Redstate

[And don't count me as a supporter yet.]

This is something that should be an important subject in the hearings:  would she feel herself to be, to put it bluntly, "out of her depth" and be starry-eyed or conspicuously deferential to them as a result? And it's a difficult question to answer because it has a lot to do with someone's personality.  

Someone else here must be able to shed some more light on this in the context of other justices who were appointed to the court with "unconventional" credentials and how they dealt with it.

She did, however, have a string of "firsts" as a woman in Texas, and I have to tell you that having worked for a woman who also had a similar string of "firsts" the people who rise to the levels she did could not be considered shrinking violets or people who are accustomed to letting others do their thinking for them.  I can almost guarantee that she's dealt with a few big-shot chauvinists in her time, and she seems to have handled that experience.  The question is whether that will translate intellectually on the Court.  

Given a good staff and a lot of support from friends, I think she could do very well.  I would venture to guess that that if she were confirmed, she would have a very dedicated support network, probably composed of as many powerful women lawyers, law deans and scholars as conservatives.  That was my experience working for a female Dean, anyway:  they stick together and support each other, even if it means looking past ideological differences to do so.  In some ways I think that's more true of women than it is for men a lot of the time.

I think if she had a stellar staff and enough support from friends, her background especially suggests to me that she's not someone easily awed or cowed.  But it's something to think about.

Any history from Supreme Court mavens here to shed a little more light on the question?  

I will say I don't believe she'd come in with any inferiority complex other than that given by the beating we have handed her for the last 48 hours.  Having broken a Texas-sized glass ceiling in the legal profession up to and including pres. of the Texas bar, I give her the benefit of the doubt on whether she has the cahones to speak her mind and stand behind her position(s).  She didn't follow the career path she has followed by being some sheep that follows whatever the so-called majority opinion is all the time(my psychoanalysis of her here is free of charge).

I am not on her bandwagon by any means, but her construed and assumed lack of abilities are not yet earned or necessarily deserved.  I stand with you on the issue of not having the luxury of time to find out whether she will be as good as W insists, but I apparently stand alone in thinking that, while she is no Luttig or Owen etc. (as has been pointed out countless times) she could indeed turn out to be a Thomas or Scalia.

I suspect however she will ultimately not be confirmed (my strictly personal opinion) which would make most of the last several days moot.

I still hold on to the hope and fantasy that this is a softball for the Dems that we won't suffer by, and that W already knows Stevens is outta here after O'Connor is replaced...putting the fight we're all hankering for off until then.  Stevens is a bigger fish to fry than O'connor as far as I'm concerned.

I read a great article about her by with a quote from a longtime friend from Texas that describes her as a Southern lady and knows how to suffer foolish men and make them think they come up with ideas.

Actually, 'ski, I would have to pray that I not effect a condescending lack of respect the clueless libs on the court.

great points yourself

I'm in neither camp yet - Leon's Illin (http://machonachos.typepad.com/macho_nachosbra_tasty_tex/2005/10/coalition_
of_th.html) nor the chillin group over at Ruffini's site.

That said, what if she's not in awe or cowed by the court, but the opposite. What if she brings such a different background and mindset, that her strength of personality creates problems for the other justices in dealing with her?

The background as managing partner of the law firm, and co-managing partner after the merger, are two experiences which may even exceed the ego force field at the SCOTUS. There relevance to the job may be neither here nor there, but the office dynamics will be affected.

It's not backing down or kowtowing which strikes me as likely, it's more the unintended consequences of throwing an entirely different, and in unique ways stronger, personality into the mix.

It's interesting searching for analogies, since the court has very few examples, and as noted they are long ago. I suppose a corporate clash of merger equals is as close as we could get - say Chyrsler/Daimler, but even there, the dominant survivor was fairly clear from the outset. Who knows what happens here?

I'm in the 'wait and see', or 'trust, but verify' camp. However, I don't see someone who has a nickname of 'a pitbull in 6" heels' as one likely to be swayed easily.

  If a grown woman of 60, who has carved out a life for herself with a fraction of the advantages meted out to St. John, who waxed about his modesty, has not overcome this most childish of complexes then we're all doomed. People who have struggled to make something of themselves frequently end up feeling superior to those who, like Roberts, have managed to have success despite all their advantages. If she's half as tough as Bush says, she'll throw this type of elitist nonsense back in the well-bred faces of the punditocracy. If she's an evangelical Christian, the only being she should stand in awe of is G-d.

  I have a definite feeling that if she's confirmed, whcih I don't think is likely, she will be far less disappointing than Roberts, whom many on our side fell in love with at first sight. Remember, when he gets invited to Harvard, he's going home.    

Ok.  Seriously now, do you have any idea what that would look like?  I doubt very seriously that a person with an "inferiority complex" would have managed to run a large law firm, head up the TX state bar, obtain a position of WH counsel, etc.

She is no shrinking violet, no matter what you might think of her alma mater.  I really, really doubt that a bunch of journalists (can I say that with enough contempt?) and blogosphere pundits such as ourselves is going to cause her to slap her cheeks and cry out "Oh, dear.  I'm really a loser and didn't know it!!"

You know Augustine, the more I ponder this post, the more it bothers me. An inferiority complex? Weakness? Are you serious?

This is a woman who went from being the first female to break through the Texas old-boy network to being managing partner of a firm of 400-plus lawyers. She was elected state bar president and defended the ABA's nominee screening role, even when the political wisdom in the Bush administration itself was to the contrary. Miers's resume is one of hard work and service to corporate clients such as Microsoft and to those too poor to afford a lawyer.

Someone who breaks the barrier in her professional career like that isn't someone with an inferiority complex. A position of weakness? You seem to mistake being humble for weakness. We all know how loyal she has been to this President, yet she was willing to buck him when it came to the ABA ratings of judges.

What indications do we have than anything you said here is even remotely connected to the truth? Assumptions and spurious conjecture, no evidence. Is this all because she has not been a judge, didn't get a fancy Ivy League education and didn't clerk for a Justice?

Quit taunting Leon.

It's mostly based on the National Law Journal article and others who have been quoted who worked with her in private practice... and found her to be deserving of a rep for being unwilling to challenge conventional wisdom.

Loyalty to ABA ratings is hardly something to be proud of.

Needless to say, the President went there too.

over exposure to elitist Ivy leaguers! I need to pray for humility and remember all the good qualities they have, and that but for the grace of God...I was accepted to Columbia law School but turned it down.

See, the over exposure caused me to tout my acceptance by them!

Lord make me humble!!

am I, but I think this is just silly.  You make it sound like she's a country hick ambulance chaser who suddenly got thrust onto the high court.  She's been at the right hand of the most powerful man in the world.  I doubt very much that she feels all that much inferior before the likes of Souter, especially at her age.

Reasons to support Miers:

• Trust in Bush
  
• Legal Club Outsider
  
• Great practical experience
  
• May be originalist judge

Reasons to oppose Miers:

• Not a lot of academic experience
  
• Maybe TOO practical?
  
• May be Christian activist judge
  
• Looks bad -- 'cronyism' charge sticks
  
• Better alternatives exist
  
• Affirmative Action pick

Hmmm.

-TS

Today, I interviewed a lawyer here in Atlanta who knew Miers in Texas for a column in the newspaper that I will write before Monday. His comments were all positive.

But I wanted to get your opinion on a few thoughts:

1. Isn't the absolute best possible evidence that she is an originalist we can trust, the fact that Bush knows her personally and vouches for her, given his track record in appointments and her oarticipation in making same?
   
2. Doesn't this trump, even if only slightly, the appointment of sitting judges with track records and paper trails consistent with originalism given betrayals by similarly situated nominees in the past?

and

3. Given the 7 spineless gop sens, past experience with gop defections on Bork and Thomas due to msm assault, aren't the extreme suggestions of a small cadre of conservative intellectuals suggesting withdrawal or defeat of Miers at this point suggestive of motives unrelated and/or antithetical to the purported PRIMARY goal of the appointment of originalist judges, such as,

intellectual pride, a desire for an ideological public debate even if unsuccessful, regional or other bigotry, elitism, or others?

I think your point #1 is a good one, but it is somewhat lacking what someone in the Trade might call 'probative value'.  One man's word is just that: one man's word.  Granted that one man does have a decent track record in appointing judges, but still... it is reasonable to demand more than that when it comes to an important appointment.  The absolute best possible evidence seems to me someone like Miers, whom the President has known personally for 10 years, but with a track record like Scalia.  That candidate does not exist.  If you had to pick between personal knowledge and track record, it's not as easy a choice as one might think.

As to #2, I don't know.  The record of the courts over the past 40 years or so is not encouraging, but the Regan and Bush 1 nominations were made during times of Democrat dominance in the Senate, in a different era when the SCOTUS was not nearly as politicized as it is now.  I don't think that reservation is enough to warrant a full-throated opposition of Miers, but I certainly understand the discomfort of those who oppose her on those grounds.

Ad to #3, that's what I think we need to rule out in the debate.  Some of the elitist sentiments expressed here and elsewhere does us no service.  Desire for an open public debate on the ideology of originalism is a good one, and I'd like to have such a debate.  But regional bigotry, the Legal Mafia elitism, and so forth do strike me as not good reasons for opposing Miers so bitterly.

-TS

It is ridiculous to suggest that she is somehow weak because she has not served as a judge.

The best lawyers would rather play ball than be referees.

She ran a 200-lawyer firm and co-managed a 400-lawyer firm.

She was elected to the Dallas City Council.  She was the head of the Texas State Bar.

Does this strike you as the profile of a passive gimp?

Get ready to be shocked.  And I say that to all of you who are expecting a passive, gimpy whisperer at the confirmation hearings.  Ms. Miers will shock all of the naysayers when she shows poise, composure, and measured aggression during the confirmation hearings.

Don't judge a person by her gender alone.

I'd rather she think that she is inferior than think the that Consitution is an inferior governing document.  

I'd rather she think herself incapable of making good law and public policy than think that the Constitution is a lump of clay to be molded in the image of five out of nine lawyers.

I'd rather she think that she is inferior than think the the country which nurtured her is so inferior to others that she must look to foreign laws and traditions to inform her on what is right and proper.

If she is that inferior, she'll be far superior to those Justices who she'll supposedly be so intimidated by.

Thanks