October
5, 2005
I'll Wait And See Where Harriet Miers Stands
on the Constitution
By Mark
Davis
The din
of protest was not surprising after President Bush named Harriet
Miers as his Supreme Count nominee yesterday.
What was
surprising was its source. The loudest naysayers were launching
their complaints straight from the heart of Mr. Bush's base. A
large, vocal chunk of conservative America, as Weekly Standard
editor Bill
Kristol put it, is "disappointed, depressed and demoralized."
•Disappointed
because Ms. Miers is not a clear move toward the Scalia/Thomas
mold Mr. Bush promised for nominees;
•Depressed
because the president did not seek a defining, principled battle
over what kind of nominee belongs on the court;
•Demoralized
because it could foretell capitulation on other issues.
Article
Continues Below
This was
an enormous buzz kill for me by mid-morning, when I was still
thinking how cool it would be to have a Dallas woman on the Supreme
Court.
But the
issue of her worthiness is a far deeper matter, so I dived into
conversation with a wide range of people, some of whom know her.
I spoke
with Sen. John Cornyn, who properly pointed out her trailblazing
legal career. But then I heard the views of those who salute her
résumé as an attorney but wonder whether that is the same as a
glowing indicator for judicial temperament.
The central
issue of her confirmation will be her view of the Constitution.
Is it a document to be pored over for signs of original intent
or a general road map that changes with the times?
I heard
from a man who said he had known her since her SMU days, roughly
four decades of familiarity. He said he felt she shared his passion
for strict constructionism.
The president
has known her for a long time as well, and one would think he
would not name someone who was a huge question mark on such basics.
But you would think the FEMA director would have emergency management
experience, too.
I know –
borderline cheap shot. But there is a valid question over whether
loyalty blinds this president to some of the shortcomings of those
around him.
Maybe it
does at times. That's human. But we're frying even bigger fish
than hurricane recovery here. Like new Chief Justice John Roberts,
Ms. Miers could be looking at a seat on the nation's highest court
for most of the first half of this century, deciding issues of
rights and law that could stick for decades more.
I understand
some nervousness from those who wonder whether Mr. Bush has his
eye on the ball. His war resolve has been splendid, but conservatives
have recoiled at his embrace of horribly flawed campaign finance
reform, a plan that looks a lot like amnesty for illegal aliens
and a continually expanding federal budget.
But I'm
going to deploy what seems appropriate: a generous helping of
benefit of the doubt, which I may suspend if evidence mounts that
I have been had.
Cries of
betrayal are already mounting, but they seem premature. I believe
a lot of people are simply bitter that Mr. Bush did not name a
bedrock originalist – a move that would have seemed to thumb his
nose at critics pelting him with the seasonal pebbles of bad war
news, low poll numbers and a few scattered scandals.
I confess
I would have enjoyed a battle, watching Democrats try to discredit
a stellar nominee whose worst sin is a track record of trying
to figure out what the Constitution actually says and what its
writers actually meant.
But you
know what else I'll take? Justices Roberts and Miers, who may
well turn out to fit that Scalia/Thomas mold quite well. These
two justices are the end result of what, after the war on terror,
is the most important decision Mr. Bush will make as president.
I will conclude that he has blown it only if their bench behavior
is a disappointment.
For those
of us willing to take the president at his word, I hope what unfolds
is an uplifting – not disillusioning – process. And I hope I will
be delivering rather than receiving a big, friendly I-told-you-so.
Mark Davis is a columnist for the Dallas
Morning News.
The Mark
Davis Show is heard weekdays nationwide on the ABC Radio Network.
His e-mail address is mdavis@wbap.com.
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