ConfirmThem

By Irishlaw Posted in SCOTUS — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

I've been a little surprised by the charges of elitism being thrown at those of us on the right who are questioning Harriet Miers's credentials. The skepticism is not owing to her diplomas, but to an overall paucity of documents or speeches or other evidence that would indicate that she has thought seriously about and wrestled with the kinds of constitutional issues that she would be deciding on the high court. QD at Southern Appeal makes the defense of an "elitism" that asks for a little more than two legal newspaper articles as proof of conservative judicial philosophy:

No one should be an elitist in the sense of judging someone on the basis of his credentials. Having an Ivy-league degree is no guarantee of intellectual or moral fortitude (most of the NYT reporting staff has Ivy league degrees, after all, as does a certain French-looking Mass. Senator). But it does seem to me that we should be elitists in the sense of valuing and promoting excellence, that which is of the highest quality. We should demand that our leaders (whether they be judicial, executive, or whatever) be men and women who have developed the skills and virtues that make them capable of being great.

I wrote on my own blog yesterday that matriculation at Harvard, prior experience as a judge, or membership in the Supreme Court bar shouldn't be absolute requirements for the bench. As a happy graduate of two non-Ivies and someone who would have been glad to support, say, a Justice Garza from Notre Dame, I can hardly have an Ivy-only preference! On the other hand, the fact that Harriet Miers has no apparent record of seriously engaging constitutional law issues - gives cause to wonder exactly what type of judge Miers would be - what would her philosophy be? We don't know. But at this stage, we shouldn't be having to guess.