White House Counsel Harriet Miers Nominated For Supreme Court

[Originally published 10/03 on my old LiveJournal blog]

President Bush has nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers for Supreme Court justice.

To say this decision is disappointing and frustrating is an understatement. Certainly many (such as Senate Democrats who feared the worst) will be quite pleased that Bush did not appoint a crazy, all-out Scalia type zealot, but that should be little consolation at this point. Once again George W. Bush, instead of working with others to search for the most qualified candidate possible, has decided to promote a loyal soldier from his own inner circle. His Cabinet and other key White House positions are littered with old friends of Bush's from Texas (if not his father's old cronies)... now too will the same cronyism/political nepotism that put Brownie in charge of FEMA place a new justice on the Supreme Court. Putting an old Texas friend like Gonzales as Attorney General (as just one example) is one level of bad, but doing this for the United States Supreme Court is even more insulting. At least with Bush putting his incompetent friends in the Cabinet, they'll be gone after 2008. But, for good or bad, Ms. Miers is with us for many, many years. The President promised he would not use a 'litmus test' to pick a Justice and he has shown he only uses one litmus test for any position he is filling- loyalty. I cannot believe that at a time where the President is finally being scrutinized for the rampant cronyism that has put numerous unqualified people in key positions of government, that he would just go for broke and nominate his own Counsel for the Court. Of course, I'm sure someone who's worked as official White House counsel for this administration only adheres to the highest legal, ethical, and moral standards.

And as I watched the press conference announcing this, the President had the nerve to not-so-subtlely scold Senate Democrats for thinking that this woman should be throughly questioned for such an important job. He made a number of extremely passive-aggressive comments about how the Senate should quickly and fairly confirm her and basically certain Senators shouldn't turn this into a big deal of some kind. He made some remark about looking forward to working with 80 of our good Senators on this nomination, an odd comment that I interpreted as a giant 'fuck you' to the 22 Democrats who stood their ground and voted "Nay" for Chief Justice Roberts. Not surprising, as Bush has never had anything but contempt for the Constitutional processes of governing.

Other remarks during the press conference stuck with me as well. President Bush tried to assure us that "She will not legislate from the bench", a phrase he used at least twice according to my count. Can you say that again, sir, I missed it the first two times. Having worked to put herself through some Baptist college shows she is a strong person, Bush said. Gotta love the old hard-luck story. Of course, I heard "Baptist college" (as well as other references to her strong Christianity) and I thought "religious right" and then I thought "well, this is going very well". And then the President assured us that it didn't matter that Miers had never served on the bench before, because she is way qualified as is. To illustrate this point, he praised her job performance as former Texas Lottery Commissioner. Well, that's enough for me... I'm sold!


Bush Chooses Miers for Supreme Court

President Bush on Monday nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, reaching into his loyal inner circle for a pick that could reshape the nation's judiciary for years to come....