October 27, 2005
Too bad...
Charlene and I are very sorry that Harriet Miers has had to withdraw. We both think she would have made a fine justice. But she's a good soldier, and the controversy was hurting the party. Hugh Hewitt writes:
I think Ms. Miers has been unfairly treated by many who have for years urged fair treatment of judicial nominees.
She deserves great thanks for her significant service to the country. She and the president deserved much better from his allies.
amen. It occurs to me that if the President nominated my wife for the Federal bench, the same objections of a lack of a paper-trail would be made about her. And I would say. "I know her. She's going to be great!" But no one would believe me. "Cronyism" you know. ...So I guess now only judges and professors can be nominated to the Supreme Court...
Posted by John Weidner at October 27, 2005 08:28 AMHere's a question - does this help or hurt the principle of executive privilege, in the turning over of documents? If she had said she's withdrawing because the votes aren't there and the party's turned on her, that would be one thing - but to withdraw and claim it's because she didn't want documents turned over...doesn't that establish the precedent that you can't get on the court without turning the documents over?
Just a first blush thought, not well formed...any thoughts?
Posted by: Ethan Hahn at October 27, 2005 09:00 AMBTW, I didn't mean that to sound snarky against her, during a time when I'm not at all pleased by the behavior of those trashing her unfairly, and think that they've been shamed by her act of magnanimity...just to be clear on that...
Posted by: Ethan Hahn at October 27, 2005 09:04 AMGreat question, and I have no idea what the answer is. I guess we will have to find out over the course of future nominations. Thanks tons, Mr Frum..
Posted by: John Weidner at October 27, 2005 11:37 AM
A few more thoughts from my post on the subject:
*In the Miers debacle Republicans have turned the old rallying cry: "Give them an up or down vote"upside down.
*Republicans in the Senate have overturned the principle of protecting Executive Branch documents.
*After witnessing this latest episode can we know expect our GOP Senators to grow a spine and defend an even more controversial nominee?
*Chris Matthews summed it up this way: "Bush is lame duck with broken right wing."
Posted by: Mike's America at October 27, 2005 10:37 PMYeah. Orrin Judd recently said something like "how are we going to sound when we demand an up-or-down vote for a nomineee, after having just conducted a filibuster to prevent a vote on Miers?"
Posted by: John Weidner at October 28, 2005 08:58 AMWhat filibuster? At what point was the process delayed? As far as I could tell, it was on schedule.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at October 28, 2005 09:57 AMSpeaking loosely, as we bloggers, lacking layers of fact-checkers and editors, are wont to do.
But there was a torrent of talk aimed at keeping Miers from getting a hearing or a vote. And more resonable voices were not able to obtain cloture. Call it a Frum-a-buster...
Posted by: John Weidner at October 28, 2005 03:16 PM
