October
4, 2005
Bush Recoils From Greatness
By Pat
Buchanan
Handed a
once-in-a-generation opportunity to return the Supreme Court to
constitutionalism, George W. Bush passed over a dozen of the finest
jurists of his day -- to name his personal lawyer.
In a decision
deeply disheartening to those who invested such hopes in him,
Bush may have tossed away his and our last chance to roll back
the social revolution imposed upon us by our judicial dictatorship
since the days of Earl Warren.
This is
not to disparage Harriet Miers. From all accounts, she is a gracious
lady who has spent decades in the law, and served ably as Bush's
lawyer in Texas and, for a year, as White House counsel.
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But her
qualifications for the Supreme Court are nonexistent. She is not
a brilliant jurist -- indeed, has never been a judge. She is not
a scholar of the law. Researchers are hard-pressed to dig up an
opinion. She has not had a brilliant career in politics, the academy,
the corporate world or the public forum. Were she not a friend
of Bush, and female, she would never have even been considered.
What commended
her to the White House, in the phrase of the hour, is that she
"has no paper trail." So far as one can see, this is Harriet Miers'
principal qualification for the U.S. Supreme Court.
What is
depressing here is not what the nomination tells us of her, but
what it tells us of the president who appointed her. For in selecting
her, Bush capitulated to the diversity-mongers, used a critical
Supreme Court seat to reward a crony and revealed that he lacks
the desire to engage the Senate in fierce combat to carry out
his now-suspect commitment to remake the court in the image of
Scalia and Thomas. In picking her, Bush ran from a fight. The
conservative movement has been had -- and not for the first time
by a president by the name of Bush.
In choosing
Miers, the president passed over outstanding judges and proven
constitutionalists like Michael Luttig of the Fourth Circuit and
Sam Alito of the Third. And if he could not take the heat from
the first lady, and had to name a woman, what was wrong with U.S.
appellate court judges Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and
Edith Jones?
What must
these jurists think about their president today? How does Bush
explain to his people why Brown, Owen and Jones were passed over
for Miers?
Where was
Karl Rove in all of this? Is he so distracted by the Valerie Plame
investigation he could not warn the president against what he
would be doing to his reputation and coalition?
Reshaping
the Supreme Court is an issue that unites Republicans and conservatives.
And with his White House and party on the defensive for months
over Cindy Sheehan and Katrina, Iraq and New Orleans, DeLay and
Frist, gas prices and immigration, here was the great opportunity
to draw all together for a battle of philosophies, by throwing
the gauntlet down to the Left, sending up the name of a Luttig
and declaring: "Go ahead and do your worst. We shall do our best."
Do the Bushites
not understand that "conservative judges" is one of those issues
where the national majority is still with them?
What does
it tell us that the White House, in selling her to the party and
press, is pointing out that Miers "has no paper trial"? What does
that mean, other than that she is not a Rehnquist, a Bork, a Scalia
or a Thomas?
Conservatives
cherish justices and judges who have paper trails. For that means
these men and women have articulated and defended their convictions.
They have written in magazines and law journals about what is
wrong with the courts and how to make it right. They had stood
up to the prevailing winds. They have argued for the Constitution
as the firm and fixed document the Founding Fathers wrote, not
some thing of wax.
A paper trail
is the mark of a lawyer, a scholar or a judge who has shared the
action and passion of his or her time, taken a stand on the great
questions, accepted public abuse for articulating convictions.
Why is a
judicial cipher like Harriet Miers to be preferred to a judicial
conservative like Edith Jones?
One reason:
Because the White House fears nominees "with a paper trail" will
be rejected by the Senate, and this White House fears, above all
else, losing. So, it has chosen not to fight.
Bush had
a chance for greatness in remaking the Supreme Court, a chance
to succeed where his Republican predecessors from Nixon to his
father all failed. He instinctively recoiled from it. He blew
it. His only hope now is that Harriet Miers, if confirmed, will
not vote like the lady she replaced, or worse, like his father's
choice who also had "no paper trail," David Souter.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
