How's this for irony?
Not to brush aside the outrageousness of what happened to the Japanese-Americans in California because of Earl Warren's order to evacuate.
But in 1953, when Warrn was selected to be Chief Justice, not too many Americans were concerned about it.
But from 1954 on, starting with Brown vs Board of Education, the Court under Warren embarked on one landmark civil rights case after another that changed America's attitude toward civil rights.
Once that attitude was changed, THEN America realized that what was done to the Japanese-Americans in California was terrible.
Largely by Warren's own actions as Chief Justice, Warren had a big part in America finally deciding that Warren's own actions as governor of California in WW II were inexcusable.
``This will be the demise of the majority, sadly enough,'' Simpson, a Wyoming Republican, said in an interview. ``Once they start giving each other the saliva test of purity, they lose.''
Now we know why Bush chose Miers. According to a former White House staffer:
Harriet used to keep a humidor full of M&M's in her West Wing office. It wasn't a huge secret. She'd stash some boxes of the coveted red, white, and blue M&M's in specially made boxes bearing George W. Bush's reprinted signature. Her door was always open and the M&M's were always available. I dared ask one time why they were there. Her answer: "I like M&M's, and I like sharing."
Do these things matter at all when it comes to her qualifications for being an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court? Yes. They speak to her character. And in matters of justice, matters of character count.
Source
There you have it: Miers, in a bold, forthright display of character, openly offered M&Ms to anyone who wanted some. I bet even Benjamin Cardozo couldn't say that.
When you realize that people like that were staffing the White House, the issue shifts from pointing out that things are going down under Bush, to one of wonderment that things are not even worse than they are.
Joe,
Does that mean she will have to recuse herself when the green M&M demands emancipation and the case makes its way to the USSC?
parados wrote:Joe,
Does that mean she will have to recuse herself when the green M&M demands emancipation and the case makes its way to the USSC?
I'm not sure. But it probably means that, in any future disputed election, where the supreme court once again steps in to dictate the result, Miers will find something in the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment favoring the purple over the pink M&M.
When the Washington Post poses the question of whether Miers is the "judicial equivalant of Quayle" it makes you wonder how long before she is removed from nomination.
I also heard that "friends" of hers in Texas are raising money to mount a campaign to get her to withdraw her name from consideration.
I think, Bush really intended to unite the left and the right. Perhaps he thaught, this nomination was the only way to do so? :wink:
Walter
Bush thought. Ha! Ha!
Miers paper trail (Dan Abrams)
Quote:It turns out Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers does have a paper trail after all. True, there are no records of her thoughts on the great constitutional questions of the day. The president's Supreme Court nominee has never served on the bench or argued before the high court. Much of her legal work has been for corporations, and for Mr. Bush.
But thanks to the Texas state library and archives commission, we can now read some of her personal thoughts on the man who hired her. They're embedded in notes ...The kind of notes you might find stapled in the back of a ninth-grader's scrap-book, with lipstick kisses in the margins.
From a greeting card to then-governor Bush in 1997, Miers wrote, "Hopefully Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are 'cool' — as do the rest of us."
Whatever the president's daughters thought about their dad, the seemingly awe-struck Miers seems to be channeling their thoughts.
In this note from 1995, she said, "Thank you for taking the time to visit in the office and on the plane back. Cool!"
If its possible to flatter your way onto the high court, Miers may have been making an early bid for judicial greatness in this 1997 birthday card. It reads, "You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect."
Just to show the admiration ran both ways, here's how Mr. Bush answered back, "I appreciate your friendship and candor - never hold back your sage advice. P. S. No more public scatology."
F.Y.I scatology is generally defined as a sort of obsession with excrement...
I'll bet senate investigators for both sides are already at work, tracking down any scatological comments.
Quote:In this note from 1995, she [Miers] said, "Thank you for taking the time to visit in the office and on the plane back. Cool!"
Could be owrse.
She could have spelled it "kewl".
A clumsy effort to spin Miers
A clumsy effort to spin Miers
By Thomas Oliphant, Boston Globe Columnist
October 13, 2005
WASHINGTON
IT MIGHT HELP if Karl Rove's fourth appearance this week before the federal grand jury investigating the use of classified intelligence information in an ugly campaign to smear former Ambassador Joseph Wilson included a few questions about the Supreme Court.
What might emerge would be the truth about how far over the line Rove went in trying to drum up Christian conservative support for Harriet Miers just before President Bush announced her nomination. Failing that, all we're left with is White House spin and two versions of the story from one of the movement's most powerful figures -- James Dobson of Focus on Family.
The purpose of the spin and Dobson's latest version is limited for the moment -- to clear enough of the air to keep Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter from calling Dobson and Rove as witnesses once the Miers confirmation process reaches the public hearing stage.
Even if it succeeds, however, the White House has managed to make the political journey facing Miers more difficult by doing the opposite of what it did when it was John Roberts trying to survive the process. The White House insisted that Roberts's religion should have nothing to do with his confirmation. But the White House spin now is that Miers's religion should have everything to do with her confirmation. Such is the nature of spin.
My guess is that the limited purpose will succeed. It is difficult to imagine, given the Bush obsession with White House secrecy and his current and perilous legal situation, that Rove would be permitted anywhere near Capitol Hill, and aides are already arguing that Dobson's latest version of his chat with Rove is enough to dissuade Specter from polluting the hearings with his presence.
We'll see. As it is, the latest flip-within-a-flap has only served to harden the conservative chagrin at this nomination and to give progressives another reason to suspect her as a Bush toady lacking in independent judgment and judicial temperament. The intensity of the conservative chagrin may be be aimed at blowing up this nomination before hearings are ever held and Miers has an opportunity to appear minimally acceptable.
The original White House sales job was that the Miers choice was a welcome selection of a distinguished Texas lawyer whose gender only enhanced her status. That sales job was ineffective in avoiding a sudden explosion of conservative displeasure that Bush chose someone with no roots in and no ties to a movement to fashion a new judicial philosophy that stretches back at least to Ronald Reagan's election in 1980.
Within a day, the White House reacted by changing the pitch and focusing on abortion and religion. A close friend of Miers who is on the Texas Supreme Court, Nathan Hecht, was supplied to reporters and activists via conference calls to testify to her 25 years of evangelical faith, her membership in what Hecht called a very conservative and antiabortion Dallas church, and her belief that abortion is wrong. Hecht, however, had the elemental good sense to stress that all this had nothing to do with how she would decide individual cases.
Dobson turned out to lack that good sense. By last weekend, he was putting out his first version of his chat with Rove. He hinted slyly that he knew stuff he probably shouldn't but that he had no doubt of her antiabortion credentials and that social conservatives should relax after his Rove reassurances.
This gambit not only upset Specter and ranking committee Democrat Patrick Leahy, it also failed to mollify a single conservative. The result was Dobson's second version, now being spread via his group's radio program.
According to a transcript of the pre-recorded broadcast made available late Tuesday, Dobson says Rove told him that Bush was determined to select a woman to replace Sandra Day O'Connor but that the better known movement conservatives with judicial backgrounds had declined the dubious honor of going through the political ugliness of confirmation wars. He mentioned no names, but added that Rove then told him what Hecht has since told the rest of us -- that she is evangelical, opposed to abortion, and a member of a conservative Dallas-area church. The only discrepancy I noticed was that Dobson portrays her as a ''member" of a Texas right-to-life organization, while Hecht had only mentioned their having attended a couple of dinners together.
No matter. The White House has now suggested a religious qualification for office, and not one conservative has stopped being chagrined. Laura Bush may be correct that sexism is at work, but the fact remains that the Miers nomination remains a work in progress, and it is getting uglier by the day.
Quote:When President George W. Bush first nominated Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court, many people who were worried about her positions on hot-button issues cloaked that concern with talk about her credentials. But as time went on, it became increasingly clear that ideology aside, the qualification question looms large. So far this nominee has yet to demonstrate that she can even satisfactorily fill out a questionnaire about her attitude toward important constitutional questions. Based on the evidence so far, it is getting hard to believe that Miers is worthy of a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.
Bush began his campaign of support badly, by talking about their close association and insisting that "I know her heart." It is only natural to have a high opinion of one's friends, but we have already learned that Bush is an imperfect judge of capability. The White House also wasted a lot of time early on emphasizing Miers's church membership, which - in addition to looking disturbingly as if there were a religious test for high office - said nothing about whether she would be fit to decide Supreme Court cases.
Miers had an opportunity to win over the skeptics this week with her answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questionnaire. But her responses were so unimpressive that the top Republican and Democrat on that committee took the extraordinary step on Wednesday of instructing her to give it another try, this time with more "particularity and precision." She thus became perhaps the most important judicial nominee in history to be offered what amounts to a do-over on a take-home quiz.
Question 17, for instance, asked Miers to describe any constitutional questions she had addressed as a public official. That gave her an opportunity to write at length about war powers, federalism, church-state issues and similar matters that must have crossed her desk. But she offered only a few terse lines that revealed close to nothing.
Her courtesy calls on senators have done no more to help her cause. Senators from both parties have been frustrated by her refusal to give her views on even the most basic points of law.
Bush has either picked a court nominee so underqualified that she cannot even go through the motions competently, or he believes that once he gives his personal endorsement to a candidate, the Senate will silently fall into line. But America's founding fathers made it clear that filling vacancies in the judicial branch is the joint responsibility of the president and the Senate, and at this point the senators are beginning to look downright offended.
Miers will have another chance to prove herself at her Senate confirmation hearings. If she wants to convince the American people that she belongs on the court, she needs to make a much better case for herself than she has so far.
If the senate is worth a tinkers damn it will tell king George where to stick this nomination.
Miers 'Chaste,' Religious Leader Assured
Seeking to win over conservative Christians to the side of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, administration officials have begun to spread the word that the unmarried Ms. Miers is 'chaste,' and has never lain with a man. If confirmed, Ms. Miers will likely be the first virgin justice to join the Supreme Court.
Potential justice joins Jesus, John, Paul in ranks of famous virgins
By Deanna Swift
WASHINGTON, DC?Jesus. John. Paul. Harriet. Besides their deep and abiding faith, what do the early Christians have in common with Harriet Miers, President Bush's nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court? Chastity, say sources close to the nominee. Now, in an effort to win the hearts of conservative Christians who've been cool to Ms. Miers due to her lack of a paper trail and her single status, administration officials plan to reach out to religious leaders, assuring them that the President's pick for the top court is chaste.
A 'singleton's' status prompts concern
When Mr. Bush announced his choice of Supreme Court Justice two weeks ago, it didn't take long for tongues to begin wagging about that fact that the 60-year old Ms. Miers had never married. Dark minds on the Internet and beyond immediately speculated that Ms. Miers' practical haircut and comfortable footwear were signs of lesbianism. Some supporters rushed to defend the nominee's heterosexuality, noting that she is often seen in the company of Nathan L. Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court.
Choosing chastity
But the relationship between Miers and Hecht is solely a 'faith match,' say sources close to the couple. "Harriet's cause is the cause of the kingdom of Heaven, and the Bible is clear on this: virginity is better than marriage when you have a righteous cause," explains Becky Vondenburg, a member of Miers' former prayer circle at the Valley View Christian Church outside of Dallas, the church she attended prior to moving to Washington, DC in 2001. Ms. Miers now participates in a White House prayer group alongside White House spokesman Dan Bartlett and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Scooter Libby.
A reassuring phone call
While the White House has been officially mum on the subject of Ms. Miers' fleshly fidelity, sources close to the administration say that Karl Rove mentioned her chastity in a conversation with conservative Christian leader Dr. James Dobson. The two spoke privately about Ms. Miers the day before her nomination was announced, and soon after Dr. Dobson told supporters that he 'knew things about Harriet Miers that he probably shouldn't know.'
The first virgin justice?
If confirmed to the Supreme Court, Ms. Miers will be the first chaste woman to join the nation's top court. Two other women preceded her to the bench: Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both of whom were married and are believed to have engaged in coital relations prior to their marriages. Of the men currently serving on the court, only Justice David Souter is chaste. The other justices, including the newly seated Chief Justice John G. Roberts, are either married or have forsaken the kingdom of Heaven.
Are you more likely to support the nomination of Harriet Miers because she is chaste?
blueflame1 wrote:The first virgin justice?
I think that title goes to
Nathan Clifford.
joe, I thought I could slip that one by you. Nice catch.
