Perhaps the most depressing thing about the CIA leak investigation consuming official Washington is that — regardless of whether crimes have been committed — so many of the principal players on all sides have been guilty of petty, ignoble and (in some cases) less-than-honest conduct.
"His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion."
"She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met."
So reports conservative writer and former Bush speechwriter David Frum, in National Review Online. Unless White House Counsel Harriet Miers explains that she was joking or Frum was hallucinating, this alone may cast enough doubt on her judgment to warrant a "no" vote on her Supreme Court nomination.
But before detailing Miers’s liabilities, I should acknowledge her virtues. She is an impressive person with an admirable record of devotion to duty, self-effacing industriousness, quiet competence, public service, and a kind and caring heart.
Miers did very well at law school. She has been a pioneering career woman — the first hired by a big Texas law firm; the first to become president of the firm; the first to head the Dallas and then the Texas state bar associations, where she was known for reaching out to women and minorities; a successful corporate litigator; an energetic supporter of community services, including legal assistance for poor people; a member of the Dallas City Council; the head of the Texas Lottery Commission; a high-level White House official; a loving caregiver for her elderly mother; and more.
Moreover, on the current Court, Miers’s Texas roots and lack of prior judicial service may be assets. Her background as a litigator trained at Southern Methodist University’s law school would bring some diversity of experience to a Court already staffed by eight former federal appellate judges, six of whom trained at Harvard Law School. And Chief Justices William Rehnquist, Earl Warren, and John Marshall and Justices Lewis Powell and Byron White had not previously been judges either.
"Under our constitutional system, courts stand against any winds that blow, as havens of refuge for those who might otherwise suffer because they are helpless, weak, outnumbered, or because they are nonconforming victims of prejudice and public excitement." So wrote Justice Hugo Black, a liberal hero, in 1940, in one of the most eloquent defenses of forceful judicial protection of constitutional rights ever penned. But a Hugo Black could not be confirmed today — not if his views were known. He would be voted down by Democrats, and some Republicans, for the sin of rejecting the nebulous "right of privacy" that has become holy writ and, for some, codespeak for abortion rights and gay rights. "The Court talks about a constitutional ‘right of privacy,’ " Black wrote in dissent from the 1965 decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, "as though there is some constitutional provision or provisions forbidding any law ever to be passed which might abridge the ‘privacy’ of individuals. But there is not…. I like my privacy as well as the next one, but I am nevertheless compelled to admit that government has a right to invade it unless prohibited by some specific constitutional provision." In Griswold, the Court held by 7-2 that a Connecticut law barring contraceptive use even by married couples violated an ill-defined "right of privacy" that Justice William Douglas derived from "penumbras, formed by emanations from" various provisions of the Bill of Rights.
John Roberts "was on the wrong side of history" as a young lawyer in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. He was "hostile toward civil rights." His view of the Voting Rights Act was "no less harmful to our nation’s principles of inclusive democracy" than "the violence and intimidation of 1965."
The confirmation battle over Judge John Roberts is about to take center stage. George W. Bush quickly nominated Roberts to serve as chief justice–a move the president had considered all along, according to one adviser close to the process who refused to be quoted because of the sensitivity of the deliberations. Roberts could face some tougher questioning as chief, but barring bombshells, the hearings could turn out to be a drama fit only for C-Span junkies.Far more compelling is the battle am
The confirmation battle over Judge John Roberts is about to take center stage. George W. Bush quickly nominated Roberts to serve as chief justice–a move the president had considered all along, according to one adviser close to the process who refused to be quoted because of the sensitivity of the deliberations. Roberts could face some tougher questioning as chief, but barring bombshells, the hearings could turn out to be a drama fit only for C-Span junkies.
Far more compelling is the battle among conservatives over who’ll fill Sandra Day O’Connor’s spot. In a new NEWSWEEK Poll, 66 percent of those surveyed said Bush should strongly conside…
The confirmation battle over Judge John Roberts is about to take center stage. George W. Bush quickly nominated Roberts to serve as chief justice–a move the president had considered all along, according to one adviser close to the process who refused to be quoted because of the sensitivity of the deliberations. Roberts could face some tougher questioning as chief, but barring bombshells, the hearings could turn out to be a drama fit only for C-Span junkies.Far more compelling is the battle am
"We are rolling the dice with you, judge…. You’ve told me nothing, … as if the public doesn’t have a right to know what you think about fundamental issues facing them."
Rehnquist’s wry aside, which broke the tension, was typical of the man affectionately known to his fellow justices as "the Chief." Rehnquist was quick and funny, and he made his job look easy. He had time left over to run betting pools on sporting and political contests, preside over poker games with other Washington luminaries, play bridge and charades, paint, swim, sing hymns, quote poetry and the classics from memory, and write four books on Supreme Court history. He was respected and admir
Rehnquist’s wry aside, which broke the tension, was typical of the man affectionately known to his fellow justices as "the Chief." Rehnquist was quick and funny, and he made his job look easy. He had time left over to run betting pools on sporting and political contests, preside over poker games with other Washington luminaries, play bridge and charades, paint, swim, sing hymns, quote poetry and the classics from memory, and write four books on Supreme Court history. He was respected and admired by his colleagues on both sides of the ideological spectrum. The late Thurgood Marshall, who opposed Rehnquist on almost any case, called him a "great chief justice." The Supreme Court is sometimes described as "nine scorpions in a bottle," but under Rehnquist’s nearly two decades as chief, the justices generally got along.
In 39 arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, John G. Roberts earned a reputation as an unflappable advocate for his clients. But this week, when Roberts testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in his own bid to join the high court, he’ll face a different challenge. Instead of sparring with nine erudite justices interested in ferreting out fine points of the law, Roberts will confront 18 senators eager to score political points and rack up minutes on the cable news channels. While the
In 39 arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, John G. Roberts earned a reputation as an unflappable advocate for his clients. But this week, when Roberts testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in his own bid to join the high court, he’ll face a different challenge. Instead of sparring with nine erudite justices interested in ferreting out fine points of the law, Roberts will confront 18 senators eager to score political points and rack up minutes on the cable news channels. While the senators will try to press Roberts for specifics on controversial topics like civil rights, abortion and congressional authority, Roberts will attempt to keep his answers as general as possible without seeming to stonewall. "There’s going to be …
In 39 arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, John G. Roberts earned a reputation as an unflappable advocate for his clients. But this week, when Roberts testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in his own bid to join the high court, he’ll face a different challenge. Instead of sparring with nine erudite justices interested in ferreting out fine points of the law, Roberts will confront 18 senators eager to score political points and rack up minutes on the cable news channels. While the
In this time of terrorism, the most important marks to be made by John Roberts and President Bush’s next Supreme Court nominee on our law and society may not involve abortion, gay rights, women’s rights, privacy, affirmative action, religion, or crime. Instead, they may involve claims by Bush, and perhaps his successors, of extraordinary powers as commander-in-chief — at home as well as abroad — to fight the war against terrorism.
