Michael Brown is now a possible candidate. He has all the prerequsiites. He’s available, he’s an attorney. Prior to FEMI, he supervised horse judges and the President likes his work(“you’re doing a good job, Brownie”)
While I don’t think Miers was a first-class candidate for the court, the Judiciary Committee is way out of bounds with their questionnaire. I would hope that all future nominees just drop it in the nearest trash can.
What? Except for question 28, asking about the nominee’s views on “judicial activism,” it’s all straightforward background-check stuff. You’d have to almost as much information just be considered for a teaching job at a community college.
And what’s objectionable about question 28?
The Judiciary Committee has a large staff, let them earn their pay by doing some research. I found the questionnaire to be excessive and intrusive. Why not just ask the nominee to provide a transcript and detailed justification, plus 10 copies, for everything they’ve said or written since age 5?
Warming up to the idea that it’s going to get used on them?
I agree.
The play I see is to bring a strong conservative knowing it will draw the filibuster, pull out the nuclear option and jam them in. In the event of a total snafu meltdown run with the second pick.
Bush will not pick a stealth, moderate, or unknown this time unless he wants to twist in the wind alone from here on in. He is hated by the left and has drawn the stink eye from the right…picking a moderate at this point IMO would be like flipping the right off and mooning them at the same time. I’m not talking about the “extreme” right either; the average right that supported him on this did so because they trust him…(they were trusting he was making a stealth play). I don’t think he was and fell on the side of WTF ?
He has another at bat but and I think he will deliver something closer to what his supporters want this time.
Oh, I hope so – the more moderates (and I mean true moderates, not the "John Roberts must be a moderate because he hides his colors very well “moderate”) get knocked down by the religious right, the more disgust and disdain they’ll get from the rest of the nation.
May I have a moment to plant a seed of conspiracy? Is it possible that Miers didn’t even write that letter? Bush finally realized he wasn’t winning any friends by nominating Miers, and having her “voluntarily” request that he withdraw her nomination would get him out of this mess without having to admit he made a mistake.
Also, as a slight hijack, I’m staunchly anti-Bush, but it seems he was going to get criticized no matter the outcome of this debacle. Not satisfied with the withdrawal of his crony for SCOTUS, his opponents have gone the extra step and accused him of bowing to the whims of the conservative right. Sure, he put himself in this situation, but it seems that rabid politics just couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Adam
I keep reading here that Miers wasn’t qualified
Here is her biography
Just how in hell is she not qualified?
Gloat. Lord it over. I was right, you were wrong. Again. As usual. Gloat, gloat.
Where the hell have you been all along? She simply has not shown the intellectual capability to be a justice. It really is that simple.
And anyway, shouldn’t you be attacking the right? It is the right that killed this nomination, for reasons which have nothing to do with her gravitas or lack thereof.
All that judicial experience just shouts out to you her qualifications, don’t they.
She’s a run of the mill, dime a dozen lawyer with no experience as a judge and no background in Constitutional law. I could throw a rock out my window and hit three attorneys who are as qualified as she is. I actually think the POTUS should be given wide latitude in his choice of Cabinet, but the Supreme Court is not the place for him to reward his buddies. It’s not a summer intern job.
You can hit three lawyers with one rock?! Brother, I am impressed!
Got enough rocks? I got some, you run low.
As if the learned professions (medicine-those money grubbing prima donas, the church - egotistical sky pilots, and the law) didn’t have enough trouble already, why must the law and its practitioners endure the jibes of some self styled rube wit, a transplant from the barren plains of Texas to the fertile paradise of the Upper Mississippi River Valley. It’s enough to make a guy advocate internal barriers to inter-state immigration. T’heelwit’cha. They already gave the Mark Twain Prize for this year to somebody else.
Someone else Suggested that our friend Bricker should be considered for nomination as a principled legal scholar of conservative bent and Republican leanings, but with a record of semi-public utterances. As seductive as that idea may be it runs up against the ugly and inescapable fact that our friend is – how to put this– not sufficiently photogenic.
And I’ve spent all this time picturing Bricker as a cross between Ricardo Montalban and Senor Wences. sigh Another illusion shattered.
I’ll tell you what, I’d take Bricker in a heartbeat over Miers and for all I know he’s not even real.
Bricker for SCOTUS!! Woo! But do you think his support of corporal punishment will come back to haunt him?
Dontcha hate it when you write what you think is a pretty well-thought-out post, and no one responds? 
Adam