I have not and will not express an opinion about whether Harriet Miers should be confirmed for a seat on the US Supreme Court. I'm a pastor, after all, and what I think politically doesn't matter to anyone who reads this blog.
But, as a Christian and a citizen, I've said time and again, I am interested in fairness, as I think everyone should be.
It astounds me that Harriet Miers is being subjected to vicious, ad hominem attacks--which are never right or smart--before she has even had the opportunity to testify at Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.
I'm not talking about those--such as Ann Althouse and Glenn Reynolds--who dismiss her nomination based on their notions of what credentials a Justice should possess, although their reasoning, based on the qualifications the Constitution enumerates for members of the Court, seems elitist to me.
I am talking about those who extrapolate Miers' judicial philosophy from articles she wrote for the Texas Bar Association or her brief tenure on the Dallas City Council.
One can only speculate what lay behind this vicious assault from some Republicans.
But Democrat, Republican, or Rotarian, the Senate should vote Miers' nomination up or down based on the facts. And those facts haven't been surfaced yet. They won't be until hearings take place.
Maybe Miers' performance will be so hideous that a vote against her will be warranted. But this rush to judgment is unseemly and grossly unfair.
5 comments:
What saddens me is that this viciousness has now expanded beyond just Democrats.
Yes, I agree with your comments, but the painful truth is that this type and degree of viciousness has been going on for a while from the same crowd. Witness the horrible Swift Boat attacks, that, of course, were proven untrue. Remember the extra-vicious attacks on Max McCLelland? ( I may have mispelled his name...)
It's like gossip. If you hear someone gossiping about someone else, you can safely assume they will eventually gossip about you. Wrong behavior is always wrong behavior, no matter who it is directed to. And if it goes unaddressed, it will continue.
It amazes me that Bush is shocked at the crude venom of criticism directed at his nominee. The fact is that this venom has been spewing from many of these parties for more than a year.
Also, those parties never fully grasped that, to a point, the Bush family has never been as conservative as they are. But George pandered to the base, just like any politician does. And that's politics.
I feel badly for Ms. Miers. She was completely unprepared for this nomination, and deserves much better treatment. If she is not qualified...and I have no viewpoint on that....she still richly deserves respect and civility. Of course.
The good news is that this entire episode has revealed a certain arrogance, mean-spiritedness and lack of decency to many more moderate Republicans, and they are appalled.
Deborah:
I agree with much of what you've said here, especially about Bush being less conservative than much of his base.
But the thing that gets me is that people who are clearly conservatives, like Hugh Hewitt, are being subjected to the same sorts of ad hominem attacks by other conservatives over the Miers nomination. It's like an indiscriminate feeding frenzy.
As a pastor, of course, I'm never surprised by anything we human beings do. (I know that, like the rest of the human race, I sin and "fall short of the glory of God.") But the manner with which some of these folks have taken to attacking Miers and those who defend her is truly breath-taking. If people wish to oppose her nomination, that's fine. But there's no reason to make the attacks personal, or to engage in political canibalism to express that opposition.
Mark
I hear you. Been there, felt exactly like that. I am utterly unsurprised at attacks on people...all people... who don't agree with the "correct view."
The concept of democracy is about representation of both majority and minority interests, and a process of compromise to derive that fairness.
This sports-world-like "I win, you lose" mentality would be foreign to our forefathers. Democracy is all but a dead idea in today's Washington.
However, I am thrilled that a significant portion of Republicans now understand the unfair, anti-democratic words and deeds of some extremist elements of their party.
(Yes, Democrats also have extremist elements, particularly the strongly pro-abortion crowd. They just weren't the problem this time.)
Again, thank you for allowing me to ramble here.
Mark---I just blogged at About.com about our exchange here and linked back to your excellent blog.
Thank you for engaging in rational bipartisan dialogue.
Deborah:
I'm honored that you would do this.
Miers' withdrawal is a disappointment. I don't mean that as a statement of support or opposition to her nomination. I feel disappointed because she was judged before she was even heard.
During lunch today, I watched MSNBC and a representative from one of the conservative groups that had opposed Miers' nomination said that she was glad that Miers had withdrawn "because there were too many questions" about her. The spokesperson said this with no apparent awareness of the absurdity of it. Of course, they didn't yet know much about Miers; the hearings hadn't even taken place yet.
Miers was, as I characterized her from the moment she appeared with President Bush in the Oval Office, a "stealth" nominee. The problem may have been that she was such a stealthy nominee that she had just one constituency base from the beginning, Mr. Bush himself. That wasn't enough, especially in the midst of the President's current troubles.
Whether from the standpoint of Republicans, Democrats, or the country at large, the way this sad scenario has played out does not bode well for the future. I don't look forward to the confirmation process at hand.
By the way, you mentioned Max Cleland. He was, in my mind, one more name in a long list of casualties in the politics of playing loosey goosey with the facts. There have been others and they have worn both R and D labels after their names. Their opponents have as well. This is, in my estimation, a bipartisan problem. Political competition isn't for the faint of heart, to be sure. What was so striking about the ways some conservatives expressed their opposition to Miers was how short-sighted and self-destructive it was. But, whoever the perpetrator and whoever the victim, character assassination and pre-emptive judgments without the benefit of the facts are two behavior patterns Americans see in their pols that leave them disenchanted with politics. They wonder, rightly so, "Where are the grown-ups?"
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