Townhall Columnist Michelle Malkin, 5 October 2005
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Nobody is asking Bush to put a "publicity hound" on the bench. But asking conservatives to trust that the blank-slate Miers not only has well-formed views on everything from property rights, the individual right to bear arms and the proper scope of privacy rights, to the Commerce Clause, racial preferences and presidential authority in wartime -- but also has the intellectual candlepower to persuade her potential colleagues -- based on little more than her Sunday refreshment-retrieving abilities is asking way too much.
SCOTUS Blog, 5 October 2005
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Perhaps entirely sincere in attempting to persuade his conservative political allies that Miers would not become a liberal -- or even a moderate -- on the Court, the President on Tuesday put her in a position to either endorse his concept of constitutionalism for all of her service, come what may, or else find a way repeatedly to justify a betrayal of his reason for choosing her. Few (if any) Justices have gone on the Court in modern times with such a burden of loyalty to the President who placed them there. The independence that life tenure supposedly would guarantee a Justice Miers may well be compromised seriously if, over the next 20 years, she knows she will always be measured against his definition of her.
Cato Senior Fellow Randy Barnett, 5 October 2005
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Harriet Miers is not just the close confidante of the president in her capacity as his staff secretary and then as White House counsel. She also was George W. Bush's personal lawyer. Apart from nominating his brother or former business partner, it is hard to see how the president could have selected someone who fit Hamilton's description any more closely. Imagine the reaction of Republicans if President Clinton had nominated Deputy White House Counsel Cheryl Mills, who had ably represented him during his impeachment proceedings, to the Supreme Court. How about Bernie Nussbaum?
As the quote from Hamilton suggests, the core purpose of Senate confirmation of presidential nominees is to screen out the appointment of "cronies," which Merriam-Webster defines as "a close friend especially of long standing." Cronyism is bad not only because it leads to less qualified judges, but also because we want a judiciary with independence from the executive branch. A longtime friend of the president who has served as his close personal and political adviser and confidante, no matter how fine a lawyer, can hardly be expected to be sufficiently independent -- especially during the remaining term of her former boss.
WorldNet Daily, 5 October 2005
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As strange as it may seem, the most resistance to President Bush's choice for the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, is coming from Republican senators, not Democrats.
Both former Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., have expressed serious reservations about Miers, whom Bush nominated as an associate justice Monday.
Townhall Columnist George Will, 4 October 2005
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Senators beginning what ought to be a protracted and exacting scrutiny of Harriet Miers should be guided by three rules. First, it is not important that she be confirmed. Second, it might be very important that she not be. Third, the presumption -- perhaps rebuttable but certainly in need of rebutting -- should be that her nomination is not a defensible exercise of presidential discretion to which senatorial deference is due...
Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers' 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' name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.
- M.E. Cohen - 3 October 2005