Bush The II, 'Emperor of the Americas'

A well written article by Michael Reagan @ The Front Page:

"When the Democrats wanted Judge Roberts to spill his guts about every hot issue that might come before the Supreme Court, we cried foul and called for the application of the Ginsburg rule – insisting that he did not have to answer these questions.

Now, with the nomination of Harriet Miers, it’s as if there is no such thing as a Ginsburg Rule. We want to know everything – especially how she feels about abortion. Why are they asking merely that, but not about how she feels about eminent domain, or Affirmative Action, or gay marriage, or any other hot button issue certain to come before the court? Don’t they matter?

Harriet Miers can’t talk about any of those things, and they know it. After all, that’s what they told the Democrats when they tried to get Judge Roberts and other nominees to violate the Ginsburg Rule.

I understand why my fellow conservatives are upset. Many conservative pundits wanted the president to pick a nominee who had been in the trenches, fighting to transform the federal judiciary from the left-wing activist court it has become into what the Founding Fathers originally created – one that considers the views of the Founders, not other left-wing judges."

So now of course we have the issue of Miers and Roe v Wade, in WaPo's Miers Once Vowed to Support Ban on Abortion.
She is damned if she does, she is damned if she doesn't.

A.P. Miers Backed Ban on Most Abortions in '89.

Reuters today, 'Miers backed abortion ban in 1989 -Senate papers':

"White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said such a stand did not mean she would rule against abortion law on the high court:

"A candidate taking a political position in the course of a campaign is different from the role of a judge making a ruling in the judicial process," Perino said. "Harriet Miers has a conservative judicial philosophy, and as a Supreme Court justice she will strictly interpret the Constitution, rule based on the facts, and not legislate from the bench." "

And then there is the once unpaid bill and her problems with the D.C. bar, Miers said she neglected to pay her dues, and "as a result my ability to practice law in D.C. had been suspended." She was four months late...And? I mean really.

In the spirit of presumptive opposition, I give you via  Ed  Morrissey, Judge Robert Bork's "scathing denunciation" in today's Opinion Journal section of The Wall Street Journal (link to follow):

"With a single stroke--the nomination of Harriet Miers--the president has damaged the prospects for reform of a left-leaning and imperialistic Supreme Court, taken the heart out of a rising generation of constitutional scholars, and widened the fissures within the conservative movement. That's not a bad day's work--for liberals...."

And another hit from Hugh Hewitt's favorite National Review, that nowadays has nothing but derogatory articles about the President, I don't know why Hugh  still believes they are loyal. Be that as it may, the article, called Dealing in Dynasties, must have taken the lead from my Napoleon-Bush parody composition, and The Harriet Miers Royal Family painting, depicting Queen Victoria. Although my visual composition was in jest, Adam Bellow's article is less than amusing:

"You cannot understand George W. Bush without an understanding of his family, and dynastic families in general. Indeed, it might be said that Bush’s familial approach to politics has been his greatest strength and greatest weakness — his Achilles heel. Like Bonaparte, the same dynastic habits that brought him to power may bring him down again."

By the way Hugh how are you ever going to be able to relax on your holiday with the bombs detonating all around.....but then again Hugh is an old veteran in the judicial and political arena and a true gentleman, he has seen and heard it all before....

Beldar comes to the rescue as he responds to Glenn Reynolds' scathing attack on Miers in the Wall Street Journal.:

"The Bush administration has made two kinds of mistakes with the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. One kind is substantive, the other procedural."

To the first accusation Beldar responds inter alia:

"Well, yes. But they're exactly that — paranoid theories. If an American President sends to Capitol Hill a proposed new "court-packing" amendment to the Judiciary Act that would instantly expand the Supreme Court to 19 justices on the same day that the House Judiciary Committee is taking up impeachment proceedings, then we might have a problem. But until then, I don't think this or any American President should use the possibility of generating paranoid theories as a good reason to disqualify from consideration a lawyer whom, by definition, the President has found sufficiently competent and trustworthy as to become Counsel to the office (not just the office-holder) of the President of the United States."

Comments

[Kenny Pierce]

That would be the Roberts Rule of Order in the Court, perhaps?

[Jim R]

I find it interesting that it is called the "Ginsberg Rule" to not answering questions about personal opinions on topics such as abortion, gay rights, or anything else that may be even slightly controversial. It was after all John Roberts, now Supreme Court Chief Justice, that coached the first woman Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Conner, to not answer anything controversial. Shouldn't it be called the "Roberts Rule"?