Harriet Miers: Antonin Scalia in sheep's clothing
Posted By: Lilly on 2005-10-12
In Reply to:
Harriet Miers: Antonin Scalia in sheep's clothing
October 11, 2005
By nominating Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, President Bush has put forth a total unknown. A blank slate. A cipher. Not even the president knows where she stands on the issues because he never asked her.
That's what the White House wants you to think. Don't you believe it.
Of course, if you listen to most conservatives, Harriet Miers is as dangerous as a card-carrying member of the ACLU. I'm disappointed, depressed and demoralized, huffed the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol. Her qualifications for the Supreme Court are nonexistent, puffed former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.
Nonsense.
Make no mistake about it. This decision is too important. Replacing William Rehnquist with John Roberts was a wash. It's this appointment, to fill the shoes of swing-vote Sandra Day O'Connor, that will determine the future direction of the Supreme Court. Karl Rove never would have let George Bush nominate Miers if he didn't know she agreed with Bush on every issue.
It's not hard to figure out how Bush decided on Miers. If elected president, he promised in 2000, he would appoint to the Supreme Court justices like extreme conservatives Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. John Roberts didn't fit the bill, so Bush knew he had to deliver this time around. But he also knew any one of the names on the conservatives' wish list -- Michael Luttig, Edith Jones or Janice Rogers Brown -- would stir up a firestorm in the Senate, which Bush wanted to avoid.
So Bush came up with Plan B, as brilliant as it is diabolical: Nominate someone who is every bit as conservative as Luttig, Jones or Brown, privately, but who is a complete mystery, publicly. And that's Harriet Ellan Miers. The perfect stealth candidate. Antonin Scalia in sheep's clothing.
In case you still harbor any doubts about her right-wing credentials, here's final proof. After four days of complaints from the far right, Karl Rove got on the phone to leading conservatives, starting with James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family. Rove convinced him to support Miers, Dobson confirmed, by giving him confidential information on her religious beliefs. Miers, like Bush, is an evangelical Christian.
Notice how the White House plays the religion card both ways. It was wrong for Democrats to raise the fact John Roberts is a Catholic, they argued, just one month ago.
Notice also what their doing so tells us about Harriet Miers. She's a soul mate of James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. She's anti-choice, anti-stem cell research, anti-separation of church and state, pro-school prayer and pro-teaching intelligent design in public-school science classes. She's way out of the mainstream.
So what are Democrats waiting for? They know enough about Miers already to merit all-out opposition -- including the filibuster, if necessary. And they'd better act fast.
If Harriet Miers is confirmed, we'll be yearning for the good old days of moderate William Rehnquist.
Bill Press is host of the nationally syndicated Bill Press Show. His e-mail address is: bill@billpress.com.
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©The Shreveport Times
October 11, 2005
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Harriet Miers withdraws nomination...
Falsified Bush Bio approved by Harriet Miers?
From http://www.send2press.com/newswire/2005-10-1017-006.shtml
Opinion & Commentary
Falsified Bush Biography Found on State Department Website (Approved by Harriet Miers?)
Edited by Carly Zander
Mon, 17 Oct 2005, 03:58 EDT
LOS ANGELES, Calif. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- On September 29, 2005, investigative journalist Hugh E. Scott found a White House biography on the Internet that claimed President Bush had flown Texas Air National Guard F102 interceptors almost six years when the actual time was 27 months. The text contained other exaggerations as well, says Scott.
Scott discovered the falsified document on a website maintained by the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi. On October 6, when he accessed the website again, Bush's biography had been deleted. Scott believes emails he sent two days before to newspapers in Washington, DC, alerted the White House and it sanitized the Hanoi website. However, the corrective action came too late. During his first visit, Scott made a printout of the 3,900-word document and mailed copies to friends for safekeeping.
Previously, in February 2004, he found an identical phony Bush history on another State Department website. To validate the smoking-gun evidence of White House skullduggery, Scott called the Boston Globe. Impressed, it reported his discovery the next morning, on 02/28/04, under the headline, Bush Bio on Web Inflates Guard Service, and gave him credit as the source.
Based on research for a forthcoming book about the president, Scott contends that Bush's longtime legal advisor, Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, helped write the bogus bio for use in his 2000 primary campaign against Arizona Senator John McCain. For certain, charges Scott, Miers approved George W.'s 1999 autobiography, A Charge to Keep, which covered up missed Guard drills in 1972 and his grounding that same year for failing to take a mandatory pilot medical exam.
Miers also approved the official White House biography posted on its website after the 2001 inauguration. The text claimed President Bush had operated ANG interceptors from 1968 to 1973, even though he was grounded on August 1, 1972.
Following publication of contradicting information by the print media, the White House changed the bio to read George W. served as an F102 pilot in the Texas Air National Guard.
Scott uncovered the Hanoi embassy bio while searching the Internet for other erroneous Bush histories. So far, he has found 12 biographical sources, ranging from InfoPlease to The Book of Knowledge and Encyclopedia Americana, that falsely state the president flew F102 jets in 1973.
For more information about the Hanoi embassy bio and to see a copy, visit Scott's website, www.King-George.biz or contact Hugh E. Scott at 805-498-8249.
Bush Nominates Harriet Miers to replace O'Connor
I'll be very interested to hear more about her. So far, I've learned that she contributed to Al Gore's campaign and was also involved with Legal Aid in the past. Either Bush is coming to his senses or this is merely another example of his ongoing cronyism. In this case, his cronyism just might actually finally benefit the American people this time.
Bush picks White House counsel for Supreme Court
If confirmed, Harriet Miers would succeed O'Connor
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers on Monday to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Miers, 60, was the first woman to head the State Bar of Texas. She has never been a judge.
An outspoken supporter of the Bush administration, she was a leader of its search for potential candidates to fill Supreme Court posts. A White House official said that at the same time, Bush considered her as a nominee without her knowledge.
In a televised announcement from the White House, Bush called Miers exceptionally well-suited for the high court. Miers has devoted her life to the rule of law and the cause of justice, he said.
He called on the Senate to review her qualifications thoroughly and fairly and to vote on her nomination promptly.
Miers said she was grateful and humbled by the nomination. ( Watch: Miers has no judicial experience -- 2:30)
It is the responsibility of every generation to be true to the founders' vision of the proper role of the courts in our society, she said.
If confirmed, I recognize that I will have a tremendous responsibility to keep our judicial system strong and to help ensure that the courts meet their obligations to strictly apply the laws and the Constitution. ( Watch Bush nominate Miers to the Supreme Court -- 9:09)
If the Senate confirms Miers, she would join Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second sitting female justice on the bench. O'Connor became the court's first female justice in 1981.
Dinner offer
Bush offered her the job Sunday night over dinner in the White House residence, White House sources said.
During the summer, a vetting process for Miers took place once the president began considering her.
Bush took seriously suggestions by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, and ranking Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, that the president consider candidates from outside the appellate courts, the sources said.
Miers, 60, who has never been a judge, was the first woman to serve as president of the State Bar of Texas and Dallas Bar Association. She also was a member of the Dallas City Council. ( Profile)
More recently, Miers helped lead the administration's search for potential candidates to fill Supreme Court posts.
At the same time, a White House official said that Bush considered her as a nominee without her knowledge.
Reacting with caution
Initial reaction to Miers' nomination was cautious. ( Watch senators react to Miers' nomination -- 3:49)
Harriet Miers is an intelligent lawyer who shares the president's judicial philosophy, said Leonard Leo of the conservative Federalist Society.
She has demonstrated that in her capacity as White House counsel and a senior administration official as well as an active member of the organized bar.
Quietly, some conservatives involved in the White House's nominee selection consultation process said they are concerned with Bush's pick.
The reaction of many conservatives today will be that the president has made possibly the most unqualified choice since Abe Fortas who had been the president's lawyer, said conservative activist Manuel Miranda of the Third Branch Conference, referring to President Lyndon B. Johnson's pick to the high court in 1965.
The nomination of a nominee with no judicial record is a significant failure for the advisers that the White House gathered around it. However, the president deserves the benefit of a doubt, the nominee deserves the benefit of hearings, and every nominee deserves an up-or-down vote.
The Concerned Women for America, another conservative group, also took a wait-and-see approach on Miers.
We give Harriet Miers the benefit of the doubt because thus far, President Bush has selected nominees to the federal courts who are committed to the written Constitution, said Jan LaRue, chief counsel of the group. Whether we can support her will depend on what we learn from her record and the hearing process.
One Republican official said that many had expectations that Bush's pick would be a known conservative, adding that he was surprised by the president's choice.
Republicans were hoping for a clear conservative, the official said. It's going to be heavy lifting for us and the White House.
Another conservative source who was involved in the selection consultation process said Miers was not a big surprise and that she had always been someone under serious consideration.
She's a good conservative, the source said. She does share the president's views about law and public policy. But she is not well-known, which is going to be part of the challenge.
Democrats on the the Senate Judiciary Committee reacted cautiously to Miers' nomination, but they did not immediately oppose it.
It is too early to reach any firm judgment about such an important nomination, Leahy said in a statement, noting Miers long ties to President Bush. It is important to know whether she would enter this key post with the judicial independence necessary when the Supreme Court considers isues of interest to this Administration.
My first reaction is a simple one: It could have been a lot worst, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, one of the Demcrats on the committee, said. ... The president has not sent us a nominee that we've rejected already.
Schumer continued, There's hope that Harriet Miers is a mainstream nominee. ... Given the fact that the extreme wing of the president's party was demanding someone of fealty to their views, this is a good first day in the process that begins to fill the seat of Sandra Day O'Connor.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, another Democratic committee member and its only woman, said she was happy that a woman was nominated to replace the outgoing O'Connor but wanted to know more about Miers' views on privacy and other issues.
This new justice will be critical in the balance with respect to rulings on congressional authority, as well as a woman's right to privacy, environmental protections, and many other aspects of constitutional law in the United States, Feinstein said.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, was complimentary of Miers.
I like Harriet Miers, Reid said in a statement. As White House counsel, she has worked with me in a courteous and professional manner. I am also impressed with the fact that she was a trailblazer for women as managing partner of a major Dallas law firm and as the first woman president of the Texas Bar Association.
Pivotal replacement
The choice to replace O'Connor, a key swing vote, could be pivotal. ( Full story)
The announcement came shortly before justices were to begin a new term with new Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who is the youngest member of the high court.
The term is expected to include rulings on several controversial cases, said Edward Lazarus, a Supreme Court legal analyst. ( Case list)
This is a situation where, from the very moment the justices start back up in October, they're going to be very divided, said Lazarus, who authored Closed Chambers, a book on the justices. It's going to be a lot of friction inside the building.
O'Connor announced her retirement in July. Bush initially chose Roberts for her seat, but the September 3 death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist changed the White House's strategy.
O'Connor has said she will stay on until she is replaced, making her role in the upcoming term unclear. Under court rules, a justice's vote does not count until a ruling is issued, a process that can take weeks or months.
Many legal scholars question whether O'Connor would want to continue hearing cases if her replacement takes over before rulings are issued, thereby negating her vote.
CNN's Dana Bash contributed to this report. |
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Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/03/scotus.miers |
Harriet Miers - Bush's newest *faith-based initiative*
At first I thought this was just an example of cronyism, considering that Bush paid Miers $19,000 in 1998 to assist in his National Guard AWOL debacle/scandal.
But after painfully watching his press conference this morning, I realized he was speaking in code about the fact that she isn't going to change her views on abortion. It's no secret she's pro-life. It's also no secret that so-called pro-lifers in the past have resorted to murdering abortion doctors in an attempt to stop abortion.
They will stop at nothing.
Including a faith-based Supreme Court Justice.
Kiss America GOODBYE.
P.S. to gt: Hi! 
DITTO that......a wolf in sheep's clothing
@@
The wolf will come out of his sheep's clothing if he gets elected...
and all his little sheeple followers will finally see him for what he is.
Miers
Hmmm..I have had a problem since seeing the notes Miers wrote Bush and the cute birthday cards..I have worked for many, IMHO, powerful doctors and I have adored/has crushes on a few..I have given them gifts and cards for holidays and birthdays, however, I never would have given a card such as Miers gave Bush, nor written notes like she wrote..You must keep a separation between boss and employee, especially if the boss is married..This is cronyism at its best. However, I am looking forward to the hearings on her nomination as I want to see what she is all about and what she has to offer for a life time job..
Miers was the bestest choice.
If Bush nominated someone like, uh, Pat Robertson, dem dare dumb liberals mighta caughted on more quicker. This way, evangelicals rule and everyone else can go to... well... you know where.
A new strike aginst Harriet
It seems that Mier's family made quite a profit on some real estate deal in Texas but did not pay fees and taxes and owe the state of Texas about $26,000. So we have Harriet in trouble with Texas and with the neocons, we have DeLay and Frist with insider trading and money laundering. We have Rove and Libby on outing CIA personnel and we have Cheney and Libby for pushing a war they had decided to fight before 2000 on trumped up intelligence and forged documents. Have I missed anyone?? The weeks to come will be very interesting. If any of this is true (the war part) it will be the biggest thing to hit our government ever. The Watergate coverup was bad but the actual event they were covering up was not that big a deal. And with Clinton, 1 man having sex in the oval office isn't anything to write home about either, again the coverup much worse than the actual event, nor was Whitewater which was investigated ad nauseum with no results whatsoever. But this Iraq thing, thousands and thousands of people have died needlessly. Thousands have been tortured needlessly. If, and I say if, the Iraq charges prove to be grounded in fact, we are in for a bumpy ride. If they are not, and the outing, insider trading, money laundering, unqualified cronyism are true, the shakedown will destroy this administration.
Yeah, he should have appointed Harriet Myers! nm
x
At least her clothing will be going to charity
*
A Repub in Independent's clothing. You know
OINK
Palin clothing really only $50k vs. $150k
nm
OMG - dissing the clothing. How superficial.
*
Hey there! I like it, but what about clothing, housing, medicines......sm
baby products (I nursed all three completely so THAT was cheap, but not an option for everyone), I don't think the MREs were meant to nourish little children, so I would worry about that. You still need utilities of some kind, because we all can't go out and cut down trees, so there is a lot to think about. I think if they INVESTED in hiring more social workers who were monitored to really do their jobs and fish out all the bogus welfare claims, get those people jobs or job training and paying back into the system, that would be wiser, because let's face it, there are some families that spend their welfare money on wasteful or indulgent stuff, but with this economic depression the Welfare is going to go more and more to unemployed families who were "let go," and I do worry about the nutrition and health of the little ones.
Bush paid Harriet $19,000 in 1998 re his Guard AWOL status
Guess he owes her big time, huh?
I happened to find this link, which provides a LOT of interesting facts about Bush.
http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/jphuck/Book4Ch.3.html
Bush first became concerned about his alleged AWOL status in 1998, when he was running for a second term as governor, about allegations that he was given preferential treatment to land a slot in the Air National Guard. So he retained an attorney, Harriet Miers who was paid $19,000 to investigate the issue. She and her aides concluded that Barnes had helped Bush land a slot in the Air National Guard in 1968 after being lobbied by Adger. Miers spoke with Barnes who acknowledged that he had never talked to Bush’s father about asking for the favor. Adger was already deceased, and since that time Barnes passed away. Bush knew that he was off the hook.
Miers: Margaret Carlson & James Dobson know. Why doesn't Bush?
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_carlson&sid=ajuZsQQbuwl4#
With Miers, Bush Gets Fifth Vote Against Roe: Margaret Carlson
Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- What if former President Bill Clinton had nominated his White House counsel, Bernie Nussbaum, to the Supreme Court? I can hear Bill Frist now. What does Slick Willy think he's doing -- filling a job at FEMA?
At first glance, there seems to be no other reason for Harriet Miers's nomination to the Supreme Court other than that she is President George W. Bush's Bernie Nussbaum. The notion that a careerist corporate lawyer would have risen to the top of Bush's list if she weren't down the hall is preposterous.
Unlike famous self-selector Dick Cheney, no one suspects the modest Miers looked in the mirror and saw the best replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor staring back at her. Only Bush could see the ``heart'' and ``character'' in Miers that made her the perfect selection. She's been his consigliore, fixer and confidante for more than two decades, and she thinks the way he does.
The fact that Miers is a woman helps enormously. It looks as if Bush listened to wife Laura, who publicly suggested he should replace a woman with a woman. It's far more likely that Laura publicly suggested it because he already had decided to do so. The choice prompts automatic praise from some liberals, excites Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and placates Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Bush's Wants
And notice how tongue-tied a potential critic, Senator Edward Kennedy, was two days ago trying to criticize her.
Miers satisfies a number of Bush's proclivities: his inability to distinguish an insider job from an outside one (White House counsel is the most partisan legal job in government), his desire to reward loyalty and his love of surprise.
Ambitious Republicans should be on notice that the best way to get ahead in the Bush years is to work anonymously inside. It was only because the White House floated Miers's name that she was on anyone's list.
This is not to say that Miers isn't a decent, competent (she may be a crony, but she's no Michael Brown) and respected person. She's devoted to her mother and brothers, a regular churchgoer, an early riser, an avid celebrator of birthdays.
Up the Ladder
In Dallas, she broke the glass ceiling for female lawyers (although she lived the life of a nun to get there). After meeting Bush in 1989, she represented him in matters ranging from his purchase of a fishing cottage in East Texas to questions about his National Guard service.
At the same time, she climbed a steep corporate ladder, becoming co-manager of a huge Dallas firm and chairwoman of the Texas Bar Association, specializing in commercial transactions for large corporations.
She served on the Dallas City Council and headed the Texas Lottery, where, some say, she cleaned up Powerball. She moved with the president to the White House, where the only complaint against her was that she lingered over paperwork too long.
She became counsel to the president when Alberto Gonzales was promoted to attorney general. Gonzales is another loyalist who proved himself to Governor Bush by speed-reading through death row appeals in Texas and redefining torture in the White House for purposes of allowing more of it in Iraq. With her nomination, Miers has gotten an even bigger promotion than her predecessor.
Shocked Conservatives
Some conservatives are loudly shocked that Bush ignored the long list of known quantities among conservative jurists in the mold of his favorites, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. It depressed Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol. Rush Limbaugh was so agitated Cheney gave him an interview to calm his listeners.
What those conservatives are missing is what Dr. James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, and Jay Sekulow, chief counsel to the American Center for Law & Justice, see in Miers: a fifth vote for overturning Roe v. Wade. Bush even got Dobson's approval beforehand.
Like Bush, Miers had a late-in-life born-again moment, joining a conservative evangelical church in Dallas where she taught Sunday School.
In an interview in yesterday's Dallas Morning News, Miers's former campaign manager, Lorlee Bartos, said Miers told her when running for city council in 1989 that she had been ``pro-choice in her youth.'' Then, according to Bartos, Miers said she underwent ``a born-again, profound experience'' that caused her to change her mind and oppose abortion.
Keeping the Promise
That conversion fits with her $150 contribution to Texans United for Life in 1989 and her successful effort to get the American Bar Association to move from support for abortion rights to neutral in 1991. After the ABA switched back to a pro- abortion-rights position, Miers in 1993 failed in a bid to have the endorsement put to a vote of the full membership.
At his press conference yesterday, Bush claimed that in all the years he's known Miers he never learned her view on abortion. Dobson and Sekulow will have their hands full reassuring the base about that comment. It's one thing for Chuck Schumer to be left in the dark, quite another for Bush to say he purposely kept himself there.
Didn't he promise the base he'd turn the light on and give them a selection sure to reverse Roe?
I think he has. This time he's tricking Harry Reid.
I used to think the younger Bush was like his dad on abortion -- pro-life for purposes of getting elected, pro-choice otherwise. But I now see him as a victim of Stockholm syndrome, adopting as his own view that of his right-wing captors. My money is on Dobson knowing what Bush claims not to. Assuming Miers is confirmed, it won't be long before we all know.
To contact the writer of this column:
Margaret Carlson at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: October 5, 2005 00:16 EDT
Donating Palin's expensive clothing to charity.
Mother who cannot afford food says to hungry child, "Would you like gabardine or charmeuse for breakfast, sweetheart?" Hopefully, Palin's leather clothing will be donated to hungry vegetarians!
I was also pleasantly surprised at the nice clothing, like SPalin! nm
nm
sheep
At the end we are all sheep. divided into
Obama sheeples
and
McCain sheeples.
or
GP sheeples
and
Sam sheeples
Go, Obama GP sheeples!
if we were all sheep we would be voting for another
duh
Thankfully they are not sheep and don't all ..sm
vote the same. The republicans could have all voted against it too and won with just a few democrat or independent votes. What is your point? The majority is 1 in the Senate and 12? in the House. My independent senator for one did vote against it.
Have you talked to the sheep? sm
If not, you don't have a substantial argument that beastiality is cruelty to animals.
And yes, homosexuality does hurt people. It hurts parents and siblings and husbands and wives and children whose child or sibling or spouse or mother or father suddenly decides to come out of the closet. Or do their feelings not count?
looks like a bunch of sheep to me living in USA..sm
hmmmmm....? Just because everyone is voting for Barack doesn't make any of it right - they all are bad candidates to some of us......
blechhhhhhhhhhhhh
JMO.........no flames required......
You should know. Obama sheep are pathetic.
nm
Sheep Alert! Oh-baaaaaaaaaaaa-ma!
lol at u!
You both are absolutely right. Sheep(le) will follow each
other right over the cliff and we are heading that way quickly. If it was happening in another country people here would wonder why the citizens are so dense; not here, they just hear the mantra of change, hope and promises (that cannot be kept) and are so addicted the first time they hear it they don't take the time to educate themselves about the possible ramifications until it is too late.
Sheep with flock mentality.
nm
The sheep are supporting Obama because of his
nm
Sheep, parrots and horses with blinders on. Oh well, nothing
.
It never ceases to amaze me of the sheep in this world.
nm
Who you callin' sheep? WE aren't part of the Obama flock which is why
you blast the tea parties and try to downplay their significance. The sentiment behind the tea party is that we shouldn't be part of any flock! We should be thinking on our own. We shouldn't hide behind party lines and blindly follow our politicians to our ruin, republican or democrat!
Geez, talk about totally blind. If it doesn't have a big fat O stamped on it, you won't listen. Just a bunch of freaking robots.... O rhetoric goes in and nothing relevant comes out! I thought you lefties were "intellectuals" and "free thinkers." Now you're just Obama groupies clinging to his empty promise of hope and change! Grow a brain! Exercise your brain cells and THINK!
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