October 7, 2005
HER TENZING:
Staunch conservative to serve as Miers' guide: Court nominee's meet-and-greet continues on Hill (Kathy Kiely, 10/07/05, USA TODAY)
As Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers continued to woo senators on the Republican right Thursday, President Bush tapped a staunchly conservative former senator to help shepherd her nomination through the confirmation process.Posted by Orrin Judd at October 7, 2005 10:26 AMDan Coats, an Indiana Republican who was an outspoken opponent of abortion and gays in the military during his 10 years in the Senate, will be escorting Miers to meetings with senators and “serving as a public advocate for her,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Coats, who retired in 1999 and most recently served as Bush's ambassador to Germany, was close to Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, one of the conservatives who has raised questions about Miers' qualifications. “He's well-known and well-liked by many members of the Senate,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the deputy Democratic leader.
Coats seems suited to the job. So far, the lady strikes me as a joyless corporate lawyer.
Posted by: curt at October 7, 2005 12:37 PM"a joyless corporate lawyer"
And in a position where supposedly reasoning and not being swayed by the emotions (and poll results) of the moment should be paramount, that's a bad thing, why?
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at October 7, 2005 4:36 PMHer passion for the past 35 years was evidently meeting the needs of her clients and earning her large fee. Nothing wrong with this, but not likely to make her a font of compelling reasoning on the kind of issues before the court.
Posted by: curt at October 7, 2005 6:12 PMExcept that her client has been one of the three branches of the Republic.
Posted by: oj at October 7, 2005 6:16 PM"Nothing wrong with this, but not likely to make her a font of compelling reasoning on the kind of issues before the court."
I think you've stumbled into the real reason the Stupid Party auxilliaries are objecting so loudly to her — Listen to them and you hear that they want a pastor or guru or godfather or someone with an overwhelming moral authority to lead them (along with the rest of the country) to the promised land, and Bush has delivered a mere judge instead.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at October 7, 2005 7:05 PMoj -- nothing so grand; her current client is GWB.
Raoul -- Can't speak for stupid party auxiliaries, but I thought the idea was to put people on the court who could persuade at least 4 others to join them.
Posted by: curt at October 8, 2005 9:44 AMcurt:
You may have read about it--he's the Executive.
And you have the appointment requirements badly wrong. A Court with too many persuaders can't function, as witness the inability of even Scalia and Thomas to agree.
Posted by: oj at October 8, 2005 9:47 AMI thought the great persuader was Scalia? Or maybe Chief Roberts? How many persuaders do you want? Nine? You need a few solid faithful (in the secular sense) followers in the group too. Smart people who can recognize a good argument and reject the tangents and dead-ends that intellectuals love to follow. People who can resist the temptation to "grow in office" while being satisfied at doing the grunt work that we all say we want them to do.
No one follows Scalia though.
Posted by: oj at October 8, 2005 4:35 PMOJ,
I have this sneaking suspicion of Scalia. Given his worship of Stare Decisis and given Miranda Uber-Critic Rehnquist's majority-opinion writing upholding Miranda, I feel the Cornerites may have synchronized heart attacks the day Scalia writes the opinion upholding Roe.
And Scalia will write the majority opinion using the same reasoning Rehnquist used (i.e. Popular Culture reasonings).
Posted by: Brad S at October 8, 2005 10:50 PM