MoonDog

Being a crony does not necessarily mean that a person is unqualified to serve on the US Supreme Court.

Take, for example, Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson. He was a brilliant legal mind, who is held to be one of the finest writers of decisions that the Court ever had. Of course, he might claim (if he were still with us) that his greatest contribution came when he was Chief American Prosecutor for the Allies during the International Military Tribunal in Nuremburg after WW II.

Jackson did NOT graduate from law school, and I believe only had one full year. Afterwards, he returned to his hometown to practice law locally, but only after he apprenticed with local lawyers! I think that Jackson was the last US Supreme Court Justice to serve without a formal law degree.

Jackson was very involved politically, and was considered close to Franklin Delano Roosvelt. It was FDR who tapped Jackson to come to Washington DC to serve as General Counsel of the IRS. He moved from the IRS to the SEC, and then worked his way up through various Asst. Attorneys General position, until he was made US Attorney General.

He was also the US Solicitor General previous to the Attorney General appointment, but I have no clue what that position entails.

Never did Jackson serve as a judge. And yet, he took various appointments, did well in those capacities, proved his loyalty to his party, and was awarded a spot on the SCOTUS.

Great man. I don't compare this woman to him as far as talent, but I fail to see why serving as a judge is a "necessary" qualification here.

Rip away.

asaris

It seems like the difference is that Jackson was a brilliant legal mind, while there's not really any evidence that Miers is.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

smooth

Being a crony disqualifies someone from sitting on the highest court of the land.
Isn't a crony someone who is unethical or outright criminal?

Regardless, I didn't see anything in the following text of your post that supported the point that cronies shouldn't be supreme court justices. I can't even believe that's a serious comment after I just typed that out...anyway, you did support the last statement you made: that being a judge shouldn't disqualify someone, which I agree with on that point.

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"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

hunnychile

Damn, talk about croneyism! YIKES!!

She's been his personal lawyer for years...
And she knows where the bodies are buried. He had to give her a job like this.

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host

i don' think that Hamilton could have predicted that a POTUS could be incapable of awareness of his own "shame".

RangerDick

I would just like to take this opporunity to say "POTUS" and "SCOTUS". They're just so much fun. It's a cool thing. Oh, one more....... "JOTSCOTUS." Dude, I feel awesome now.

Ten points for anyone who can guess what this one means, "HIACJWDNKWTFHITA".

Hardknock

Ok, I'll spend every waking moment on this site thinking up witty responses to threads in the politics forum to feel better. There's nothing that can be done about this. The dems are pussies who won't fillabuster and they keep trying to become repug "lite."

I'm sick of it.

host

I find it ironic that the TLC director, Lewitt, was hired by the Miers' led Commission, from a field of 700 applicants. Miers was charged by Bush with finding the best candidate for a SCOTUS appointment, just as Cheney was in 2000, to find the best candidate for VP to run on the Bush slate. in both cases, the best candidate turned out to be the person in charge of the search. Do you think that they selected themselves in a competition of 700?
In the "real" world, Miers would not be nominated for a SCOTUS seat, and Bush would not be POTUS, and RangerDick would not be allowed to post contentless taunts. Miers appointed Lewitt to direct TLC, apparently fired him when he promoted the interest of the people of Texas, after lauding him just 5 months earlier, then buried his investigation and audit of the TLC's prime vendor, Gtech, which the TLC paid $137 million per year, and had neverf auditted. She appointed a successor to Lewitt, who later lied about a sexual harassment complaint against a TLC commissioner, and was forced to resign. The word "judge" is in the word "judgment".
With Miers' track record of 5 years as TLC chief, and then agreeing to follow Bush to the white house, and playing her part as Al Gonzalez's assisant, as he drafter the "torture memos" (Miers introduced Gonzalez to Bush....), Miers has demonstrated incompetence, a penchant for acting against the public interest, ignorance or contempt for the Bill of Rights, and poor judgment. She shows herself to be a crony and a hack.

Marvelous Marv

He would have been fertile ground for discussion by someone who was blinded by a 30-year hatred.

Oh, the irony.

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"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
Margaret Thatcher

Marvelous Marv

How 'bout "First Lady of the US?"

From 1993-200, I used the acronym FLATUS for her.

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"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
Margaret Thatcher

MoonDog

One entry found for crony.
Main Entry: cro·ny
Pronunciation: 'krO-nE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural cronies
Etymology: perhaps from Greek chronios long-lasting, from chronos time
: a close friend especially of long standing

Robert H. Jackson was a fairly close associate of the President that appointed him. I think it is fair to think of him as a crony. I have never associated the word "crony" with negative actions - but I find that people often use the word to describe a person when there IS something negative that they are trying to convey.

If any of you aren't familiar with Justice Jackson, his is the picture under host's name when he posts. Check out www.roberthjackson.org if you want to learn about someone who has commanded the respect of many a Supreme Court Justice. Rehnquist served as Jackson's law clerk on the Court for several years.

Remember, I'm not saying that this woman is the legal, nor even intellectual equal of this person. I merely want to stress that being friends with a President does NOT disqualify you from the bench, just as not having served as a judge wouldn't disqualify. It certainly isn't the norm nowadays, but there have been effective Justices wihtout that particular qualification.

Hell, just a few years ago there was talk that Rehnquist might even retire, and that a respected law professor might be tapped as the nomination! THAT decision might have resulted in a tad less controversey, but I wonder....

highthief

I don't Renquist was a sitting judge prior to his appointment, either.

No big deal. The lady is obviously qualified with respect to the law.

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

asaris

IIRC, Rehnquist is the most recent appointee to lack bench experience. There have certainly been plenty of Justices who have lacked bench experience over the course of our history, some of whom have been distinguished. But the question is whether or not Miers has a really first-rate legal mind -- I'm sure she's bright, just as I'm sure all of my colleagues here in law school are bright. But I don't think many of them would be qualified to sit on SCOTUS, and I'm not sure Miers is.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

host

These comments are represented as Harriet's, in her own words. After reading this campaign propaganda, I can picture her calling Karl to ask how she should rule on a given SCOTUS case........Is this what this administration has reduced us to, listening to a cadre of puppets mouthing uncle Karl's carefully worded drivel?

MoonDog

Bingo! Let the review focus on whether or not the appointee has the legal chops to handle the job.

MoonDog

My GOD! The woman was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy at the Bush White House!! Do you honestly believe that she was going to answer those questions with anything less than the "company line", regardless of what her personal views are?

Since you are dispensing predictions on the direction that the nominee would take on cases she hears, I would like to hear about your track record on other sitting Supreme Court Justices. How did you do when predicting the decisions supported by Reagan-nominee Justice Kennedy? Or how about Justice Souter, himself an appointee of the elder Bush president?

Both of these Justices were believed to be conservatives at the time of their nomination, but proved to be more liberal in actuality. But I guess you knew that at the times of their nominations and didn't worry about them at all.

highthief

I agree with Moondog - I'm no Bush fan, but just what the heck do you expect a high ranking member of the team to say?

"Yeah, we suck"?

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

Francisco

Is it possible that Bush simply wants an "advocate" for his interests on the Court, and doesn't trust any sitting judges to handle that role? People on both ends of the political scale tend to be leery of judges moving toward the middle after being appointed to the Court. There are reasons for this sort of shift, although Bush (assuming he was aware of them) would not find these reasons "reasonable." I know this doesn't explain why Roberts was appointed first, but perhaps in Bush's mind, this was the best strategy to use to get Miers on the Court as well. Even Bush would know that it couldn't have been done the other way around. (And to assume that Bush would ever have higher goals or considerations than pure self-interest could be a mistake.)

host

My point is that Miers is apparently very comfortable regurgitating whatever silly phrases that Rove places on her tongue. We can do better than this. An independent judiciary demands it.

My point in all of my post here is not to discredit Miers, it is to discredit what Bush has publicly pronounced about her. Bush's premise that she is the "best choice", is incredible. We observe the spectacle of one grossly incompetent executive appointing an equally incompetent justice.

I have a hunch that Miers is the best we can hope for from a Bush appointment, from the standpoint of eliciting protest from the extreme right, as well as the left. Bush '41 could not have predicted that Souter would end up being as neutral as time has revealed. I have no record of prediction, other than considering the source......the executive who makes the nomination decision. I feared the appointments of Reagan, and both Bushes, because they tend to represent a narrow base of wealthy, conservative, corporatists first, conservative Christians, second, and the rest of us a distant third.

I see why the right is "up in arms" over this, and I also agree with Hamilton...

Poppinjay

Ms. Miers was a supporter of Al Gore's presidential bid against Bush 41. I'm happy with her. Not as happy as things should be - in the second term of the Gore presidency and the fourth term of the moderate miracle - but I'll take what I can get. And as a moderate, this is as good as it will get.

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Francisco

One could hope Miers is more of a moderate than Bush might have wanted. But if that's not the case already, don't expect any change in that direction any time soon, and here's why I think there won't be, and why Bush may be justified in feeling there won't be - and why Miers will remain his advocate for the forseeable future.

In my view, the style of reasoning used by an advocate in our adversarial system, often referred to as sophistry, is necessarily different from the style expected to be used by a judge, who theoretically extracts from the opposing positions something closer to the truth and hopefully to justice as it relates to the matter in question.

The further judges get from their days as advocates, the more objective they tend to become, and are required to become, and their tolerance for sophistry tends to decline accordingly. The same changes apply the further the judge is removed from political influences, where sophistry is also the name of the game.

So Miers, who will have been an advocate AND a political partisan up to the very moment of her expected appointment to the Court, can be expected to retain the advocate's reasoning style much longer than would otherwise have been the case.
And while most appointees have found themselves relatively freed from political obligations once they are on the Court, this would not necessarily be the case with Miers.

With some exceptions (Thomas comes to mind), other appointees have reached the Court largely because of a track record as a judge, even if that record itself reflected some political bias, but Miers would have earned her new position almost wholly because of partisanship, with no record of judicial accomplishment that would otherwise mitigate any obligation to fulfill the terms under which she will have been granted that appointment. Any shift to the middle could then be a long time coming.

Paq

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/us/supreme_court

Yep, she's going to be confirmed, bush said so

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Elphaba

Excellent observations, Francisco.

Thomas was deemed unqualified by the ABA, but was nominated imo to replace a black liberal justice with a black conservative. Completely political in nature, and he has yet to ask a question during arguments given and reliably votes the conservative line. He won't be changing his stance any time soon, as you have predicted.

pan6467

One has to worry about the hero worship, if indeed Rove is arraigned and tried and there is a case about it or any other case against Bush or Bush people, or a case where Bush is very vocal.... how can she rule against him. After all she has been quoted thusly:

LINK: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Supre...1170572&page=2

LINK: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9577329/

So how can this "loyalist" be impartial and fair when ruling on Bush or DeLay or Rove????????

We already have judges on the bench that went hunting all expenses paid with Cheney, and so on.

This isn't a president worried about what is best for the country, this is a president that is trying to make sure his ass is covered. And those of you who accused Clinton of doing it, have to see Bush is, but yet you're silent on him.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

AVoiceOfReason

I've already said here that I'm against this nomination. But let's be clear here--a sitting Supreme Court Justice can't help a president keep "his ass covered." She would be one vote of nine, and there won't be anything buried. Issues will be brought out in the lower courts, and dissents filed when the left leaning judges aren't happy with the results. Nothing will be covered up.

Clinton's attempted cover-ups were on the administrative level, not the judicial. He wasn't very good at it, of course, but had he been, matters would not have been before the judiciary.

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AVOR

A Voice Of Reason, not necessarily the ONLY one.

Francisco

The key word here is "help." One vote of nine is much more than that if it's the swing vote.

The whole Whitewater thing, that morphed into the Paula Jones and Monica Levinsky
show, was hardly just confined to the administrative level. Ken Starr was a prosecutor in the Federal justice system, and his "starr" chamber proceedings were hardly administrative ones. Clinton wasn't good at covering up precisely because matters were already being addressed by the judiciary.

AVoiceOfReason

But by the time a matter gets to the Supreme Court, the trial record is made and the matter has been argued once on appeal. I can think of little that exposes a matter than having it tried before a court/jury and then reviewed on appeal. Miers can't help hide anything; she MIGHT be a swing vote to uphold a lower court decision in favor of the administration, or to overturn such against. By that time, whatever was being alleged would be in the public domain many times over.

My point is that she can't help Bush keep "his ass covered" (Pan's expression, not mine). She's in a better position to do that now than she will be if confirmed.

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AVOR

A Voice Of Reason, not necessarily the ONLY one.

Francisco

Yes, but that's beside the original point. Sometimes you need to have an ace in the hole (or think you need one). As a counsel, she can be replaced by someone equally "competent" without a confirmation process. This is the person he thinks he needs on the court, and whether he's right or wrong, I think Pan is not wrong as to his motives. You may be right that he has made a mistake, however.

And covering your ass in government means as much about avoiding consequences of/for your actions as it does about having those actions exposed to begin with. Been there, done that.

pan6467

Really, one voice on the US Supreme Court cannot change anything????

How about 1 Justice, Clarence Thomas, ordering that a lower court's ruling be stayed? (And yes, stays by 1 Justice are common and can be held for an indefinate length of time, so it is not unrealistic to believe Meirs will be able to help Bush if he needs it by doing such a manuever.)

LINK: http://www.bradenton.com/mld/mercury...urynews_nation

How about that 1 voice being the deciding factor, already we have one who has been hunting with Cheney, the Chief Justice appointed by Bush (and given Bush's cronyisms one can only wonder what the past between those 2 has been), and we have the hero worshipper.... hmmmmm that leaves 2 voices, I think Bush would have a lock on "covering his ass".

And considering how the 2000 election bypassed Congress and everyone else to go straight to the court (and I am using how they bypassed everyone else not the election itself as the argument) I feel Bush having his grandeur, Napoleanic complexes would make sure whatever he wanted got there.....

So yeah, on the Rove investigations, I think he'll use them to the fullest and knows with her his ass is covered.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Francisco

Wow, your post beats the hell out of my post. I think I'm in love.

AVoiceOfReason

If that was what was meant by the original "covering the ass" remark, then I agree with you. In the event that the administration has something it faced prosecution for during the time Miers was part of the team, though, I'd hope she'd follow the ethical rules that all lawyers/judges know, and recuse.

But I see your point (and Pan's) now--in theory, the appointment could be a form of providing insulation for the administration. However, that's true for ANY judge appointed by ANY administration, isn't it? Having known a few federal judges and US District Attorneys and remembering how they were appointed, I'm quite aware of the political connections it takes to even be considered. The whole thing is appalling to me, no matter which party is in power.

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AVOR

A Voice Of Reason, not necessarily the ONLY one.

MoonDog

You know, it's not like padding the Supreme Court is a new thing. Hell, "The Smithsonian" had a great article a few months ago on how FDR was thisclose to having Congress pass legislation that would allow him to basically appoint a number of new Justices that would allow him to circumvent Supreme Court blockages of the New Deal legislations.

I would much rather sit back and watch this woman get torn apart or credibly defend herself once the hearings begin. The mechanics of nomination are what they always have been, just as the motives are. I don't think that she can withstand the scrutiny of the hearings, and so Bush will have to find someone else to nominate.

Francisco

It occurs to me to remember that in most matters people have more than one reason for doing things, and we (including me) tend to forget that. We object to someone giving what they think is someone else's reason for acting, because it's not what the objector sees as the number one reason for doing that something. But it could be a very good number two (or number three) reason, and why should my number two have to be the same as your number one (rhetorical question)? Just an idle thought on Sunday morning.

smooth

One word :

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

pan6467

Indefinately. Thomas' stay stated (from the above linked article): So basically, he can take his time, an indefinate amount of time and for the court, the case would have to make the docket and be scheduled for a hearing, which could again, be dragged for indefinite periods of time.

Meirs, if confirmed, could do the exact same thing on ANY judicial cases against Bush, Cheney, Rove, DeLay, etc. As could Roberts or Scalia or Thomas or any one of the Justices.

I am not saying it would happen, but why take that risk? Based on what she has been quoted on record as saying about Bush, and the admitted hero worship, it is not far-fetched to believe she would.

Nor am I stating any legal cases will be brought against Bush or Cheney or Rove or anyone.... although for Rove it does appear there maybe something brewing. And there is a case against DeLay, legit or not if confirmed she could put a stay on it. (He is a US Congressman, and I am sure a Supreme Court Justice could find some reason to order a stay against the case.)

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

raveneye

I think a pardon of any or all these people would trump any SCOTUS appointment in terms of its ass-covering potential, just as Bush's dad covered his own ass by pardoning Weinberger and others in the Contragate scandal.

Mojo_PeiPei

Pan there is a two quick things that come to mind.

-As a long time employee of Shrub, being a member of his administration, I think any case involving the Administration or it's personnel(sp) would end up with her being recused.

-As far as the hypothetical stay you are talking about with the justices being able to hold cases, I don't know if it's a possibility. If I remember correctly the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in cases of federal officers. Thomas was hold the case of an appeal. So if the case were to go directly to the SCOTUS docket, she wouldn't be able to stay it, all she could do is vote not to take the case.

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