Redstate

that though it may not be the norm, and regardless of how Miers considers herself, it is entirely possible to be both pro-life and a feminist.

Although it is usually hard to find a feminist that holds socially conservative ideals.

Actually, some of the earliest feminists, such as Susan B. Anthony, were pro-life.

more pro birth control anti-abortion than what we think of as pro-life.

(just for a few that come quickly to mind)

Anne Maloney, Carolyn Gargaro, and Jenny Westberg.

Interesting questions for me, but I don't see it as dispositive about a secret liberal streak on Harriet Miers' part.  It was very much a part of campus culture, especially political culture among successful women in the late 1990's, to support endowed lecture series such as the one the article talks about.  

A strong advocate for women, Ms. Raggio helped persuade state lawmakers to revise Texas laws to give women new rights over property and in the event of divorce.

In the campus politics of the time as I remember them, it would have been an almost suicidal career move for a woman like Miers to object to a lecture series like that.

If anything, I would say that her support for the lecture series marks Miers as a shrewd politician in the gender wars going on at the time.  Simply put:  for a woman of her professional stature to be seen in open opposition without a very good reason would have been an almost ineradicable black mark against her among members of the respected and powerful female and feminist Bar at the time.  And if you don't have a hand and a voice in shaping the event, you might as well stay at home.  That was just a fact of the political climate as I remember it at the time.

I'm sure Miers is a Feminist.  Most people here don't appreciate what a gender-polarized and glass-ceilinged world the legal profession was until fairly recently.  Meirs is a conservative, but to not support the lecture series (which, after all, nobody is forced to attend) would have been judged in the universe of academic politics as almost an indication of insanity (and worse -- things like charges of psychological instability and self-hatred would have come up in the chitchat that happens among legal intellectuals.)  In other words: they very well may have blackballed her if she opposed it.  

All the more reason why we need to support more conservatives at universities around the country.  But this isn't a reason for Conservatives to go nuts, like Kos thinks we will do.

Because I was the secretary to the female dean of DePaul College of Law in Chicago.  I helped write (not typed, I actually critiqued and helped to write) the letter that sealed the deal convincing Richard Meister, the Executive Vice President of DePaul University to approve the hiring of Mary Becker after she decided to leave the University of Chicago (BTW, Becker has an undergradutate degree in Mathematics, although it's not listed on her bio page.  She's smarter than you.  She's certainly smarter than me.)  Unless you take that context into account, you will not be able to understand this decision.  It's not a black mark against Miers; it was a very sound political and career decision, especially at the time.

This doesn't seem like a case where she had to step in and take part in setting up the lecture series and raising funds, does it?  She could've just as well hung back, said nothing at all, and let someone else deal with the situation.  

The article doesn't really go into detail about that, and we haven't heard from Miers.  Given her string of Firsts in Texas she was probably viewed as a champion for women, and it would have been almost impossibly difficult for her to not support that lecture series.  She could have hung back, but her supporters among the feminist and female bar would have taken it as a stab in the back.  In the absence of other information and without knowing exactly what Miers was thinking, I would say that it was a sound decision at the time.  It's a lecture series -- and it's very difficult to oppose something like a series of talks as opposed to, say, an endowed professorship or a new department or program.  

The late 1990s under the Clinton Administration was a time of almost unbelievable revolution in women's presence in positions of power, especially on campuses.  For Meirs to have bucked that by hanging back on a lecture series would have been, in my estimation (and it's just an estimation) a big liability -- especially because her main experience is in corporate law.  

What should be happening right now is that the Left should be championing President Bush for helping a feminist instead of attacking Miers.  They should be sending accolades of congratulation to him and bumping up his polling numbers.

It's very hard to sit back and do nothing when other people are relying on you as a pioneer.  The political pressure to do it is immense, and frankly, Miers is probably a fair person who thought that a feminist lecture series would stand or fall on its own merits.  What's the attendance rate?

Academia works differently than the 'real world.'

People on the left, at least the ones I read, aren't really attacking Miers now.  They're more likely to be reading Redstate and commenting on what a fun place it is.    

Of course, we haven't exactly seen Miers come out in favor of upholding Roe.  So huge applause to Bush for nominating a true liberal feminist is unlikely.  

I love your sig line, by the way.  I don't know any whores, but I'm sure they're not as bad as people make them out to be.  Plus, I have the usual liberal sympathy for exploited workers.  

Where it's due:  

It's from a comment by one Dudley Fort back in 1998, entered as a comment on one of Philip Greenspun's personal web pages, and I just thought it was uniquely apropos at this particular moment, regardless of party -- but especially for Republicans, after everything we have been through in the past 72 hours.  Tomorrow I'll probably change it.

Greenspun is an MIT CS professor, a pilot and a general bon vivant who labored to engineer, inspire, create and maintain photo.net and also knows Dave Winer at Harvard, to whom all of the blogosphere is forever indebted, regardless of party affiliation, hair color, social status, number of piercings, level of programming skill, favorite band, or net worth.

BTW, if you like taking pictures, looking at pictures, or talking about pictures, photo.net is a killer resource.

I'm not afraid of being called "feminist," and I don't care what anyone thinks.  I sleep well at night being a feminist who is pro-life, pro-military, supports the war, supports school prayer, is against the ACLU, fought for Terri Schiavo, wants a flat tax, has always voted Republican, and loathes the left for hijacking the word "feminist."  I'll wear the term proudly because women like me--and Harriet Miers--need to TAKE THE WORD BACK.  

I wasn't one of the early feminists, I was a baby in the 60's.  I'm the beneficiary of women like Miers in many ways, and I appreciate it.  I am a feminist because I believe women should be able to decide to work, wear combat boots (I did), be a mother (which I am now) or all of the above at once without being criticized by ANYONE, not men or especially other women.  THAT is what a REAL feminist is, and there's absolutely no contradiction between "feminism" and conservatism at all.