, but please don't drag the rest of us down your kneejerk path.
I think President Bush made a choice that wouldn't become a Justice Souter 10 years down the road. He chose a person whom he trusted and knew...if only his Dad had done the same. Well, at least he's not committing the sins of the father.
Heh, you said "Scotus"...
"Judicial activism" is a code word for people who want judges to be judicially active in ways they agree with, but not "active" in ways they don't.
It is nothing more than a poorly understood legal concept that ignorant people latch onto as some panacea against change.
Precisely.
Brown v. Board of Education was judicial activism, in the way that term is thrown around today, but I can't imagine that anyone in this forum would argue seriously that the Court shouldn't have done what it did in 1954.
Are you kidding? Those 3/5ths persons shouldn't be allowed in the same schools...
God forbid we might actually progress in our understanding and methods of government.
We clearly all know that our nation is a sparsely populated agrarian economy, and that hasn't changed in over 200 years...
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