THE MIERS

The Miers' Nomination, Part II

It is fascinating to watch the debate over the Harriet Miers' nomination play out. On one side, rational questions are being asked by conservatives over what, if any, are Miers' qualifications for the Supreme Court. On the other side, the White House and Bush surrogates have resorted to calling conservatives who disagree with them "sexist" and "elitist," which to me, when you resort to name calling, means you might be at the bottom of the barrel on your arguments. And besides, I'm for nominating an African-American woman who was the daughter of Alabama sharecroppers, not for nominating the personal lawyer of the President. Perhaps the elitist argument should be leveled in the other direction.

But what really irritates me is that the White House and the President continue to use the evangelical Christian argument to assuage the doubts of the faithful over Harriet Miers.  We continue to hear the same broken record from Bush surrogates: Harriet Miers is an evangelical Christian who is pro-life.  That's it, end of discussion, the whole picture is now supposed to be clear.

This is a puzzlement for me, a strong evangelical Christian. How does being an evangelical Christian constitutionally qualify someone to sit on the Supreme Court? It is insulting that the White House is trying to use the "Evangelical Bumpkin" strategy to sway social conservatives.  But since this is the extent of the White House argument, should we be convinced that Miers is indeed a committed evangelical Christian?  Is she really pro-life and will she fight for principles she professes to believe? That's what I want to know if those are the two leading arguments from the White House to the social conservative/evangelical community.

Do we have proof that Miers is indeed pro-life? The President said last Tuesday that he has never asked Miers about her position on abortion. Nathan Hecht, a longtime friend of Miers, was quoted in the New York Times this week arguing that you can be pro-life and still uphold the constitutional-right discovered in Roe.  Honestly, how many committed pro-lifers would leave Roe in place? I think it is safe to say that an overwhelming majority of evangelicals, committed to the pro-life cause, would prefer a non-Christian who is unequivocally pro-life than an evangelical Christian who might believe that Roe is settled precedent and should be undisturbed.

While some have alleged that my incident with Miers over the Christmas message in 2001 was unfair to use, that it was insignificant, and that the final Christmas message was satisfactory, surely it raises a question about the validity of the central argument made by the White House, which is that Miers is a strong evangelical Christian.  How many strong evangelical Christians, with no pressure to compromise, would actively seek to water down the Christmas message?  I did not make Miers' faith a central issue for discussion. The White House did. If the White House is playing the faith card just to say, "She's one of you so you can trust her on all the key issues that you've been working on for the last generation," then I merely need to point to Jimmy Carter, who used the "I'm an evangelical" phrase to rally the Christian base and get elected.  I don't think Carter worked out so well.

If the White House and the President are attempting to say that her beliefs will mean something in the public arena, then they are saying that her beliefs are important because they will influence her decision-making in regards to life and marriage-which should have the left in America screaming bloody murder over her assumed stances on the separation of church and state and bringing a religious perspective to the public square. I for one would like to see an open debate over the role of someone's "private" beliefs in the public arena, and more specifically, the beliefs of judges, and what should be the role of those beliefs in the judiciary. But why is the left in America stone-silent on this nomination? One, I think they're enjoying watching the Republican Party tear at itself. But quite frankly, since Miers was recommended by Senator Reid, was on Senator Chuck Schumer's list of potential picks, and has received encouraging words from liberal Senator Barbara Mikulski, it doesn't appear that Democrats are too concerned about Miers' conservative credentials.

If conservatives are to support Miers, the White House and Bush surrogates need to provide proof of her judicial conservatism. But they can't give any proof of judicial conservatism because there is no proof of it anywhere. What we have is the tabula rasa 60 year-old nominee who seemingly doesn't have any opinions on the great moral issues of the day.  The lack of a paper trail leaves everyone guessing about Miers' true positions. We have very little to go on, besides the famous, "Trust me," which has led to so many disappointments in the past.

Simply affirming a person's religious beliefs and avoiding a debate about a nominee's judicial philosophy is not the way a healthy constitutional republic picks a life-long judge. It should have wide-open debates over what it wants in a judge; wide-open debate with real choices over what a judge believes is the role of the judiciary in regards to American life, not stealth nominees with no paper trail and no discernable judicial philosophy. Republicans should not play Russian Roulette with judicial nominees.

The great concern, and one that is being expressed by other conservatives, is the idea that nominees shouldn't have a paper trail or a track record. It sets a very bad precedent because it sends the message that potential nominees should not speak out on issues or establish conservative credentials. To do so might disqualify one from being considered for the high court. If the argument is used that we have to have a stealth candidate to get past the Democrats in the Senate, is it me or do Republicans have a ten seat majority in the Senate? Make the Senators toe the line and send in a good conservative nominee. Furthermore, since when has any self-respecting conservative ever ducked a principled fight? Right now I can't think of a greater fight than the Supreme Court.

And think of this for a moment: Harriet Miers in an intellectual "cage fight" with Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Souter. A no-holds barred, heated intellectual debate over the constitutionality of an issue, or for that matter, the constitutionality of any issue. Simply considering what we know right now, Miers would end up in shreds on the floor. Oh, she might give us a good vote. But I don't have any reason to believe she could hold her own against any of the liberal judges currently sitting on the Supreme Court.

In order to withstand the onslaught she'll experience, if she is confirmed, requires someone who has already wrestled with the full range of constitutional questions. There is no reason to believe that, when push comes to shove, Miers would be able to hold her own or stand up for her professed principles. 

I think the best outcome is for Miers to voluntarily withdraw her nomination and show her loyalty to her boss.  I've been asked what will happen should the Miers' nomination be retracted and a new nominee in the mold of Janice Rogers Brown be submitted. Quite simply, we have a fight over judicial principles, which will inevitably occur because the Senate Democrats have already stated that they will fight a conservative nominee. Speaking hypothetically, if Brown became the new nominee, there is little doubt the Democrats would filibuster. They would be forced too, but imagine the PR nightmare of filibustering an African-American woman. And I think the filibuster would be beaten because few Republican Senators would refuse to hold an up or down vote.  But we'll never know unless we try.

If I could tell the White House one thing, it would be this: the conservative base is ready to fight if given the right battle. Now is not the time to settle for a field goal and overtime (we'll have to eventually debate the role of the judiciary and the beliefs of judges at some point; if not now, later). Trust the base. We were there in 2004, and we'll be there again if the fight is the right one. Now is the time to seize the moment before it passes.

By Ned Ryun Click here for bio and archived articles

Re: The Miers Nomination, Part II (A Must Read!) Posted On: 10/15/05 12:53:33 AM Age 18, TN Excellent article Mr. Ryun. Thank you for clarifying this. God bless you. GenJ rocks! Re: The Miers Nomination, Part II (A Must Read!) Posted On: 10/13/05 07:30:08 PM Age 42, MI I fail to see why a nominee such as Miers surprises any of the rank and file members of the Republican Party. Seven of the nine Supreme Court justices have been appointed by republican presidents. This is the same Supreme Court which Republicans claim to dislike so much. Bush stated he would appoint strict constructionists to the bench. Yet anyone with half a brain would have looked at his record in Texas and realized Bush was lying. I find the paragraph in Ned's first article about Miers starting with, "I, along with other young conservatives, didn't sweat blood last fall to elect this President . . ." to be telling of his worldview. After four years of observing the most fascist/socialist president of his life, he "sweated blood" to re-elect Bush, yet he calls himself a conservative. He's willing to give a pass to Bush on immigration & spending (as well policies he's unwilling to list such as abortion, due process, torture, illegal & immoral wars, deficits, inflation & devaluing of the dollar, the tanking economy, increased regulation of all businesses, education, corporate welfare, social welfare, etc.) but all of a sudden, one supreme court nominee is the holy grail of sellouts. The author is no conservative. He's a republican hack. I predict two years from now he'll be "sweating blood" to elect the Republican nominee for president. Since the nominee will most likely be a socialist/fascist promising to outspend his Democrat opponent, Ned's rallying cry will be "The next president will get 3-4 Supreme Court appointments and we don't want Clinton/Biden/Clark/Dean/Gore/_fill-in-the-blank_ to be making those appointments." The Republican Party has controlled all three branches of the federal government for five years and two of the three for a lot longer. Yet the government continues to grow bigger, more expensive, and more intrusive under their leadership. Whats the Republicans excuse? For those of us who have researched the history of the Republican Party, this isnt a surprise. The party was founded on the principles of large intrusive government. FDR co-opted those principles so successfully, that ever since, the Democrats have been known as the party of big government instead of the Republicans. As businessman Michael Peirce stated in a column titled The Importance of Diversity, "I've voted Republican for twenty years because I hate abortion, because I hate taxes, because I believe in a strong national defense, and because I believe in rule of law. I've got none of the above. All I've got is the warfare state not strong enough to protect us from a real enemy, but plenty strong enough to bully the folks our wonderful elitists think need kicking around. . . . . . I'm no longer sure whether this country is worth saving scripture suggests we are well overdue for judgment. But I'm going to vote for a wild card and hope the Lord is in a real good mood he does after all, save sinners by Grace alone so maybe we get another chance." *** David Weigel Farmington, MI Re: The Miers Nomination, Part II (A Must Read!) Posted On: 10/12/05 08:24:23 PM Age 46, TN Great job Ned! Keep up the good work and use what ever influence you have to get a real conservative nominated. We will be writing Sens. Frist and Alexander. God bless you. Re: The Miers Nomination, Part II (A Must Read!) Posted On: 10/12/05 02:07:22 PM Age 29, MN Right on! Get Miers out of there and let's send up a true and proud conservative to the Senate!