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Hewitt on Miers critics
By Tom Smith

We should all stop worrying.

Trying to think positive, I do think there is a 50-50 chance Miers will end up as a weak justice who concurs with Roberts often, and whose clerks write respectable opinions for her. Unless this is right. Just. swell.

Does anyone think perhaps Laura Bush is partly responsible for this stupid choice of W's? I read somewhere she was pushing for woman person.

Frum is right IMHO. Among other good points -- the idiocy of the elitism charge is this. Elitism is bad, because as we all know, plenty of first class professionals come from Humdrum State, and plenty of ciphers come from Yale and Harvard. Probably more from Harvard, but still. We have all met scary smart and super-accomplished people who were educated far from the Ivy League. The point is, these people have accomplishments that demonstrate their outstanding merit. That ain't Miers. It is not an accomplishment to have not gone to an Ivy League law school. In what ought to be the elevated realm of Supreme Court nominees, she just doesn't seem qualified, let alone outstanding. I know it's the Stupid Party, but I think Bush may really be overdoing it with this one.

I am really going to try to stop ranting on this, but before I do: Look, anyone who has been around since RR and the founding of Fed Soc as I have, knows all about the difference between real conservatives or libertarians, and the various me-too Republican sorts who, it must be said, have long had a way of gathering around the Bushes. So here is W just frankly screwing the conservatives, and now we are being chided by Hugh Hewitt, who is not exactly the most steely-eyed guy on the planet, for complaining about the abuse. We supposed to say, oh, George, you're so wonderful. Well, I'm not in the mood. I have a headache. I have a headache from profligate spending, hacks at FEMA, and a God-help-us policy in Iraq, among other things, like, oh, I don't know, steel tariffs. People who care about the rule of law and the Supreme Court enough to write and read blogs about it should face the facts and see this for what it is: a betrayal, and one of a pretty profound sort. I will give W the benefit of the doubt by thinking he has done it more out of cluelessness than political amorality. I suspect he has been manipulated by aides and has not been clever and strong enough to appreciate the disastrousness of his choice, but that is not much of a defense of a president. No doubt someone like Rove has calculated that conservatives have nowhere to go, so W will be in the clear. And he may be right. But I prefer to think you win in the long run by sticking to what you believe in and not meekly accepting it when somebody says they agree with you, and turn out not to in the end. That's not 'winning'. That's being used.
posted by thomas at 10/08/2005 03:41:00 PM