ConfirmThem

By Carol Platt Liebau Posted in Analysis and Predictions — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

(1) I admire Ed Gillespie, but anyone who charges there is an element of "sexism" in any of this discussion -- by anyone on any side -- is just wrong. None of the people who are attacking Miers would have opposed Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owens, or Mary Ann Glendon. There is some basis to the charge of elitism -- not necessarily because a lot of Miers opponents are, in fact, elitist, but because (as I wrote yesterday), "Some . . . of those who oppose Ms. Miers have done so by denigrating her legal skills and background. That’s where the charge of elitism comes from."

(2) As an outspoken person myself, I'm sympathetic to arguments that nominations of those without extensive conservative public records are deeply unjust to those who "take the arrows" in the course of engaging in intellectual combat on behalf of our ideas. But . . . It's been speculated that this appointment may be geared to raising the "comfort level" of other justices (on the left) who may be considering retirement. Some justices might be more willing to retire if they could legitimately hope that their replacements would be a Roberts/Mier, rather than a Luttig/Brown, rather than declining to retire in the style of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thurgood Marshall, both of whom died while still on the Court.

Just a thought . . .