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Trust

I swear to Buddha, I have never seen this much public squealing and hysterical carrying on since a pinhole camera was discovered in the girl’s locker room of my high school. This isnt from Democrats who take pride in public outcry and emotional outburst, this is from the Republicans, people who take great pride for their inability to express emotions publicly. These are the very same people who are all of a sudden acting like it’s a snake handling tent revival and thrashing about with every east coast, bow tie wearing, elitist snot and screaming about how “he betrayed us all with this choice”!

Come on guys, its Harriet Miers were talking about being nominated, not Hillary Clinton. Have you read “The Corner” today? It reads like Andrew Sullivan went over there and spiked the water cooler with estrogen tablets. Does she really deserve the kind of froth that’s been brought forth by the country club Republican set? Ok, she didn’t go to Harvard or Michigan. For me, a west coast, “non lawyer” back country guy, that’s a big point in her favor. Do we really need one more “ivy league” high collar smartass on the court? Or can we have one – just one mind you – average middle American lady, and yeah, I use that term specifically and with the deepest respect, who knows the law, has a good head on her shoulders on the court?

And for all the talk of “cronyism” let's talk about how the success of the “republican vetting committees” has worked out in the past, shall we? Souter? Oh yeah, he’s worked out perfect. O’Connor, yeah there’s a winner. I’d take a roll of the dice over civil servants lobbying effort any day of the week, thankyouverymuch.

So that’s our choice, either we take the choice handed to us by some committee of political blowhards or we take someone that the President himself chooses for the job.

Here’s where I’m at with this: I don’t know Mrs. Miers from the lady down the street, and for me that’s just fine. I’m not sure I want another “Legal God” on the Supreme Court; I just want someone who can think for themselves who is reasonably adept at the law. Mrs. Miers appears to fit that bill to a tee. She didn’t go to Harvard, she went to SMU. Last I checked, SMU was a pretty good school. Frankly, I would have loved it if she would have received her degree from night school, I could have judged her desire for the law very clearly with that. Someone who goes to Law school at night out of passion for the law and the attainment of justice is a bigger hero in my book than someone who’s mommy and daddy paid for “young junior” to go to 8 years of Harvard to follow in the family business at a white shoe law firm. I would LOVE to have someone on the court that did something besides the law, let’s say a doctor, a business owner, a nurse who later in life became a lawyer or maybe not even a lawyer, just someone who was elected as a judge. In my opinion, that would be a perfect candidate. I’d love to see someone with out a law degree at all, but I think that’s never going to happen, but it does illustrate what I want to see on the court. Ill take the common sense of average folks any day over the well thought out judgment of the elite.

This idea that has developed as of late that Supreme Court Justices are or should be “super human smart guys” is just crap and frankly I think its dangerous for the Republic. I think that fundamentally, the nomination of Mrs. Miers is an antidote for that poisonous idea. We’ve had our quota on the Supreme Court for women and minorities, now we have a slot for the “average American”. Yes, she is a lawyer, but she’s the least lawyer to be on the court in quiet some time and frankly I find that really refreshing and not a handicap at all. Look, Justice Breyers is at this very time in history out selling a book that purports to convince us of the idea that since the founders of the Constitution couldn’t see into the future and predict the rise of “internet based citizen media” and “tee-vee” that their ideas of what is and is not “freedom of the press” are simply null and void and don’t deserve consideration. In my opinion, Justice Breyers is a dangerous man, not be cause he’s unqualified, but because despite of all his legal background, he doesn’t have the common sense that God gives dogs to figure out how dangerous that idea is, and yet, he manages to have a seat on the top court of the land. Justice Breyers’ ideas of “flexible truths” are what some people would say are a fine idea from a fine legal mind, but I think its dangerous, and hey, some people who oppose Mrs. Miers also think he is much more qualified than she is but for goodness sake, this pack of qualified super smart overqualified Harvard grads that makes up the current Supreme Court just passed “Kelo”!

Well, I say, So much for qualifications! Justice Breyers is a perfect illustration of why I like Mrs. Miers for the job. Is she qualified? Hell, if Taft was qualified, for that matter if Marshall was qualified, then she sure as hell is. If Justice Breyers, despite being what others call “qualified” and can still serve despite all that he has said, than I say so can and should Mrs. Miers, if for no other reason than because of the bracing slap-like sting of common sense she might bring to the court.

But what of her stance on abortion? Well what about it? The whole process that has produced the well rehearsed “abortion kabuki dance“ that was first practiced by Ginsburg and now finally perfected by Roberts, means that none of us, left or right, is every going to have a clue about what the potential justices position on abortion is going to be, so let’s not get all “pouty faced” because we didn’t get “our candidate” when we do such a fine job of hiding them from the opposition behind a cloud of “maybes”. We will just have to trust the Presidents judgment on this subject, now wont we?

And that’s what this really comes down to, do we or do we not trust the President? Or to put it another way, “Is President Bush the Leader of the Republican Party, or is he just out in front of the screaming mob?” because to me, I don’t see so much of a political party here as much as I do a screaming mob and that’s a damn shame.

Right now, I’m pretty disgusted with the way the Republican Party membership has treated the President in this matter. It has gone from a powerful political force to a bunch of spoiled brats that is far too used to getting its way when its squeals a little. Do we not all recognize that John Roberts is now the Chief Justice, with nearly no apparent effort? Do any of you remember the hellish example of “how not to do this” set by the Clarence Thomas nomination? How did that happen and how did this one go so well? Was it because Jonah and the Boys, Ann Coulter, or George Will said, “Go forth and make it so”, or was it because this President and his team did a damn fine job of putting that all together? Do we all think that we are done with nominations for this Presidency or that we are merely getting started? Does anyone recognize just what it is that the President has done over the past 5 years to make this party successful? Are we all now buying into too much of the lefts propaganda about how dumb the President is to understand the genius of the man who took us back from the brink of Clintonism?

I am not going to follow the President when things go well and then abandon him when things go bad. I don’t support the President because his poll numbers are up and he’s popular. I follow the President because I am a citizen of a Democracy. There is a time to oppose and there is a time to support or at the very least, follow. President Bush is never going to run for office again, but for the next three years, like it or not, he is still the President. You can froth at the mouth and say this and that about him and what he should have done but he is still the man in charge and we hired him to make exactly this call. We hired him because of his judgment, not despite it. We shouldn’t get upset when he does exactly what we paid him to do the way we paid him to pay him to do it. And if you think about it, that’s all that he just did.

Frankly, I admire the man for making this choice, whether it’s a choice I would have made or not. I think it shows a lot about his character and his mind and those are the two reasons I voted for him in the first place. If I wanted a Washington DC party hack that was a marionette to their parties string pullers and did what the polls said they should do, I could’ve voted for Kerry or Gore. I didn’t, I voted for Bush. I voted for him because I admire his judgment on complex matters and especially his ability to face down the press, from both the right and the left. I’m not about to change that opinion just because a bunch of country club Republicans are mad that he didn’t pick someone from their secret society to be on the Supreme Court.

But hey, I’m just a “back country hick” who didn’t go to Harvard**, so what do I know?

(**- Thank God)

( Update: And in case you are wondering, no, she doesnt look at all like the famous character actress Mabel Albertson.)

Posted @ October 04, 2005 07:36 PM | Current Affairs

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