Friday, October 07, 2005

The Virtual Reserve Room

The Wolverine Law Library has put up the complete archive of Miers's writings. To which John Lindgren says:
I have read about a half dozen of Miers' pieces so far--nothing particularly good or bad about any of them. They are pretty standard practitioner fare, apparently fully competent, but seemingly no better or worse than a thousand lawyers at good firms in Chicago would do. There is none of the flair that showed in many of Roberts' memos in the Reagan Administration. I've read nothing intellectually substantial by Miers so far, but then I've just started working through the list. If she has any sharp analytical skills, they are not apparent in the pieces I've read. Given Miers' genuine success in practice, I suspect that she is a better advisor and negotiator than writer.

Which prompts this reply from Patterico:
That’s okay. I have little doubt that the Miers defenders will soon tell us that it’s not important for a Supreme Court Justice to be a good writer. They have law clerks to draft their opinions, after all; the important thing is the vote, not the writing; do you want someone who’s good at grammar or someone who’s good for the country; stop being an elitist. Etc.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

To keep the Simpsons motif going--it's as though the administration thinks it's Lyle Lanley, when in fact it's the Comic Book Guy.