Miers, in her Own Words...Unfortunately Posted by: Dale Franks
on Thursday, October 20, 2005
Harriet Miers' questionnaire for the Senate Judiciary Committee has been released. It's a marvelous little document. Several bloggers have commented on this passage, for example:
My experience on the City Council helps me understand the interplay between serving on a policy making board and serving as a judge. An example, of this distinction can be seen in a vote of the council to ban flag burning. The Council was free to state its policy position, we were against flag burning. The Supreme Court’s role was to determine whether our Constitution allows such a ban. The City Council was anxious to encourage minority and women-owned businesses, but our processes had to conform to equal protection requirements, as well.
Note the amusing little typographical errors ("An example, of this distinction..." " ...its policy position, we were against..."). I may be a little free and easy with my proofreading when posting for the blog, but I'd like to think that, if I was writing out a formal questionnaire to Senate Judiciary Committee as a preparation for spending the rest of my working life on the nation's highest court, I'd take a stab at proofreading it.
I think I'd try to write a little more clearly, too. For instance, one wonders, as one finishes the paragraph, if women- and minority-owned businesses were particularly prone to burn flags in Dallas. Or whether the city of Dallas only banned women and minorities from burning the flag. As it turns out, of course, she was just incompetently trying to insert a completely separate thought into the paragraph.
Rather amusingly, she continues later:
Many times in practice I found myself stressing to clients the importance of getting the words exactly right if their interests were to be protected in the future.
Heh. Physician, heal thyself.
It is, by the way, interesting to compare Ms. Miers' answer to the "judicial activism" question with Chief Justice Roberts' answer. Roberts, in giving his answer, manages to quote Justice Frankfurter, Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in Cohens v. Virginia, and Marbury v. Madison. Through his reply, Roberts manages to refer to himself just once, in the final paragraph.
Compare and contrast with Ms. Miers' answer, in which she manages to spend no less than 6 paragraphs talking about her experiences, rather than answering the actual question. And her answer is replete with such profundities as:
The remaining, and essential, component in our system is of course the power of the Judiciary. The Judicial Branch has its own role to play in the separation of powers. It is part of the system of checks and balances.
Truly, this was a vision of the courts that had never occurred to me...prior to the third grade. Oh, and I note that her punctuation problems continue. On one hand, this questionnaire reminds me of nothing more than a Government 101 class assignment entitled, "Why I would Like to be on the Supreme Court", as written by a tri-Delt pledge. On the other hand, it's clear that this questionnaire was completed without any significant input from the Bush Administration.
Yeah, the more I know about Harriet Miers, the more underwhelmed I am.
The remaining, and essential, component in our system is of course the power of the Judiciary. The Judicial Branch has its own role to play in the separation of powers. It is part of the system of checks and balances.
Wow.
You told me earlier, Dale, that it was really elementary stuff, but I had no idea. Honestly, I’d have been embarrassed to write that, and my experience with the law consists of once getting a speeding ticket.
Ok, I’ve a new hypothesis: Somebody lost a bet—this whole thing is just a goof. Just before the confirmation hearings end, Bush will hold a press conference in which he announces that "American is truly blessed to have a ’cool’ practical joker in the Executive Office!" Everybody will have a big laugh, Bush will appoint somebody smart, and Harriet Miers will admit that she had really just been a paralegal who got caught up in the fun. Her paralegal career dashed, she’ll dye her hair white and have a brief career as a stunt double for Betty White. Betty White will still do any scenes that require even the slightest familiarity with the law.
Jon, I like your hypothesis a lot better than any I can come up with.
Up to this point, I’ve been looking at the Miers nomination mostly as an unnecessary risk. I just worried whether she would pull an O’Connor or something. I figured anybody at her level had a pretty good head on her shoulders, was a capable reasoner, and had acceptable communications skills.
My experience with executives of very large corporations should have made me more cynical. I remember the first time I met an upper executive of a Fortune 100 company and realized that he was a clown, a complete nincompoop. The company being a telephone company, it was clear he had obtained his position via politicking and sucking up.
I’m now weighing just how much of that kind of explanation applies to Miers. If this woman can’t even use the English language clearly and effectively, how can she conceivably be qualified for the Supreme Court?
Bush can now choose between several endings, all of them bad. The least bad is to get this woman off the national stage as soon as possible, and get serious about finding someone qualified to be a Supreme Court justice.
Of course, it was all those justices with such advanced understanding and complex reasoning that have decided it is OK to use foriegn law to interpret our own constitution. Or that the right to keep and bear arms only applied to the gov’t (National Guard). Or that "Public Use" meant tax revenue. Or...
Maybe a third grade understanding isn’t so bad after all.
Ow ow ow make it stop! I seriously HAVE graded better undergraduate papers than this. How did they not see this coming? How long will it take them to get out the big hook and pull this nice lady off the stage? More importantly, where’s the freaking Tylenol? I know damn well I didn’t have this headache when I started reading this thread!
I have more attention to detail than this woman, (and also an understanding of when to get help... as in "this is an important job application, would you mind proofing it for me?"), and have spent my life doing worthy jobs for low wage.
My resume has more substance than hers! I’d keel over in embarassment if I’d ever submitted a job app of this standard.
Every job application I’ve done, I’ve sweated to get the start and end dates of everything right. None of this "Dates not available" nonsense.
So it is insulting to me personally that someone can be so inadequate and still be put in such a powerful position - with lifetime job security no less.
