I generally like George Will (don't tell my mom, who raised me not to), but now and again he slips and lets us see what he thinks of us peons and it ain't pretty. His column in this morning's WaPo is the talk of the town. People are characterizing it as somehow pussy-footing around because of his deference to the President. Are they nuts? This is just about the rudist dig at the President I've ever read.
It is not important that she be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court's tasks. The president's "argument" for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons.
He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections.
So: Will accepts the MOC characterization of the President. I hardly know what to say to that, except that as Will well knows from his study of political philosophy, it is not the pointy-headed intellectual who makes the best leader, but the prudent man who is capable of bold action. Bush is such a man. Want to argue with his choice, fair enough; sticking your tongue out and crying, "Dummy!" is an ad hominem attack, not an argument.
Will continues:
Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers's nomination resulted from the president's careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers's name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.
Well, duh. The President wanted someone outside the bench, so it seems he deliberately looked for someone who wouldn't be on Will's list. You know what this remark tells me? Bush didn't consult George Will.
The President has given us close to 200 absolutely fabulous judges, and he does deserve Conservative trust on these matters. You can be cautious; I am. You can ask questions; I will. But I'd sooner be governed by George Bush than George Will!
While I'm at it, since Will is alleging mediocrity, allow me to address one other idea that's floating around in the blogosphere. Several Conservative critics have raised the memory of Sen. Hruska, who, damning one of Nixon's appointments to the bench with faint praise, famously commented that mediocre people deserve representation on the Court, too. Ha, ha, everyone is laughing: Hruska had the impossible task of defending a poor nomination.
But people are mis-remembering the incident. His choice of words was unfortunate, but what Hruska meant was that ordinary people needed representation --that the Court shouldn't be made exclusively of hothouse flowers from the greenhouses of Harvard & Yale. That's exactly what I understand Bush to be about.
UPDATE: See also Ken Masugi's post at The Remedy. Money quote:
If Will's criticism is an example of the sort of "teaching moment" conservatives
wanted to have about the Court, it is a lesson the country could forego.
Right On!
[Tags:Harriet Miers; George Will]
