Once again, Noonan’s analysis is brilliant. She argues that in nominating Harriet Miers President Bush completely misread his base. And she’s right. The base wanted a bench-clearing brawl, but the President decided to take a knee and run the clock out. Not very inspiring, and not a good way to rally the troops. My own analysis is forthcoming, but in the meantime you should read Noonan’s piece: “The Miers Misstep: What was President Bush thinking?“
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George Will: Miers Should Not Be Confirmed
In today’s Washington Post, conservative columnist George Will opposes the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. He writes: “Senators beginning what ought to be a protracted and exacting scrutiny of Harriet Miers should be guided by three rules. First, it is not important that she be confirmed. Second, it might be very important that she not be. Third, the presumption — perhaps rebuttable but certainly in need of rebutting — should be that her nomination is not a defensible exercise of presidential discretion to which senatorial deference is due.” Washington Post – “Can This Nomination Be Justified?”
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“Strong Grounding in the Church Could Be a Clue to Miers’s Priorities”
(From the Washington Post) “One evening in the 1980s, several years after Harriet Miers dedicated her life to Jesus Christ, she attended a lecture at her Dallas evangelical church with Nathan Hecht, a colleague at her law firm and her on-again, off-again boyfriend. The speaker was Paul Brand, a surgeon and the author of ‘Fearfully and Wonderfully Made,’ a best-selling exploration of God and the human body. “When the lecture was over, Miers said words Hecht had never heard from her before. ‘I’m convinced that life begins at conception,’ Hecht recalled her saying. According to Hecht, now a Texas Supreme Court justice, Miers has believed ever since that abortion is…
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Why Quick Endorsements for Miers from Evangelicals?
The newspaper of record has the best reporting that I have seen thus far on Harriet Miers. The story is titled “In Midcareer, a Turn to Faith to Fill a Void.” This article gives great insight into Miers’s conversion to evangelical faith and the subsequent reconfiguring of her politics. This one is definitely worth your taking the time to read it. For those who have been wondering how prominent Evangelicals have been able to offer such a quick endorsement of someone who is largely an unknown quantity (e.g. James Dobson), there may be some information in this piece that helps to explain. The White House had Texas Supreme Court justice…
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Mohler Endorses Miers’s Nomination
Al Mohler has weighed-in in favor of Harriet Miers’s nomination to the Supreme Court. After listing arguments against and in favor of her nomination, he appears to conclude that her pros outweigh her cons. He writes, “Her nomination deserves our support and close attention.”
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Miers Found Christ and Turned Republican
White House Counsel Harriet Miers speaks after being nominated by President George W. Bush as Supreme Court Justice during a statement from the Oval Office on Monday October 3, 2005. -White House photo by Paul Morse According to the Matt Drudge, Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers found Christ in 1979, and then became a Republican. Drudge is saying that the New York Times is set to splash the story on front pages tomorrow morning. Well, this could be a tough pill for Harry Reid to swallow. Her merits of personal affability and answering phone calls promptly are not likely to outweigh the unconscionable demerit of her being an evangelical. For…
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Encouraging News about Harriet Miers?
World magazine’s blog has an encouraging set of entries on Harriet Miers. According to an interview with her good friend, Texas Supreme Court justice Nathan Hecht, she is an originalist in her approach to constitutional (and biblical!) interpretation. The blog also reports that Miers is a committed evangelical Christian who is a regular tither to her church in Dallas and who holds the same position on abortion as the majority of other evangelicals in America. As for reports that Miers donated money to Democrat candidates for President in the late 80’s, Hecht says, “If she did it, it was because [her law] firm made her do it.”
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It’s Harriet Miers
Harriet Miers, White House counsel, being named to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She was on the short list, and now she is the one. President Bush has nominated Harriet Miers to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by Sandra Day O’Connor. Miers has no “paper trail,” as it were, having never served as a judge. We will be following this nomination very closely. Stay tuned. New York Times’ Profile of Harriet Miers
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Travesty: Abortion as Charity!
The Associated Press reports that the only abortion clinic in central Arkansas is offering free abortions to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Dr. Jerry Edwards says, “If we didn’t provide it now, they would get it later — a late-term abortion that would give greater risk to the mother’s health.” Dr. Edwards says he has already provided six free abortions that would normally cost between $525 and $600. The abortion clinic is called “Little Rock Family Planning Services” and was featured in this past Sunday’s New York Times in an article titled “Under Din of Abortion Debate, an Experience Shared Quietly.” The Times article tells the tragic stories of a number…
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Scopes Monkey Trial 2: Intelligent Design on Trial
The New York Times reports today about an upcoming court case in Pennsylvania. “Advocates on both sides of the issue have lined up behind the case, often calling it Scopes II, in reference to the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial that was the last century’s great face-off over evolution. “On the evolutionists’ side is a legal team put together by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. These groups want to put intelligent design itself on trial and discredit it so thoroughly that no other school board would dare authorize teaching it. “Witold J. Walczak, legal director of the A.C.L.U. of Pennsylvania, said the…