ConfirmThem

By Lorie Byrd Posted in Analysis and Predictions — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Eugene Volokh has posted Reginald Brown's response to George Will's column on Miers:

George Will’s column on Harriet Miers and the President is both unfair and sloppy. He begins by suggesting that the President is uninterested and incapable of making sophisticated judgments about the Court and judicial philosophies. This charge is patently unfair. The President picked John Roberts, and has a stellar first term record of selecting conservative judges for the appellate bench. There hasn’t been a liberal in the bunch with the exception of Roger Gregory and Barrington Parker, both of whom the President obviously nominated as part of an early political compromise that got Roberts and others on the circuit bench. This is a man who almost lost the Presidency because of the liberal activism of the Florida Supreme Court. He understands full well the power of the Court and has been serious about his appointments in the past...

...Will’s fourth argument is the most dangerous and absurd. He suggests Miers shouldn’t be approved because she hasn’t shown a "talent" for "constitutional reasoning" honed through years of "intense interest" and practice. Judging takes work, but the folks who think "constitutional reasoning" is a talent requiring divination, intense effort and years of monastic study are the same folks who will inevitably give you "Lemon tests," balancing formulas, "penumbras" and concurrences that make your head spin. The President sees through that mumbo jumbo and recognizes that good Justices are the ones who focus on the Constitution’s text, structure and history and who call balls and strikes. Bush is in favor of demystifying the Court and the Miers choice is part of that effort. Will seems to be buying into the "Nine Wisest Men" mythology that is a root cause of the Court’s aggrandizement of power over time.

Read the whole thing.