Miers’ house of cards

October 26, 2005

Let’s take a moment to consider the White House pitch when it comes to Harriet Miers’ Supreme Court nomination. If we look past the superfluous fluff — Bush saying he knows “her heart” and “character” for example — we’re looking at four principal talking points:

1. Miers was the first woman to manage a large Texas law firm;
2. She was the first woman to head the Texas State Bar Association;
3. She has “consistently rated as one of the top 50 women lawyers in the United States”;
4. As White House counsel, Miers has helped pick Bush’s other judicial nominees.

#3 is just demonstrably false, and #4 has been wildly exaggerated by the White House. But what about the first two? According to Mark Obbie, who was the editor and publisher of Texas Lawyer newspaper when Miers led the State Bar of Texas, they’re bogus talking points as well.

The point non-lawyers may miss here is that these accomplishments don’t necessarily signal astonishing professional achievement. Implicit in the president’s loving assessment of Miers’ resume are these assumptions: that lawyers choose their leaders based on merit, and that leading a bar association or a law firm is a position of great respect and honor. So, let’s explore each notion, in the context of Texas in the late 1980s and early ’90s, a time and place in which truly outstanding lawyers pawned off their “leadership” duties on those who wouldn’t be much missed from the billable-hours assembly line.

As Obbie explained, Miers work as head of local bar associations didn’t mean much of anything. The state’s top lawyers weren’t even members. As for being a 1990s-era law-firm manager, it’s less impressive than it sounds.

“Managing” such an enterprise meant divvying up too much money among partners, paying overworked associates just enough to keep them chained to their desks, and deciding whom to admit to the partnership — mostly those who could turn a profit and not those destined to be bar weenies. […]

Among the big debates of that era in law-firm management: Word vs. WordPerfect (endlessly amusing as dinner-party banter and sure to become a Harvard Business School case study). Another biggie was whether to shorten firms’ names from way too many unpronounceable surnames.

Can anyone, anywhere, argue with a straight face that Harriet Miers is the most qualified person in the nation to be on the Supreme Court? With a straight face?

Like Brownie’s “assistant (to the) regional manager” title, how many think that Mier’s “managing” the law firm was really more of an “office manager” type of role???

“Harriet, we’re out of paper clips, could you be a dear and call OfficeMax for us?”

  • I’ve been following the Plame story for as long as you have, via, well, you, and there’s something I’d like to learn about. If at all possible, could you or anyone point out a list of the top five people that _are_ actually qualified for the position that could garner “bi-partisan” (read: WSJ not NYT) support?

  • Dan –

    There are probably scores of people if I had access to the right databases. The problem is not bipartisan support, it is other political considerations — complicated by the fact W already filled the other slot with a white male from the beltway. A major consideration is age: the White House will avoid older candidates because they want to leave a more lasting scar on the country. So someone like Court of Appeals Judge Frank Easterbrook (7th Circ.) has almost no shot, despite what would surely be a fairly easy confirmation. Judge Jane Roth of the Third Circuit is another one who could likely be confirmed by bipartisan vote and more politically correct than Easterbrook because of the gender balance issues. There are literally scores of sitting federal judges, state supreme court justices, state Attorneys General, Senators/Representatives/Former Senators who are qualified and could achieve bipartisan support.

  • Man, you sure are out to get her. Now it also happens we know that people get judgeships who aren’t all that bright or good at it. Shall we now discount all experience as a judge? Clarence Thomas made it onto the Supreme Court. Shall we now discount all Supreme Court justices in terms of their qualifications?

    Why are you riding her so hard? Going after those items just doesn’t seem fair, when they’re perfectly legitimate resume points. I notice you also don’t mention that she’s represented clients like Microsoft, etc. Are we to assume that Microsoft picks its lawyers based on politics and not on the ability to win cases?

    Why are left-leaning blogs so willing to tear the woman down? She’s obviously more qualified than Thomas — and that’s without taking into account his unethical behavior. She’s only less qualified than most of the other judges by virtue of not having served as a judge. Is she the most qualified person in the US to be judge? Of course not. The nominee never is. Are we not allowed to skip over all of the existing judges? And yet, most of the existing judges were political appointees, themselves, so it’s hard to feel that they are somehow particularly deserving. No, she doesn’t have a legacy of academic writing on law. I believe Rehnquist and Scalia have such legacies. As did Bork. Snobbishness and academic intelligence doesn’t really make up for extraordinary bias and willingness to twist the law to mean whatever is politically expedient, in my book.

    I just don’t get the rabidness. You know that your bashingof this person will result in her not being nominated, with someone far more conservative going on to win the spot. So am I to take it that you have placed yourself above politics in this matter, your own objectivity just can’t stand her obvious (well, if this is your evidence, I’d say, manipulated) lack of qualifications? Better to reject this incompetent even though it raises the odds considerably that Roe v. Wade will be overturned and numerous other items on the conservative agenda will be ruled on, badly, by the Court in the years to come? So I take it if she were actually a Ginsburg, you’d be just as ‘objective’ about her incompetence and turn her down?

    Are you letting your desire to strike out at Bush get the better of you? I just have this uneasy feeling that there is sexism involved with the way people have been approaching her. That many male bloggers can’t get over the contempt they feel for her because of her gushing attitude toward the president.

  • Catherine,

    I am hesitant to respond, because frankly you sound more than a little like you are trolling, but on the off chance you are sincere, I can only say “you must be joking.”

    I don’t believe many here are out to get Miers, no one I’ve seen post has “contempt” for her because of her gender. In fact, I have posted a number of times that the Dems’ strategy should be to unveil an easel with a list of a dozen Republican WOMEN who are more qualified. Hard to see how that is sexist.

    One does not need to have been a judge to be qualified for the Supreme Court (a point I have also previously posted – indeed a little diversity of background would be a good thing). That said, it is one of the most powerful positions in government and the skills required are pretty specific. Arguing that Thomas is just as unqualified is pointless: I opposed Thomas, too, and felt his nomination was an insult to the High Court. We should not compound the problem by putting a second underqualified justice on the Court.

    It is hard to see how you can be so defensive of Miers when (a) there are literally dozens of more qualified Republican women available; (b) the White House has told so many distortions and half-truths about her background – a pattern that is well established (Iraq war, anyone?); and (c) Miers herself made several blatent errors of Constitutional Law in her answers to the Congressional questionnaire. The main thing the Supreme Court does is handle Constitutional cases – this is not a minor or picky concern.

    So this has nothing to do with sexism (the blogs of the left have been just as hard on Mike Brown; as far as I know he is male). This has nothing to do with mash letters to Dubya (though that hardly helps one be taken seriously in an age of gross cronyism). This has everything to do with Miers credentials. She may be a fine Texas business attorney and a good friend of George. That does not make one an acceptable choice for the Supreme Court.

  • the giveaway is this line: “Are you letting your desire to strike out at Bush get the better of you?”

    Anyone using that line is an officially approved propaganda robot….

    • Comments are closed.