Anatomy of a bogus talking point

October 12, 2005

While chatting with NBC’s Matt Lauer yesterday, Bush touted Harriet Miers’ qualifications for the Supreme Court by noting the praise she’s won from others about her skills as an attorney.

“I would remind those, one, that Harriet is an extraordinary, accomplished woman who has done a lot. As a matter of fact, she has consistently ranked as one of the top 50 women lawyers in the United States.”

It’s become a familiar claim. In the president’s weekly radio address four days ago, Bush used an almost identical line, saying, “Beginning in the 1990s, Harriet Miers was regularly rated one of the top 100 lawyers in America, and one of the top 50 women lawyers in the country.” A few days prior, at a rare press conference, Bush said Miers has “consistently rated as one of the top 50 women lawyers in the United States.”

There’s only one problem with the talking point: it’s not true.

The source of this talking point is the National Law Journal, which didn’t name Miers one of the best attorneys, but rather, in 1998, listed her as one of the most powerful attorneys. In this instance, that makes a big difference.

The ranking has little do with merit and everything to do with access. The National Law Journal, in noting Miers’ “power,” merely acknowledged reality: that George W. Bush had given this woman a great deal of authority. What does this have to do with qualifications for the Supreme Court? Absolutely nothing.

By repeating this bogus talking point incessantly, Bush hopes to convince people that Miers is one of the nation’s great legal minds. As Salon’s Tim Grieve put it, being a “top lawyer” suggests “suggests someone unusually brilliant and well schooled in the law.” But that’s not the case here at all.

Indeed, the entire talking point follows typical Bush-like circular reasoning. Bush gives Miers power, which makes Miers powerful, which gets noticed by a legal magazine, which Bush uses as a justification to put her on the Supreme Court.

The president can (and no doubt, will) repeat the line as the process continues to unfold, but that won’t make it true.

The saddest part of this is that I believe that Bush believes what he says about her.

In his flawed and deficient brain, Bush sees himself as the ultimate “judge” of how best to run this nation, and, yes, the world.

I suspect a lot of it is hubris, toss in the damage done by years of alcohol abuse and an enduring immaturity and you have a guy that ought to be wearing a wife beater and bitching about Democrats from a honky tonk barstool in Texas, not the Oval Office.

If there is a God and she is an angry God, Dubya is her plague.

Thank you for listening.

Today on the Muse, you won’t believe this:

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  • There’s only one problem with the talking point: it’s not true.

    You do this very well, CB. Thank you. I wish the press generally had a fraction of your hunger for facts.

  • This is a no-brainer, when you say “rank” and “top 50” there must be documentation. Scotty should be fielding this question in his briefing immediately if not sooner, with the follow-up, “Why does the president feel the need to make up facts about Harriet Miers?”

  • I’ve seen plenty of blurbs extolling Miers for having worked, and become a partner, in a big law firm, and having represented some large corporations. As a lawyer myself, I’m left wondering: so what?

    What, exactly, has she done? Has she advanced the state of the law or helped it to develop and expand on any significant issues? Has she taken personal risks for clients in need and used her legal powers (such as they are) to improve and change anyone’s life?

    The fact that she has represented Microsoft is not impressive. A corporation such as Microsoft numbers its attorneys in the hundreds if not more than that. Some are the lead men on seemingly important litigation (David Boies?); others support the lead men; and others still just read contracts, tweak phrasing here and there in business deals, and oversee the minutae. A first-year attorney can represent Microsoft if he/she works for a large law firm that Microsoft hires for its work in that part of the country, and if the partners of that firm assign the newbie to write a memo on a Microsoft matter.

    Being one of hundreds if not thousands of lawyers to represent a leviathan corporation on its sundry legal concerns is not impressive. Someone please ask her during the hearings, “what exactly have you done as a lawyer?”

  • A familiar WH strategy, to be sure. I seem to recall some Judy Miller reporting of WMDs in the NYT, cited later by Cheney as “proof” of their existence.

    It’s odd that as clever and nefarious as they seem, they really only know a few tricks.

  • I literally just heard Bush utter the line ‘Miers is one of the top fifty women lawyers in the United States’, typed it into Google, and got this post. Amazing; actually, startling. Even worse, she’s not one of the top fifty lawyers, period, nor is she one of the top legal minds, nor does she have any experience on the bench. Ugh.

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