Defending The Indefensible (George Will re Miers)

[Nightwing]

<snip>

Miers's advocates tried the incense defense: Miers is pious. But that is irrelevant to her aptitude for constitutional reasoning. The crude people who crudely invoked it probably were sending a crude signal to conservatives who, the invokers evidently believe, are so crudely obsessed with abortion that they have an anti-constitutional willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade with an unreasoned act of judicial willfulness as raw as the 1973 decision itself.

In their unseemly eagerness to assure Miers's conservative detractors that she will reach the "right" results, her advocates betray complete incomprehension of this: Thoughtful conservatives' highest aim is not to achieve this or that particular outcome concerning this or that controversy. Rather, their aim for the Supreme Court is to replace semi-legislative reasoning with genuine constitutional reasoning about the Constitution's meaning as derived from close consideration of its text and structure. Such conservatives understand that how you get to a result is as important as the result. Indeed, in an important sense, the path that the Supreme Court takes to the result often is the result.

<snip>

And Democrats, with their zest for gender politics, need this reminder: To give a woman a seat on a crowded bus because she is a woman is gallantry. To give a woman a seat on the Supreme Court because she is a woman is a dereliction of senatorial duty. It also is an affront to mature feminism, which may bridle at gallantry but should recoil from condescension.

As for Republicans, any who vote for Miers will thereafter be ineligible to argue that it is important to elect Republicans because they are conscientious conservers of the judicial branch's invaluable dignity. Finally, any Republican senator who supinely acquiesces in President Bush's reckless abuse of presidential discretion -- or who does not recognize the Miers nomination as such -- can never be considered presidential material.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/21/AR2005102101825.html

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. when I agree with him, I agree with him.

if you cut through the pretty language, his whole article says this.

She is not competent to sit on the bench. Period.

it is obvious that she is digging her own grave with each meeting she attends and each questionaire she pretends to answer.

[Missy M]

2. He also says bush is not presidential material because any senator...

who acquiesces to bush, regarding Miers, is not presidential material. That means neither is bush.

[Nightwing]

3. I dont usually agree with Will

In fact, I cant stomach the man. But damn if he doesnt have Miers in his crosshairs and that is just fine with me.

[rosesaylavee]

4. Wow. The end is near. I agree with George Will

and yesterday, I agreed with Patrick Buchanan on McLaughlan Group.

Yikes.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. same with me. I had to look in the mirror. He was making lots of sense

Pinched myself, spousette pinched me, we both agreed we both were awake, alert and agreeing with Pat.

I suspect that the recent trial balloon from the Washington Times was just that - a way for "Harry" to withdraw her nomination (health, perhaps?) before too much more embarrassment.

[rosesaylavee]

11. Yeah - my family actually makes a point to watch

McLaughlin Group every Saturday night - John asks good questions now. He used to make me so nuts I would turn him off mid-program if I chanced upon in my TV surfing.

Life is upside down.

[pretzel4gore]

17. it's the survival instinct, a virtue out of necessity

buch and geewill and the rest of the mediawhores need their day in court and long night on death row...they are traitors by lying constantly and effectively to hide the facts from the electorate while selling some really bad dope....dope that they know was cooked up by criminal specialists and run by focus groups and polls to preset the reactions according to whatever demographic they choose: they could get the jews to vote for a richard heydrick, or black people to elect a bill bennett; or ted bundy nightwatchman at a sorority (or 'geebush' brother of john ellis bush or 'jeb', president usa!)
it's such a giggle, exploiting people's venality, until the bills come due, and the treasury's empty, and death's in the air

[cornermouse]

5. Condensed translation of George Will.

We don't need no women on the Supreme Court, Senate, House, or Oval Office. The fact is, Mr. Will has been steadily building a picture of himself as a misogynist.

That is not to say that I want Miers in the Supreme Court. I don't. My problem with Will is that I don't think he would limit his block to Miers or the Supreme Court. I think he would include all women.

[Demit]

14. I did NOT get that read at all.

It was a patently silly accusation from the start, that any objection to Miers was based on her gender. George Will is just underlining that. We have had two women sitting on the Supreme Court for years now. The suggestion that Bush is breaking new ground here gender-wise is ridiculous. George Will's thinking has always been well-reasoned, agree with it or not, and I don't see any misogynism in this essay. I see him dismissing the sexism accusation as being barely worthy of needing an argument to dismiss it.

[cornermouse]

16. The fact.

We only have one on the Supreme Court now and it is quite possible that we could have none in a few more years if the neos get their way.

I have listened to George Will spout his opinions for quite a few years and based my response on that. He never misses a chance to slam a feminist position. It is unfortunate you don't know that. Make no mistake, he doesn't want a woman on the Supreme Court.

[Demit]

18. You seem more concerned with preserving the quota of women on the SC

than in the viewpoint that the candidate should be minimally qualified regardless of gender.

I didn't appreciate Will's unnecessary zing at Democrats in the following passage--it seems it should be directed at her defenders who are trying to cry sexism--but I certainly agree with it.

"And Democrats, with their zest for gender politics, need this reminder: To give a woman a seat on a crowded bus because she is a woman is gallantry. To give a woman a seat on the Supreme Court because she is a woman is a dereliction of senatorial duty. It also is an affront to mature feminism, which may bridle at gallantry but should recoil from condescension."

I've been listening to, and reading, George Will for years as well. His objection to Meiers in this essay is rightly based on intellectual reasons: she is an embarrassing lightweight. Your are ascribing an argument to Will here, that your apparently more finely-attuned ears have heard him make elsewhere, that he simply is not expressing in this piece.

Equating being against Miers for the SC with slamming a feminist position is what I would call unfortunate.

[cornermouse]

19. I repeat. I don't want Miers on the Supreme Court.

I also didn't want Owens or Rogers-Brown. If you want to condem me for wanting a court (in a nation in which 50% of the population is female) that has, at the very least, 2 females out of a total of 9 justices on the supreme court so be it. I can't do anything about your opinion and given what you've said, you certainly aren't going to change my opinion. That is also unfortunate.

[Demit]

20. Your opinion--the one I was addressing--was that George Will was

slamming Miers in this column, based on gender, because he always slams feminist positions, according to you.

I am not condemning you for wanting more female justices on the SC. I do too. I wouldn't argue representation proportional to population, however. I would prefer to stay on the more logically defensible grounds of elevating individuals based on merit. Which is what I saw as being Will's underlying thesis today.

[cornermouse]

21. So, indirectly, you are saying that because Miers is not

Supreme Court material, we should just go ahead and nominate a man because there are no other women who are qualified? And yes, George Will does not like feminists.

[Demit]

22. Er, "we" don't get to nominate anyone. That's the president's perk.

We are bystanders in the process.

And where in what I said do you get the idea that I might think a man should be nominated? Or that I think there are no other women who are qualified? You are reading far more into what people have said--me AND George Will, in the column in question--than is there.

You know, you and I aren't adversaries. I first responded to you by saying I didn't get the same read on Will's column as you did. I gave you reasons supporting my view. You could have done your part in the conversation by giving me concrete examples supporting your view, that George Will doesn't like feminists, and that would have been interesting to me, but you didn't. You had a chance to enlighten me. But you didn't. So there's really nothing left to talk about. Ta!

[depakid]

7. And Democrats... need this reminder:

To give a woman a seat on a crowded bus because she is a woman is gallantry. To give a woman a seat on the Supreme Court because she is a woman is a dereliction of senatorial duty. It also is an affront to mature feminism, which may bridle at gallantry but should recoil from condescension.


-Will is just as shallow and pedantic a scold as ever....

[unblock]

8. poor harriet. ya know, that's really gotta suck

working so closely with one of the most incompetent governors in history. he then gets to become the most incomptent president in history. TWICE.

and then SHE is deemed too incompetent to do clarence thomas's job.

that's gotta hurt.

[unblock]

9. fear not, folks. we do not agree with will. it is he who agrees with us!

just a little perspective check :hi:

[patricia92243]

13. Very good ! I'll remember that perspective on other occassions in life.

"It is he who agrees with us" Excellent!!

[Neil Lisst]

10. Miers has spent a lifetime of subservience to the wealthy.

She's a bootlicker and always has been. Even her state bar gig. Do you know who votes in those races? Big firms. Do you know how they vote? In large blocs, usually for some candidate they agree with.

Her entire life is one long series one with limited skills overachieving by merely being there.

Anyone who thinks so highly of Bush is unqualified to sit on the SC.

[TaleWgnDg]

12. Aaaaahhhhhhh . . . George "pompous" Will . . .

.
Aaaaahhhhhhh . . . George "pompous" Will . . .

George F. Will has a problem. George thinks he must strive to get from under the long shadow of William F. Buckley, Jr. who also loves to use thesaurus language. However, it will be a far cry in hell when George Will comes up to the intelligence of William H. Buckley, Jr.

That being said, Will typically is a lousy writer and loves to bash with what he thinks is a gilded glove. The ass.

.

[Lancer]

15. Beware the conservative

who changes stripes when personal tragedy, misfortune or old age hits home. (Will was adamantly opposed to all kinds of medical research until he had a grandchild born with some horrific neurological disorder, and is now one of its champions.)

Karl Rove, as we all know, is the heir apparent to the Architect of Evil, Lee Atwater, whose brain tumor led him to issue mea culpas and pleas for forgiveness out the wazoo from his deathbed.

Barry Goldwater spent about six hours with Ed Bradley in his twilight years apologizing for his zealotry and bemoaning the Senate votes he couldn't take back.

This is not to say that people can't change for the better, but when their reasons are so transparent, my radar goes up.

Never trusted any of them. George Will is merely being the Master of the Obvious regarding Miers, and frankly, I'm not sure why.

[TaleWgnDg]

23. Well said, Lancer, well said . . . n/t