The Harried Miers Precedence

I think Bush did a disservice to the United States by nominating Harried Miers for the Supreme Court. Bush basically told the country that he knows her well enough to say she’ll uphold the constitution and that she’ll be a good conservative.

Sorry dubya, that’s not enough. Even if you’re right about her, you’re setting some pretty shameful precedence.

The first bad precedence being set is that Miers is a very private person with no judicial experience. Perhaps the best indicator of what kind of judge she’ll be is when Bush flippantly said “trust me.” Maybe that’s enough for some nearsighted conservatives out there. What happens though if Hillary Clinton is elected in 2008 and nominates her personal Whitewater attorney using the same “trust me” argument? Isn’t a certain level of trust already vested into a nominee? Should we trust a nominee more just because a President asks us to? Should public cheerleading by a President substitute for a severe lack of a transparent, public work history? The hearings will probably gain no valuable insight to where Miers stands. Years ago, another unfortunate precedence there has already been set for judicial nominees: Don’t comment on controversial issues.

The second precedence Bush set is that he’s nominated someone with probably the worst credentials in the history of the Supreme Court. She didn’t go to an outstanding college, she didn’t graduate with honors (that I know of), she doesn’t have any judicial experience, she hasn’t done pro bono, and she has done very little in the public arena. Believe it or not, some people actually criticized Bush for nominating John Roberts to the Supreme Court because some women were supposedly as qualified. Roberts was easily one of the most qualified human beings for the Supreme Court –male of female. Imagine the outcry if Bush nominated a man of Miers’ credentials. The second precedence Bush is setting here is that if you’re a woman, your qualifications can be far below the average Supreme Court Justice.