Reply #3: Can This Nomination Be Justified? [excerpts from George Will] [View All]

[existentialist]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/04/AR2005100400954_pf.html

I just read your post, mostly checking to see that what I was about to post wasn't already posted somewhere. Not only is your subject matter nearly identical, but the essay from which I was about to post illustrates yours nicely because I remember, back in 2000 when George Will stated that one of the primary reasons for voting for him was because of the judicial nominations that he would make. Now George Will says:

"he president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution."

Can This Nomination Be Justified?
By George F. Will

Wednesday, October 5, 2005; A23

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.

It is not important that she be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court's tasks. The president's "argument" for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons.

He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections.



In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech. The day before the 2000 Iowa caucuses he was asked -- to ensure a considered response from him, he had been told in advance that he would be asked -- whether McCain-Feingold's core purposes are unconstitutional. He unhesitatingly said, "I agree." Asked if he thought presidents have a duty, pursuant to their oath to defend the Constitution, to make an independent judgment about the constitutionality of bills and to veto those he thinks unconstitutional, he briskly said, "I do."