Wednesday, October 12, 2005

No, that is not what we want

Senator Specter and others are knocking down a straw man in the Case for Miers.

They want more information on whether she would vote to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

"I'm really sorry that on doctrinal grounds they don't understand that she cannot tip her hand on Roe. I really think ... they're failing to understand a very basic constitutional principle of judicial independence,"

No, it isn't that we want assurance on how she will vote. Supreme Court Justices are not politicians that answer to the desires of their voters. They are to rule according to the law and most of all, according to the constitution. I wish the MSM would understand that the Judges don't VOTE, they rule on a case according to its merit and the established law. The problem we have with Roe v. Wade is that it was incorrectly decided based on a phantom precedence. The decision itself was not according to the constitution.

So the issue many conservatives are taking with the Miers nomination is that Bush promised justices in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. Miers does not appear to have the qualifications for the Supreme Court, let alone be in the mold of Thomas or Scalia.

And the repeated attempts to convince the conservative base to "trust us" rings a bit hollow coming from Washington DC. Now we learn more reasons to "trust them".

For example, committee lawyers said, the White House has told senators and conservative activists that Ms. Miers, as White House counsel, deserves credit for helping Mr. Bush select many strongly conservative federal judges. But lawyers for the committee say Ms. Miers, who became White House counsel last year, had no role in the most significant nominations.
And the fact that it was Cheney who spouted the "trust us" mantra. The same Cheney that was caught on C-Span telling his fellow Council on Foreign Relation members that he was proud to have hid his CFR membership from his constituents.
...speaking before the CFR where he stated, " It's good to be back at the Council on Foreign Relations…I've been a member for a long time and was actually a director for some period of time. I never mentioned that when I was campaigning for re-election back home in Wyoming". That final statement brought quite a laugh from the CFR audience.
"Trust us." Yeah right.

1 comment:

J. Smith said...

All very good points - the same that I have argued with people over and over. We have no idea what Miers is like, and I certainly don't see evidence that she will be even nearly as good as Scalia. I'm afraid we may have another wishy-washy O'Connor-type.