Thoughts on Meirs

Ok, sorry for the delay but I’ve been meaning to blog about Meirs since her withdrawal. My desire was increased this weekend by a comment of Evan to me and last night’s talk with my brother.

The first thought- which evan brought up is the who sex thing… The idea that Miers is a replacement for O’Conner because both be women…. When O’Conner was the first to say she wanted to get off the court and Roberts was nominated to replace her.
There are many thoughts here. The first being that since Roberts was then nominated to replace the chief justice who died during Roberts confirmation, that Robert got a ‘promotion’ and thus replaced dead white dude instead of O’Conner.
I really thought it was funny when I read this weekend that Ann Coulter, a shrill woman if ever there was one [actually it’s been suggested to me that she’s a man baby!] complained that W. went wrong by feeling the NEED to pick a woman- as if to imply that being a woman is why the right disliked Meirs. In fact I did see a news program that ‘raised’ the question of whether America was too hard on Meirs because she was a woman- to which I say I hope not. I think Meirs was unqualified regardless of gender. Heck if she was a male- I think her record would be LESS impressive, as when she went to school there were very few women lawyers- so that potentially was one of her FEW accomplishments.
Now I want the most competent justice on the court… but at the same time I think there are enough GOOD judges to replace a minority with a minority. Now I’m not saying, as others are, that they have to replace O’Conner with a woman… because NOW there must be two women ALWAYS on the court, but I think that at least three of the justices (counting Thomas) should be non white dudes. As far as I’m concerned the NEXT justice shouldn’t be compared to O’Conner (though we lefties liked her better then Thomas), but should be a member of SOME minority… make the next person a Latino (but *not* Gonzoles), an African-American, a woman, a Jew or dare I say Muslim. Oh man, that would be sooo interesting if W. nominated a ‘non radical’ Muslim to the supreme court.

My second thought, which is what my brother brought up but I had already thought of, is the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend; just because the right didn’t like Meirs doesn’t mean the left should embrace her. I compared this to WWII where I feel that Stalin wasn’t much better then Hitler… who hated each other because they both wanted to rule Russia. My brother retorted that he felt that Hitler was worse and that FDR was right to align himself with Stalin against Hitler. I feel however my main point is still sound… just because my enemy hates someone doesn’t make them my friend. FDR choose to align himself with Russia, not because he liked Russia but because it made his life easier. I was very happy that the Dems kept quiet and let the repugs tear Meirs down. I think by staying out of the frey, the democrats didn’t give any fuel to the republicans… but I would hope had she gone to committee that they would’ve had a bunch of tough questions for her…
I really was worried that the republicans were actually trying to ‘sucker’ us by ‘pretending’ dislike Meirs so dems would vote for her and then turn around and vote for her.
Likewise I thought one of the most interesting things was that NONE of the republicans actually stood up and said they would vote AGAINST Meirs, they just asked W. to withdraw her. I felt that was because they knew that they were between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the rank and file seemed to be nervous about Meirs, and they need to be re-elected in 06 or 08, on the other hand W. is still in charge of the party and is a mean and petty man.

The main problem I had with the Meirs withdraw is sort of petty of me… I felt this do-over was a way for W. to get a GOOD story out. That he’s had so much bad press that picking a new Justice gives him control of a story- unlike all the other bad news.
I also was afraid that now W. has a range. He knows that Roberts was OK and Meirs wasn’t so he now gets to just find a range of who the most incompetent person he could nominate and still get in.

Update: while I wrote this, this morning, I heard that there was a new judge nominated. Samuel Alito. So more perhaps later. Just was happy that because of the way Meirs bowed out, it couldn’t be Gonzoles… as the Senate would then want him to turn over papers he gave W. about torture ‘n stuff, just like Meirs was asked.