Miers

The straw that broke the camel's back as it were. It is certainly no secret that I have been less than a fan of GWB for quite sometime now. Nonetheless, I, like many libertarians, have continued to refrain from outright opposition to the administration because of one issue: judicial appointments. I mean, surely GW was preferred to Kerry in this respect, right? Afterall, prior to the last election, he promised us that he would appoint "strict constructionists" (see my discussion of "strict constructionism" below) in the mold of Thomas/Scalia and, moreover, the subsequent appointments of jurists like Janice Roger Brown (a REAL libertarian) proved that GW was inclined to deliver judges dedicated to limiting the state's reach into BOTH our wallets AND our bedrooms. So it goes. Many of us continued to support Bush for the simple (and only) reason that he was most inclined to shape the courts to our liking. Call me single-issue minded if you must.

But, here we are: Harriet Miers. Reality is kicking me harder than the morning sun through the window after a night-long, open-bar-fueled, double-Dewars/rocks-binge-wedding reception. I am now waking up to the realization that I have spent the past 5 years passively flirting with the enemy and all for naught. And I can now see that this Harriet Miers hangover is going to sting for a while; for it so brightly highlights my own personal blindness. I feel like I have been duped and it royally sucks. Face it. GWB is a BIG Government, free-spending, entitlement-creating, favor-doling, police-state-cheering, federalism-crashing, war-mongering, crony-placing, moralist who has almost single-handedly destroyed my once-held belief that Republicans, by and large, were the better of 2 bad options. Well, I had to wake-up sometime, I suppose.

As for Ms. Miers - there is really not much that I can contribute on the subject. I like George Will's take, Randy Barnett's take, and, my ex-professor, Tom Smith's rant is perfect. In a word, she is a lightweight. Scratch that. She's a featherweight. But for her status as buddy-to-the-Prez, whom she deems, "the most brilliant man that she has ever known...,"Ms. Miers would have most likely spent the balance of her professional life in a corner office as a big firm commercial lawyer in Texas. Indeed, nothing in her background suggests a future destined for the federal bench, let alone the high court. This is pure crap. While, I do not subscribe to belief that Supremes must fit a certain pre-ordained, Ivy-laden pedigree; I do think that a Supreme Court justiceship should be an award based on paramount meritocracy. Consider, unlike the other two branches of government, where I prefer lower IQs and fewer three-name-names, the court requires a certain intellectual capacity capable of meeting the rigors of detail and forethought that accompany the cases before it and an established and hardened judicial philosophy capable of withstanding the inevitable condemnations of the MSM and law review articles. This is not a learn-on-the-job sort of gig. You just don't appoint your old Texas chum because you like the way she strokes your ego at the Billy Graham Backyard Bar-B-Q. Apparently, this fact, like far too many others, is just beyond the comprehension of Mr. Bush.

UPDATE: 10/10/05, 3:58pm: Tom Smith knocks it around again:

I am really going to try to stop ranting on this, but before I do: Look, anyone who has been around since RR and the founding of Fed Soc as I have, knows all about the difference between real conservatives or libertarians, and the various me-too Republican sorts who, it must be said, have long had a way of gathering around the Bushes. So here is W just frankly screwing the conservatives, and now we are beingchided by Hugh Hewitt, who is not exactly the most steely-eyed guy on the planet, for complaining about the abuse. We supposed to say, oh, George, you're so wonderful. Well, I'm not in the mood. I have a headache. I have a headache from profligate spending, hacks at FEMA, and a God-help-us policy in Iraq, among other things, like, oh, I don't know, steel tariffs. People who care about the rule of law and the Supreme Court enough to write and read blogs about it should face the facts and see this for what it is: a betrayal, and one of a pretty profound sort. I will give W thebenefit of the doubt by thinking he has done it more out of cluelessness than political amorality. I suspect he has been manipulated by aides and has not been clever and strong enough to appreciate the disastrousness of his choice, but that is not much of a defense of a president. No doubt someone like Rove has calculated that conservatives have nowhere to go, so W will be in the clear. And he may be right. But I prefer to think you win in the long run by sticking to what you believe in and not meekly accepting it when somebody says they agree with you, and turn out not to in the end. That's not 'winning'. That's being used.