ramble through the bronx

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Harriet Miers. Her one qualification her lack of paper trail.

I just want to say that as I'm writing this, I'm listening to Toronto's Mojo 640 radio on the internet, and wearing my Leafs jersey (my vintage Daryl Sittler jersey, actually). Go Leafs! (Of course, around here, all people are talking about is the first round of the major league baseball playoffs... blah blah blah, Yankees won last night against the Angels, whatever)

Anyway. I just wanted to bring this to your attention; I don't often read the conservative commentary, but it kind of made me scary when I ended up agreeing with some of Pat Buchanan's analysis:

A paper trail is the mark of a lawyer, a scholar or a judge who has shared the action and passion of his or her time, taken a stand on the great questions, accepted public abuse for articulating convictions.

Why is a judicial cipher like Harriet Miers to be preferred to a judicial conservative like Edith Jones?

One reason: Because the White House fears nominees “with a paper trail” will be rejected by the Senate, and this White House fears, above all else, losing. So, it has chosen not to fight.

Other things, of course, that Buchanan said were just scary. But that's normal.

This article had some creepy moments -- from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Some groups on the right were angry at revelations that Miers had filled out a Lesbian/Gay Coalition of Dallas survey in 1989 stating that gay men and women should have the same civil rights as heterosexual men and women.

A conservative Web site, covenantnews.com, alluded to Miers as a "sodomite" in reference to the issue.

Ooh! Scary! Civil rights!! Apparently this is enough even to reflect badly on Bush:

At one point in his news conference, Bush felt compelled not only to defend Miers' qualifications to serve on the high court — "I picked the best person I could find" — but also to respond to questions about his own politics.

"Are you still a conservative?" a reporter asked.

"I'm still a conservative, proudly so, proudly so," he replied.

Meanwhile, oddly enough I also find myself in agreement with the hyper-conservative, kind of nasty James Dobson (from Focus on the Family):

Still, Mr. Dobson said he intended to keep a wary eye on the confirmation hearings. "This is for all the marbles," he said. "It is a scary moment for many of us."

(That last bit was from the NY Times.)

jane 7:23 PM [+]