David Effin' Frum

A very smart friend of mine once remarked that David Frum was the only man he'd ever met whose intellect was so formidible as to be intimidating. This Frum response to Matt Scully seconds that emotion:

2) Notice next the antipathy to ideas, the little curl of the lip about those opeds and policy conferences. Notice the refusal even to acknowledge let alone rebut the concern that Miers has shunned ideas her whole career. It is no reply to say that Harriet Miers is a very nice person. Nobody ever denied that Harriet Miers was a very nice woman, capable of generous acts. We all know about her work for Meals on Wheels. It's just that niceness alone is enough to qualify one for the Supreme Court. There are a lot of nice people in America. There are a lot of nice people at Valley View Christian Church. They cannot all be appointed to the Supreme Court.

The first and most famous slogan of the American conservative movement was: "Ideas have consequences." But if Matt fairly represents the state of mind inside the Bush White House, and on this I fear he does, then the main consequence of ideas seems to be ineligibility for service on the nation's highest court.

3) Note next the implied hostility to the larger American conservative movement. The ideas that are disparaged in this oped are not any old ideas. They are the ideas that moved millions of people to sacrifice time and money to build the movement championed by for example this magazine - and the ideas that (at least theoretically) led American conservatives to overcome their reservations about the son of George HW Bush and support the candidacy of Governor George W. Bush. The promise to appoint judges in the mold of Scalia and Thomas was the "Read my lips, no new taxes" pledge of the younger Bush's candidacy. But even Miers' strongest senatorial supporter, John Cornyn, admits that Miers is no Scalia and no Thomas. The inability to read the conservative reaction to this betrayal as anything more than personal pique on the part of American conservatives bespeaks a very serious clouding of the vision at the Bush White House.

4) And speaking of the clouding of vision, there is a real problem here of the inability to see ourselves as others see us. That line about the critics of the Miers nomination and their $20,000 speaking fees - is that really, um, well-considered? Does Matt expect anyone to take seriously the claim that those of us who oppose Miers are self-serving cynics, while those who silence their doubts and say "yes sir" to an erring president are self-sacrificing idealists? We're supposed to believe that Robert Bork is in it for the cash, while Ed Gillespie fights for the principle of the thing?

In my little private fantasy land, I like to think that Frum went and downed a couple lamb-chops after hitting the "publish" button.

Bill Simmons: Un-bovs?

Uncle Grambo has an excellent anti-Sports Guy rant. Excellent because it's funny, not because I necessarily agree with him. Want to see the funny?

What all the people lined up to swing on the bozack of "sports' moral arbiter" are conveniently failing to forget is that we're talking about a guy who as recently as Wednesday vomited out 2,600 words (!!!) on the new Matt McConaughey / Al Pacino gambling movie. Are you fucking seers? Even the normally reliable and altogether best ever dudes like the Information Leafblower (aka Leaf) spend two hours standing in line to spend 30 seconds talking to him; dude, I did that a few years ago for Liz Phair but it's mainly because I thought I might be able to bang her!

Yeah, baby! That's the magic of RSS. Grambo disappears for 5 months, but because of RSS, we never lose touch with him.

DMV Porn

How excellent is this?

New Jersey motorists calling a toll-free number seeking handicapped or animal-friendly license plates are getting a little more action than they expected.

Instead of getting the state Motor Vehicle Commission, callers reached a phone sex operation.

The mix-up happened because the MVC has the newer 888 toll-free area code, but its number was mistakenly listed with the traditional 800 code on the Web site and printed material distributed by the state Division of Disability Services.

The Danger of Harriet Miers

Or rather, the danger Miers poses for President Bush. Gerard Baker argues that Miers worries conservatives because her nomination "has given us a depressing glimpse into the vast open space that now appears to be the Bush political mind." He's on to something.

The real political danger for Bush is that Miers could become a synecdoche for the secret fears his supporters have long harbored: that he's little more than a corporatist who values personal loyalty above ideology or thought. In short, Miers has the potential to crystalize very specific fears about Bush's shortcomings in the same way that Dan Quayle's misspelling of "potato" was particularly damaging because people were already worried that he wasn't smart enough to be vice president.

(Mind you, I'm talking purely about political danger. The substantive--and more important--danger is that Miers may not be a very good Supreme Court justice.)

The great political danger for Bush is that Miers forces people who were marginal supporters to reassess past incidents on which they may have given him a pass. For example, incidents such as this one, reported by Joseph Bessette, about the Bush administration's attack on Lawrence Greenfeld and the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

IN AUGUST THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION fired its director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in a dispute over a press release about a report on racial profiling. Newspaper editorialists and Democrats in Congress charged the administration with suppressing painful truths. In response, Republican officials apparently spread the word to sympathetic commentators that this was a battle between the administration and the anti-Bush permanent bureaucracy. As one commentator told National Public Radio, "Bush finally clamped down on this guy."

"This guy" was President Bush's own appointee to the directorship of BJS, Lawrence A. Greenfeld, a career criminal justice statistician and longtime deputy director of the agency, a unit of the Department of Justice. Happy as the principal deputy, Greenfeld had not sought the top job, which had always gone to a political appointee serving at the pleasure of the president. Yet, when the directorship opened up after Bush's election in 2000, Greenfeld's stellar reputation within the criminal justice community brought him to the attention of the White House. President Bush nominated him to serve as director, and he was confirmed by the Senate. At his swearing-in ceremony, former Attorney General Edwin Meese praised the accomplishments of Greenfeld and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

So what are we to make of this incident? Has the administration won a battle against a hostile bureaucracy, or has it suppressed the truth about racial profiling in the United States? A review of the facts compels four conclusions. First, the administration did not try to suppress or manipulate data, though it did seek to deny publicity to uncomfortable facts. Second, its ham-handedness backfired by attracting infinitely more attention to the sensitive racial profiling data than would otherwise have been the case. Third, it cashiered Greenfeld for doing his job in a responsible and, indeed, exemplary way. Finally, not content simply with firing a dedicated public servant, it maligned him and his agency in a way that was deeply unjust, that undermined morale at a model federal agency, and that jeopardized its good work and its reputation within the criminal justice community.

In light of Harriet Miers, this behavior becomes even more egregious.

Is Miers Being Borked?

We have the answer, from Kate O'Beirne:

This one we can put to rest. I asked the world's expert on the meaning of "to bork" - Is Harriest Miers being borked? "No. No one is lying about her record." --Robert Bork, October 13, 2005.

Lincoln, Calhoun, and the U.N.

Michael Brandon McClellan has a great piece about why Americans reflexively distrust the United Nations. Hint: It has to do with how we resolved our conflict over the differing notions of liberty presented by Lincoln and Calhoun. It's a first-rate essay.

Tucker, Online

MSNBC has gotten Tucker Carlson to do a blog, and if the first day is any indication, it's going to be a cross between Greg Gutfeld and the "Dear Riggo" section of SportsTalk 980's John Riggins Show. Here's Tucker dipping into the mailbag:

Q: Tucker, your flippant dismissal and ridicule of the religion I share with Tom Cruise was extremely offensive. I challenge you to find out why Tom and Katie's child will have a silent birth, whether you come to believe the reasons or not. The next time you have occasion to report on the subject, do it with respect.
—John C. Scott

A: Dear John, here's how "silent birth" is described on Scientology's web site: "In the book, Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard writes that for the benefit of the mother and child, silence should be maintained during childbirth. This is because any words spoken are recorded in the reactive mind and can have an aberrative effect on the mother and the child."

Where to begin? There is no such thing as the "reactive mind." "Aberrative" is not a real word. Talking during childbirth doesn't hurt the child; not talking can. Doctors and nurses in the birthing room need to communicate with one other, and with the mother in labor. Silence during birth is dangerous. I could go on.

The point is, Scientology may be a "religion" (the IRS has concluded it is), but it is not a branch of science, and I don't plan to treat it as such, no matter what Tom Cruise says on the Today show. And speaking of Cruise, you ought to ditch him as a spokesman as soon as possible. He makes you all look bananas.

Yeah, baby!

The Letter

Scott Johnson has a nice little jab at al Jazeera:

Al Jazeera appears to be operating as an arm of al Qaeda in its story on the Zawahiri letter that al Qaeda claims was faked by the United States. According to the last line in the linked Al Jazeera story: "The U.S. officials released the fake letter as Iraqis are a few days away from the crucial vote on the country’s new constitution." Shouldn't Al Jazeera put a little effort into creating the illusion of detachment from al Qaeda, at least in its English-language product?

Bonus: Scott is far and away the best headline writer in the blogosphere. I maintain that he's good enough to have worked side-by-side at the New York Post with the legendary Dawn Eden. And his encyclopedic knoweldge of music is impressive enough to make me want to have him do a segment of Old Guy Radio with Tony Kornheiser.

Scott's a national treasure.

Update, 1:29 p.m.: Thanks to the anonymous commenter who points out that Scott Johnson has retracted his above jab:

UPDATE: In the original version of this post I linked to a story purportedly carried by Al Jazeera that contested the authenticity of the letter. Timothy Usher writes:

Alert: Aljazeera.com is not "the" Al Jazeera, but an imposter site..."The" Al Jazeera is indeed biased against the United States, although less so than they used to be, due either to pressure from our friends in Qatar, or that the Jihadis have lost their appeal. Anyhow, its address is http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage.

The actual Al Jazeera seems rather skeptical of the denial (see this story): "A purported al-Qaida web posting"..."who claims to be spokesman for al-Qaida in Iraq. It could not be authenticated."

And speaks of the putative authorship as fact: "In the letter, taking up 13 typed pages in its English translation, al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri recommended...al-Zawahiri wrote...The letter laid out his long-term plan..."

Al Jazeera has contacts in Al Qaeda, as seen in the Spanish conviction, and they are the preferred outlet for AQ communiques. We should assume that their estimate is well-grounded; i.e., the letter is real.

Many thanks for the heads up; my high regard for Scott's headline remains, though.

Like a Rock!

After the report surfaced earlier today about Harriet Miers's opinion of the Federalist Society, Scott McClellan caught the following question at his press briefing:

Q I'm just asking if those continue to be her views to this day, that she believes the Federalist Society is a politically-charged organization that she would not take membership in, and that if she still believes that the NAACP does not fall into that category?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Harriet Miers has been supportive of the Federalist Society, including participating in events, and giving a speech to the Society last spring. I know she's proud that a number of her attorneys on her own staff are members of the Federalist Society. And she, like the rest of the White House, knows that the Federalist Society has been a great ally on many important issues, particularly when it comes to the federal judiciary. They are someone that advocate -- an organization that advocates a strong and distinguished federal judiciary, and she's spoken to them about that and expressed her appreciation for what they do.

Q So it would seem that her views have changed?

MR. McCLELLAN: I would say those are her views that I just expressed. In terms of all the documents that are going to be released to the committee, we encourage everybody to look at those documents and look at what was said and look at the context.

I think I may now be convinced of the president's argument that 20 years from now, Harriet Miers will be the same person she is today. She seems to have gotten a lifetime of change out of her system during the last 20 years, so what could be left?

Let's Get Nuts! (cont.)

Please remember that I warned you that if people didn't start taking Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's sham marriage seriously, she was going to have to get pregnant, fast.

I bet Mr. and Mrs. Holmes are wishing they had listened to me right now.

Brooks

You can't get it online, but how about this great line from David Brooks:

Harriet Miers has shown no loyalty to conservative institutions like the Federalist Society. her loyalty has been to the person of the president, and her mental style seems to be Republicanism on stilts.

Which would explain why some people persist in defending her: Those who believe that Republicanism is the paramount value will naturally support Miers. Those who believe that ideas and principles matter more than team politics, do not.

There Goes the Federalist Society

One of the big mistakes of the Roberts nomination was the way the administration ran away from the Federalist Society and went out of their way to assure people that Roberts wasn't a member. That sent an instant message to young lawyer types that maybe it wasn't safe to be in the Federalist Society if you had political aspirations.

Well now that message has been underlined, bolded, and put in 80-point with this Drudge flash:

The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained a copy of sworn testimony given by Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers in 1990 in which she said that she “wouldn’t belong to the Federalist Society” – a conservative and libertarian lawyers’ organization – because it was “politically charged.”

But Bush's Supreme Court nominee did not include in that catagory the NAACP and other liberal groups, the transcript reveals!

Here's the exchange:

Q. Ms. Miers, are you a member of any predominantly minority organizations, such as the NAACP, Black Chamber of Commerce, Urban League or any other predominantly minority organizations?

A. Women minorities?

Q. Well, maybe predominantly racial and ethnic minorities?

A. No.

Q. . . . . In your capacity as an at-large member do you think being involved in such organizations might assist you in having a perspective that – bring a perspective to your job that you don’t have?

A. I attend meetings designed to give me that input. However, I have tried to avoid memberships in organization s that were politically charged with one viewpoint or the other. For example, I wouldn’t belong to the Federalist Society any more than – I just feel like it’s better to not be involved in organizations that seem to color your view one way or the other for people who are examining you. I did join the Progressive Voters League here in Dallas during the campaign as part of the campaign.

Q. Are you active in the PVL now, do you intend to be?

A. No, I am not.

Q. Do you think the NAACP and Black Chamber of Commerce are in the category of organizations you were talking about?

A. No, I don’t. . . . .

Transcript of Trial, Roy Williams et al. v. City of Dallas, No. CA-3-88-152-R, pages V-46 to V-47 (U.S. Dist. Ct., N.D. Tex. Sept. 11, 1989).

The Bush administration has now made the Federalist Society radioactive. Thanks a lot, Mr. President.

Miers Petition

David Frum's petition for the withdrawal of Harriet Miers is up.

Burying the Lede

This article is supposed to be about a guy skipping out on a monster tab, but the editors bury the lede. The real news is: There's a store "where customers can read comic books while drinking cafe or tea"!

Sign me up.

Lotto!

John Fund has an excellent piece on the vetting process for Miers, including this nugget:

Another issue will involve Ms. Miers's tenure as head of the Texas Lottery Commission, where lottery director Nora Linares was fired in a scandal involving influence-peddling and lottery contracts. In a curious move, the White House announced this week that regarding the Linares matter, "Harriet Miers has never commented and will not now on what was a personnel matter." That is unlikely to remain a tenable position.

You don't say. Then there's this:

Mr. Card is said to have shouted down objections to Ms. Miers at staff meetings. A senator attending the White House swearing-in of John Roberts four days before the Miers selection was announced was struck by how depressed White House staffers were during discussion of the next nominee. He says their reaction to him could have been characterized as, "Oh brother, you have no idea what's coming."

1 out of 3 Ain't Bad

From the White House press briefing:

MR. McCLELLAN: The President makes selections based on potential nominees' qualifications and experience and judicial temperament.

Since Harriet Miers has no judicial temperament (she's never been a judge) and her qualifications are pretty thin, that would suggest that the president relied pretty heavily on her experience.

One wonders if he means this in the classic grievance-group sense, i.e. "her experience as a woman," "her experience as a Christian," etc.

Hey, Vinnie Boombatz!

I normally don't equate tastelessness or offensiveness with Las Vegas, not the miniature Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, not the guys on the Strip handing out cards with explicit ads for a good time, not the billboards for Zumanity. But what I did find in questionable taste was an item at a gift shop in New York-New York, namely, a faux-license plate riddled with fake bullet holes and reading:

DONTA TOUCHA DA
MAFIA CAR

I've seen some bad license plates but I dare say this has got to be the worst.

Don't get me wrong. I think "Born to Run" is a great song. But the greatest? I can think of some other contenders off hand, including the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby," "Things We Said Today," and "Norwegian Wood," or even the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations." And what about "Whole Lotta Love" and "Travelling Riverside Blues" by Zeppelin? Could there be a metaphor more eloquent than squeeze my lemon 'til the juice runs down my leg? And let's not forget "Rocks Off" and "Beast of Burden" by the Stones.

I know Mr. Last is trying to get me on a U2 rant, but I will refrain. Just because I happen to think the live version of "Bad" (not the Michael Jackson song) featured on Wide Awake in America is the greatest of greatest live recordings of all time in the history of rock and roll history... What was I saying?

The Politics of Laura

David Frum makes a very important point, beyond the "sexism" charge:

In the first week of the battle, the White House sent out James Dobson to woo evangelical conservatives. That didn't work out too well. So now the White House has switched strategies. It has turned its back on conservative evangelicals and is instead using Laura Bush to woo suburban moderates. But remember: Laura Bush is on record as a supporter - not just of abortion rights - but of the Roe v. Wade decision. Interviewed on the Today program in January 2001, Mrs. Bush was asked point blank about the case. Her answer: "No, I don't think it should be overturned." Is it credible that Mrs. Bush would be endorsing Harriet Miers if the first lady thought that Miers would really do what James Dobson thinks she'll do?

A Call for Reasoned Debate

Proposed: Born To Run is the greatest rock song of all time.

Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs 'round these velvet rims
and strap your hands across my engines . . .

Beyond the Palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
The girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss

The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody's out on the run tonight
but there's no place left to hide
Together Wendy we'll live with the sadness
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday girl I don't know when
we're gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go
and we'll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us
baby we were born to run

It is epic, lovelorn poetry. Discuss.

God Loves a Cowgirl

Let it not be said that I don't face reality. From Galley Friend L.B.:

Let me stipulate that 1) I didn't see the game - have only read recaps and looked at stats; 2) Philly is still a better team than Dallas at this point and certainly has a better shot at winning it all this year; 3) McNabb is hurting, and every team has a bad/listless day occasionally...

Now, having said all that: this is the kind of win that says a franchise is on its way back to the top (though it may still take a while to get there). I think about the way Philly's offense has been putting up points lately and then I look at the stats from yesterday: *19* yards rushing for the Eagles? McNabb sacked 4 times? Only 5 catches for T.O. and no touchdowns?

And then on the other side of the ball: Drew Bledsoe is barely touched, and embarrasses the vaunted Eagles secondary? Our free-agent rookie running back (who, I'll grant, was a steal -- he's a real burner) racks up 75 yards rushing after Julius Jones tweaks his ankle? The Cowboys pick up 28 (!!) first downs to the Eagles' paltry 6, and dominate time of possession 40 minutes to 20?

That, my friend, was just an old-fashioned whippin', of the likes the Eagles have handed to the Cowboys all too often in recent years. Now I'm sure the Eagles will repay the favor back in Philly in a few weeks, but at least the Cowboys will be coming off their bye week going into that one. . . . If I were you, besides McNabb's health I'd be most worried about the Eagles' apparent lack of a running game. Westbrook is fantastic but he's not the type of RB who can put a team on his shoulders, grind out first downs and burn clock on long drives to take pressure off of McNabb.

Strong stuff, but I can take it. I know that the Birds will rebound and finish 12-4 before losing McNabb in the final game of the season and blowing it in the NFC championship game. Again.

Bonus insider note: I'm happy to take my licks from L.B. and Jenny, but if anyone else throws in a cheap shot, well, I won't ban you from comments, but I'll be very hurt. I haven't felt this delicate since the final days of Richie the K.

The WorldwideStandard

If I haven't mentioned it already, please do go and bookmark WorldwideStandard.com, the new foreign-policy blog being run by Dan McKivergan.

It's fantastic stuff.

It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and a warm breeze was blowing down the Strip. I spent part of that day, however, hunkered down at the Aladdin Sports Book, watching the Redskins/Broncos game. Next to me and my wife sat a woman who was smoking up a storm, drinking beer, and watching the game while simultaneously playing video poker. Now that's what I call living.

With all the other games going on and fans yelling at Keyshawn Johnson who was yelling at Drew Bledsoe, it was hard to notice the security guard who came up to a man at the bar and told him to leave. Even though he wasn't bothering anyone, the old man was clearly getting blitzed and was just sitting there in a daze. Luckily he left before they called in Mr. Happy and a cattle prod.

I picked the Skins who lost (19-21) but beat the spread (Denver by 7).

Firefly in 30 Minutes

I got a sad reminder of the paucity of anecdotal evidence on Saturday night when I went to see Serenity at the local movie palace. The show was sold out--not a single seat was empty. After being disappointed by the movie's opening weekend, I had a glimmer of hope, thinking that maybe this meant that Serenity had found its audience and would have long legs.

No such luck. Serenity declined by 46 percent, which is a little worse than average for a film with its release pattern. Deaniacs take note.

Not that any of this will stop my Whedon evangelism. If you're thinking about seeing Serenity, but haven't watched the Firefly DVDs yet, Galley Friend M.R. sends along this link to an "essential Firefly" reel. Enjoy.

Suck-Up Watch

Serial flattery is never a one-time offense; suck-ups have an incredibly high rate of recidivism. So after seeing Harriet Miers's gushing about George W. Bush's brilliance, today's New York Times story comes as no surprise. But still: Whoa. Highlights:

* "You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect," Harriet E. Miers wrote to George W. Bush days after his 51st birthday in July 1997.

* A few days later, Ms. Miers wrote to thank the Bushes, saying, "Texas has a very popular governor and first lady!" She recalled a little girl who collected Mr. Bush's autograph and said, "I was struck by the tremendous impact you have on the children whose lives you touch."

* On March 25, on the letterhead of her Dallas law firm, Locke Purnell Rain Harrell, Ms. Miers wrote to thank him "for taking the time to visit in the office and on the plane back - cool!"

"Keep up all the great work," she wrote. "The state is in great hands. Thanks also for yours and your family's personal sacrifice."

* In October 1997, Ms. Miers sent Mr. Bush a flowery greeting card in thanks for a letter that he had written on her behalf. In it, she said of his daughters: "Hopefully Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are 'cool' - as do the rest of us."

She added, "All I hear is how great you and Laura are doing," and ended, "Texas is blessed."

You can pick your own favorite, but personally I can't decide if I'm more horrified by Miers invoking "the children" whose lives Bush has touched (Hey, I hear they're our future!) or her putting quotes around the word "cool."

Laura to Conservatives: You Sexist Pigs!

From the Today Show this morning:

Matt Lauer: Some are suggesting there’s a little possible sexism in the [conservative] criticism of Judge Miers. How do you feel about that?

MRS. BUSH: That’s possible. I think that’s possible.

On Souls and Knowing

Just a thought from a Mike Kelly column in July of 2001. It's a reminder that this isn't the first time we've seen the "trust me" attitude from President Bush. And it isn't the first time he's been very wrong, either:

"I looked the man in the eye; I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. . . . I was able to get a sense of his soul. . . . He's an honest, straightforward man who loves his country. He loves his family. We share a lot of values."
-- George W. Bush, June 16, 2001, on Russian President Vladimir Putin

"Mr. Putin was far from deserving the powerful political prestige and influence that comes from an excessively personal endorsement by the president of the United States."
-- Sen. Jesse M. Helms, June 20, 2001

To understand what put Sen. Helms in such a tizzy that he felt compelled to publicly spank a president of his own party, you have to first consider the matter of Sammy Sosa.

In 1989, Sammy Sosa played for the Texas Rangers, a baseball team partially owned by one George W. Bush. Bush, who had only recently been made the Rangers' chief executive and who had much to learn, took a sense of Sosa's soul and traded him to the Chicago White Sox. Considering that nine years later with the Chicago Cubs, Sosa was in a chase for the home run record, this was a mistake.

To further grasp the implications of Bush's judgment of Putin, and of Helms's unhappiness over that judgment, you have to consider that baseball was something with which Bush had some experience. He came from a baseball family -- his father played for Yale; his great-uncle George Herbert Walker once owned 6 percent of the New York Mets -- and he had played the game himself in Little League and on a varsity level at prep school. He was a lifelong avid fan, and he would turn out to be a natural at running a ball team.

As the Putin example shows, Bush puts great stock in his gut instinct -- his ability to look into other people's eyes (he is forever talking about this) and getting a sense of their souls. As the Sosa example shows, he is quite capable of getting the sense completely wrong -- even where he is knowledgeable.

Now you come to the presidency, Russia and Putin. Here, inarguably, Bush knows very little. He cannot know a lot (at least firsthand) about being president, because he has not been president for very long. He cannot know a lot about Russia, because he has never been there. He cannot know a lot about Putin, because he had never met him before this month's trip.

So what you have here is a situation in which a prudent man would begin by knowing his limitations -- by admitting ignorance, proceeding with study and basing eventual judgments on facts, not first impressions. . . .

. . . what is worrisome is that Bush -- and in this he seems dangerously to resemble the foreign-policy-disaster-prone John F. Kennedy -- does not seem to understand, or care about, the limits of gut. He does not seem to want to bother with the tedious business of study and fact-assessment that is the process by which right decisions are most often arrived at -- which is even then not so often. He does not seem to want to work at the thing.

The idea that he does not know what he does not know does not seem to ever occur to Bush. This is a problem and one that is a great deal more consequential in the case of Putin than in the case of Sosa.

First, Let Us Save All the Lawyers

Maybe I should just turn Galley Slaves over to Patterico for the coming week. More good stuff from him here where he finds a January 1993 Texas Bar Journal article by Miers, who wrote:

In his October [1992] Opinion in this Journal my colleague, TYLA President Steve Martin, artfully assailed the Republican administration for seizing “the perceived low public regard for lawyers to fashion a campaign strategy based on the disparagement of lawyers.” Lawyers, in large number, want the State Bar and other organizations to “fight back.”

Patterico says the rest of the article "is devoted to explaining how the State Bar can help find an 'antidote' for 'lawyer bashing'.”

Why SMU Matters (a little), Part 2

Patterico has more good stuff, including Dan Coats defending Miers:

“If great intellectual powerhouse is a qualification to be a member of the court and represent the American people and the wishes of the American people and to interpret the Constitution, then I think we have a court so skewed on the intellectual side that we may not be getting representation of America as a whole,” Mr. Coats said in a CNN interview.

PoliticalSherpa.com

A big welcome to Gary Andres, a wise old Washington hand (oh, he's not that old), who just launched a blog, PoliticalSherpa.com.

My Life, My Card

Level 3 is the devil.

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.

Yea or Nay?

Paul Mirengoff gives what I consider to be the most persuasive argument for voting for Miers:

My view (subject to possible revision as the process continues) is that the Senate should confirm Miers. Under all past standards, she is qualified for the position, and the suspicion that she may not be a true conservative does not constitute sufficient reason to oppose the nomination.

It may well be that, from a senator's perspective, this is the final and decisive question. That's why in an ideal world, the president would withdraw the nomination.

No chance of that, of course.

Can't You Be a Stripper AND Chief Justice?

I know, it's thin. But this anecdote is pretty excellent. Asked her favorite Justice, Harriet Miers responded "Warren." Asked to clarify--did she mean Earl Warren or Warren Burger (who can keep them straight!)--she said she meant Warren Burger. Here then is Jim Lindgren:

I find this story disturbing on many levels. Perhaps Miers couldn't think of anyone appropriate off the top of her head and thought that Leahy would like it if she said Earl Warren, but then caught herself when she realized that (rightly or wrongly) he was the poster boy for judicial activism. It would be odd to refer to Chief Justice Burger simply as "Warren." So perhaps the question was too difficult for her to answer without stumbling (of course, we all stumble in answering questions some time).

A second possibility is that she really does admire Earl Warren the most, but was unwilling to admit it to Leahy. That would seem a reasonable choice for a Democratic nominee, but not for a Republican. Further, to try to hide her choice from Leahy would show both cravenness and a lack of candor.

The third possibility is that she genuinely admires Chief Justice Warren Burger more than any other Justice that she could think of. If so, one wonders about the quality of Miers' judgment or whether she has read enough Supreme Court cases to form a reasonable opinion.

Burger was reputed to have done a good job running the federal court system, but is usually viewed as an indifferent or poor justice. I have never met anyone (conservative or liberal) who said that they really admired him, but I expect that many of his former clerks do.

Miers Wins the Expectations Game

Not that she needs to; I'll be shocked if she isn't confirmed. But Charles Krauthammer makes some good points:

To serve in Congress, or even as president, there is no requirement for scholarship and brilliance. For good reason. It is not needed. It can even be a hindrance, as we learned from our experience with Woodrow Wilson, the most intellectually accomplished president of the 20th century and also the worst.

But constitutional jurisprudence is different. It is, by definition, an exercise of intellect steeped in scholarship. Otherwise it is nothing but raw politics. And is it not the conservative complaint that liberals have abused the courts by having them exercise raw super-legislative power, the most egregious example of which is the court's most intellectually bankrupt ruling, Roe v. Wade ?

Miers will surely shine in her Judiciary Committee hearings, but that is because expectations have been set so low. If she can give a fairly good facsimile of John Roberts's testimony, she'll be considered a surprisingly good witness. But what does she bring to the bench?

Monorail!

This James Thayer piece on Seattle's failed monorail project (they already have one monorail, some song and dance guy convinced them they needed another) just tickles me.

Bill Simmons, Diety

Bryan Curtis has a great profile of Bill Simmons up at Slate.

Personally, I've always thought of Simmons as the Matt Labash of sports writing.

It's like before plastic surgery and after. Get rid of those wrinkles!

Nerds Rule!

Ann Coulter agrees that SMU matters (a little):

. . . even if you take seriously William F. Buckley's line about preferring to be governed by the first 200 names in the Boston telephone book than by the Harvard faculty, the Supreme Court is not supposed to govern us. Being a Supreme Court justice ought to be a mind-numbingly tedious job suitable only for super-nerds trained in legal reasoning like John Roberts. Being on the Supreme Court isn't like winning a "Best Employee of the Month" award. It's a real job. . . .

To be sure, if we were looking for philosopher-kings, an SMU law grad would probably be preferable to a graduate from an elite law school. But if we're looking for lawyers with giant brains to memorize obscure legal cases and to compose clearly reasoned opinions about ERISA pre-emption, the doctrine of equivalents in patent law, limitation of liability in admiralty, and supplemental jurisdiction under Section 1367 – I think we want the nerd from an elite law school. Bush may as well appoint his chauffeur head of NASA as put Miers on the Supreme Court.

"Trump" on Miers

We all knew that Danielle Crittenden was super smart and a great writer, but who knew she could bring the funny? Here she channels Donald Trump's thoughts on the Miers nomination. Think Darrell Hammond while reading:

The President has nominated his longtime assistant, Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court. He did not ask for my input on this one, nor did I offer it. But as someone who has done a lot of appointing to very important positions within the Trump Organization, I can see why he made the choice he did.

Anyone who has watched my hit TV show, The Apprentice, knows how much I rely on my own assistant, Carolyn Kepcher. She’s as loyal as a Labrador Retriever. In the cut-throat world of high-finance and billion-dollar deals, that kind of loyalty counts for a lot. I feel the same way about Carolyn as the President does about Harriet. I'm comfortable with her and would trust her with any task I assigned her. If you think of the President of the United States as the CEO of an even more global empire than my own—which isn’t to say mine isn’t big, I’m just using an analogy here—then the Supreme Court is like a board of directors. And Harriet Miers is exactly the reliable, trustworthy sort of person any world-class executive would want on his board. . . .

As for the conservatives who object to Harriet Miers: I’m warning you guys. You’re acting like one of the losing teams in my boardroom. I’ve seen this before. Harriet is the quiet, nothing candidate everyone else ignores until the last two or three rounds of the season. Then suddenly everyone looks at her with surprise and asks themselves, “How did she end up here?”

It’s about loyalty, people. And knowing your boss.

Why Not the Second Best? (cont.)

David Frum continues and points us to John Yoo's Washington Post op-ed. Here's Frum quoting Yoo, and then moving on:

"[A]ccording to press reports, she did not win a reputation as a forceful conservative on issues such as the administration's position on stem cell research or affirmative action."

Yoo is referring here to the case of Grutter v. Bollinger, a challenge to the constitutionality of preferential treatment for minorities in education. Many in the administration wanted to take a strong stand in favor of color-blindness. In the end, the administration faltered and argued that racial preferences are okay, up to a point. It is hard to imagine a more central issue to modern legal conservatives. Where was Miers? On the wrong side.

Inside the White House, Miers was best known, not as a conservative, not as a legal thinker, but as a petty bureaucrat.

When Beldar tells you that he knows people in Texas who know Miers, remember that Frum and other former White House people know her, too. I'm unsure why distant memories from a trial judge who had her in his court should be valued over the observations of people who worked with her very recently.

Here is Frum's devastating conclusion:

Some NRO readers have challenged me: Why should we trust you when you say that Miers is not qualified rather than trust the president when he says she is?

My answer is: Don't trust me. Trust your own eyes. The woman is 61 years old, a lawyer for more than three decades. Can you see any instance in this long life and career where Miers ever took a risk on behalf of conservative principle? Can you see any indication of intellectual excellence? Did she ever do anything brave, anything that took backbone? Did anyone before this week ever describe her as oustanding in any way at all?

If the answers to these questions is No, as it is, then you have to ask yourself: Why is a Republican president bypassing so many dozens of superb legal conservatives to choose Harriet Miers for the highest court in the land?

Good question.

The Wisdom of Leno

From the Tonight Show:

Bush said he looked into her heart and knows she won't change in the next twenty years. But twenty years ago, she was a Democrat!

She's Still Got It

I'm talking about Jenny, not Harriet. Even without the Blog Crush, this one's a keeper:

The guy waited forever to marry and finally de-virginize the girl and then he spent the rest of the marriage begging for at least 30 seconds of her time. Sure, she's nice to look at in a creepy, looks too much like your father in law way, but in the grand scheme of things all he had was a whiny, vacuous nag who had a great body she wouldn't let him touch and a dog who crapped all over his house.

Why SMU Matters (a little)

If I seemed to be harping a little bit yesterday on Harriet Miers's educational pedigree, I would remind readers that it was Beldar who brought up her second-rate schooling as an argument for her. Beldar suggested that going to the "second best law school in Texas" was a mark in Miers's favor. To my mind that seems like a fairly desperate claim. If one is forced to argue that attending SMU is a reason to confirm Ms. Miers, then one must be woefully short on other supporting arguments.

But why should it matter where Ms. Miers went to school? If Miers had a long list of serious intellectual achievements or had created a long trail of serious public thought in the course of her career, then where she went to school would be moot. But absent any public evidence of intellectual horsepower (and faced with anecdotal evidence of the opposite) the fact that Ms. Miers went to a second-rate school does seem at least a little bit telling, if not overly important.

David Frum makes this point well:

The problem with Harriet Miers is not that she lacks formal credentials, although she does lack them. Had the president chosen former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, or Securities and Exchange Commission chair Christopher Cox, or former Interior Department secretary Gail Norton, nobody would complain that they were not federal appeals court judges.

Or had the president named Senator Jon Kyl (LLB, University of Arizona) or Senator Mitch McConnell (LLB, University of Kentucky) or Edith Jones Clement (LLB, Tulane), nobody would be carping at the absence of an Ivy League law degree.

Those who object to the Miers nomination do not object to her lack of credentials. They object to her lack of what the credentials represent: some indication of outstanding ability.

The objection to Miers is not that she is not experienced enough or not expensively enough educated for the job. It is that she is not good enough for the job.

Why is being smart important? Again, Frum:

All Americans are entitled to know that those judges who exercise the power of judicial review have thought hard and deeply about the immense power entrusted to them. If the courts were just about getting the votes, then the president should have chosen Dennis Hastert for the Supreme Court. But to change American law, it's not enough to win the vote count. You have to win the argument.

I would note here two things:

(1) It is absurd that Miers supporters are using, as the bulk of their argument for her qualifications, her time as head of the Texas Bar Association and her time running a law firm. If heading a Bar Association is such good preparation for the Supreme Court, why not nominate Martha W. Barnett, who was the first woman president of the entire American Bar Association? Or, if the size of the Bar Association doesn't matter, then why not nominate Gary D. Stott, who was president of the Central Utah Bar Association (and, as a bonus, went the very best law school in Utah and, as a double-bonus, is an actual judge; if you care about that sort of thing).

And second, if the skills of running a fair-sized regional company are so important, why not nominate Steve Jobs or Martha Stewart or Jack Welch or Rupert Murdoch, all of whom have run much larger companies much more successfully.

The reason Miers's supporters are using these patently ridiculous claims to support her are, of course, obvious. As George Will notes:

[T]here is no reason to believe that Miers's nomination resulted from the president's careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers's name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.

If John Kerry had produced a nominee with a comparable résumé, the Republicans now going to the ramparts for Miers would be--rightly--assailing that nominee for being completely unqualified for the High Court.

(2) Even if Miers would "vote right" as a Supreme Court justice--and I assume she would--that isn't the point. Even if Miers was the mythical fifth vote to overturn Roe--something I dearly want to see in my lifetime--conservatives should be concerned with bigger things, which is to say the legal culture itself.

To turn away from that now--at a moment when the conservative party ostensibly controls both the White House and the Senate--is to abandon principle for rank politics. If we were concerned with simply getting someone on the Court who would "vote right," then Bush should have nominated Gary Bauer or Rick Santorum.

A final note: While this is a disastrous moment for the Republican party, it strikes me as a pretty good moment for conservatism. It's nice to see that most conservatives are still willing to buck their political party on what they see as a violation of principle. (Again, even if you used a time-travel machine to assure conservatives that Miers would "vote right" for the next 20 years, I don't think they'd change their opposition.) I don't know that, in a similar situation, liberalism would muster the same fight within the Democratic party.

Architeuthis Lives!

Galley Friend A.G. sends this link to an essay by Steve O'Shea. There are more squid fetishists than you think:

I've dreamed of the moment when this elusive beast would be found. I promised myself that when someone achieved this seemingly impossible feat, that I'd sit down, uncork a bottle of wine and draw deeply on a cigarette, relaxing as Neil Diamond's "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" album played in the background.

And so last week, I got the opportunity to play out my dream. . . .

Great stuff.

That's My Bush!

The American Spectator reminds us of the glory days of Talk magazine:

Before he became president, George Bush was asked by journalist Tucker Carlson, what activity don't you excel at? He responded, "Sitting down and reading a 500-page book on public policy or philosophy or something."

I'm sure the braniacs at SMU are appalled by this sort of thing.

Bonus: As Miers boosters will note, this just goes to show that Ivy League credentials are meaningless!

If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You President?

Galley Friend B.W. sends along this link to Mark Shea, who posits:

Bush has managed to create an almost perfect storm of contempt for his base, coupled with ongoing contempt from people who will always loathe him. This is more than mere bungling. This is active stupidity. Stupidity that may come only once in a generation. Stupidity that works on so many levels. You almost have to admire the sheer elegance of the stupidity. It tempts you to believe in Stupid Design Theory.

Presidential Infallibility

From this morning's press conference:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, of all the people in the United States you had to choose from, is Harriet Miers the most qualified to serve on the Supreme Court?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Otherwise I wouldn't have put her on.

To be fair to the president, after telling this whopper, he went on at some length about what he personally found to make Miers so qualified, the main thrust of which seemed to be "I've known Harriet for over a decade." What Bush really means, I think, is She's the most qualified person because I put her on. But never mind that.

But what seems strange is that until several weeks ago, Miers was ostensibly the second-most qualified person in all of America for the Supreme Court. Yet it seems that in comparing her to the first-most qualified person--John Roberts--they share almost none of the same qualities and are being judged on almost none of the same grounds. It's an enigma!

Kind of like how Michael Brown was allowed to resign even though he was doing a "heck of a job" helping the citizens of New Orleans.

Why Not the Second Best?

Why, oh why, must I quarrel with Beldar? (Who, in addition to being a both a gentleman and a scholar, is rarely short of awesome.)

Today Beldar continues his defense of Miers by posting a correction to this Rich Lowry post. In short, Lowry reports that a pro-Bush lawyer says unflattering things about Meirs's qualifications, essentially:

Says Miers was with an undistinguished law firm; never practiced constitutional law; never argued any big cases; never was on law review; has never written on any of the important legal issues. Says she's not even second rate, but is third rate. Dozens and dozens of women would have been better qualified.

Beldar's response is a correction in one good sense: He reports that Miers was an editor at Southwestern Law Journal. The rest of his correction seems to be little more than Beldar sticking up for the reputation of regional Texas lawyers. He says that he thinks Meirs's firm was distinguished; that it's not particularly important that she's never practiced con law; that she had big clients, even if she didn't argue any big cases; and that she very well may have written on important issues in private work for her clients that you and I will never be able to judge.

This is pretty thin stuff and I find it unconvincing. If you'll permit the snobbery, Beldar's appraisal of Meirs's schooling tells you all you need to know about where he's coming from. He means it as a defense of Meirs when he says:

. . . when Ms. Miers was a student there, SMU Law School was widely regarded as the second-best law school in Texas.

[Insert your own joke here.]
I feel like a jerk for pointing this out--and there's nothing wrong with regional schools and I'm sure they often turn out very bright, competent lawyers who are great people. But this is the Supreme Court we're talking about and it doesn't seem like too much to ask that maybe we hope for better than what the second-best law school in Texas has to offer?

Update, 12:09 p.m.: For people who insist that the second-best law school in Texas was nonetheless stocked with great minds, I'll refer readers back to Miers's description of Bush as the "most brilliant man" she had ever met.

Eeeeeeeewwwww!

Years from now, when historians look back on the decline and fall of Western Civilization, they will no doubt point to the release of this album.

Because Karen Hughes Didn't Go to Law School

Continuing yesterday's thread on Harriet Miers, let's start the morning with the two best pops. First, there's Ramesh Ponnuru (again):

QUESTIONS FOR MIERS
Prior to this year, in the course of your legal career have you ever been involved in any Supreme Court litigation? Have you ever been consulted about such litigation? Has it ever occurred to anyone to consult you about it?

And then there's Patterico:

2) To the “trust Bush” crowd: Bush signed an unconstitutional campaign finance reform law. Bush instructed Ted Olson to support affirmative action in an argument to the Supreme Court. Et cetera. So even if we “trust Bush,” we’re trusting him to carry out his own policy preferences, not to pick a judge who will read the Constitution as written.

3) Even if Miers would vote the “right” way, I just don’t have enough confidence in her candlepower, because I haven’t been given any reason to have confidence. The work at the Supreme Court is not easy. It is not a matter of simply picking the result you like and fashioning an opinion around that, and Justices who treat it that way are (in my opinion) the worst disasters of all — even when they sometimes vote “our” way. They make a mess of the law, and we all have to clean up that mess. . . .

5) A telling comment from Beldar (emphasis his):

Whether he’s right or wrong, Dubya clearly is more willing to rely on his own first-hand experience with Harriet Miers than on what others might tell him, or what he might deduce from the writings of, other potential nominees like Luttig or McConnell or Jones. It’s not his style to sit down and read the several dozen collected law review articles of McConnell or the collected judicial opinions of Luttig or Jones, and whoever else whose opinions he values are vouching for those folks, their vouching apparently hasn’t been enough (as it must have been with Roberts) to overcome his preference to go with someone he’s worked with elbow-to-elbow and face-to-face. To Dubya, McConnell and Luttig and Jones and candidates like them are the “unknown quantities.” They’re all more likely to be “potential Souters” from his point of view.

Right — because he’s too stupid and lazy to put in the work to figure out that they would be tremendous Justices. It’s “not his style” to make this decision intelligently.

Then there's this old Legal Times article, which is full of interesting nuggets. Such as:

One former White House official familiar with both the counsel's office and Miers is more blunt.

"She failed in Card's office for two reasons," the official says. "First, because she can't make a decision, and second, because she can't delegate, she can't let anything go. And having failed for those two reasons, they move her to be the counsel for the president, which requires exactly those two talents."

Those who have risen to defend the Miers choice have mostly centered their arguments around the notion that Miers will "vote right"--meaning, I suppose, that she'll understand she's in over her head and will simply follow Justice Roberts.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I always thought that conservative opposition to what has happened to our courts was based on an objection to liberalism's fetish for outcome-based legal theory. That's why conservatives have spent two generations producing heavyweight intellectual lawyers who could challenge the very underpinnings of legal progressivism. The goal--or so I thought--wasn't simply to get enough votes on the Court to get "our" way on Issue X. It was to put great minds on the Court to challenge the prevailing legal culture.

To accept Miers simply because she votes "our" way is to accept the politicization of courts and to accept the progressive idea that outcomes should determine the course of law.

Bonus Bork Note: I'm not especially troubled by Miers's list of political contributions--I get that she was a Democrat back before conservative Dems fled the party in the South. (Also, there's nothing wrong with supporting or having supported Democrats--that shouldn't be a disqualifier if a person is the best guy or gal for the job.)

But I would point out the irony of the fact that Robert Bork--a serious conservative legal mind--was rejected by Senate Democrats in October of 1987 with Senator Al Gore, among others, voting against.

Four months later, Miers gave Gore $1,000. Nine months after that she gave the DNC $1,000. So a woman who from an intellectual standpoint couldn't carry Bork's briefcase and who financially supported the Democrats who destroyed Bork just a few months after that sorry display, is now being sent to the Supreme Court--by a Republican president.

The world is a strange place.

Analrapy

Last night's Arrested Development was nearly unwatchable. If you need a little AD to get by this morning, go to the pretty excellent imoscar (.com!). Among other funny business, it has prison haiku:

“Jerome”

The damage is done
Should I try to run? No, no.
I have a boyfriend

Warning: Put your computer on mute, because the site has a grating soundtrack.

3-0

The last time the Skins were 3-0, they ended up in the Super Bowl. That will not be the case this time around (my personal prediction is a 7-9 season, what with the tougher teams only now on the horizon). Nevertheless, the team deserves credit where credit is due. Mark Brunell 2.0 continues to make progress, especially on critical 3rd downs. Santana Moss, despite his smallness, continues to surprise, as Mike Wise notes in today's Washington Post. The defense, at least until the end, has held up pretty well. But the real test comes next week. At Denver. The spread: Broncos by 7.

But did anyone notice Gibbs on the sideline praying on bended knee when Nick Novak's kick was good? The penitent man must kneel before God...

Car Envy

If the Solstice isn't your cup of tea, maybe this Model A is.

Free Brendon Donnelly

Distraught by a Cowboys loss to previously winless Oakland, Jenny has taken the Blog Crush and locked him away like the Gimp. Oh, the humanity!

Nothing against Jenny--she's the sassiest gal west of the Colorado and I hear that she's totally reformed after that weekend with Michael Irvin--but Jenny without Brendon is like Troy Aikman without Emmitt Smith.

The Union might well endure Harriet Miers, but surely we will crumble without our dynamic duo at idontlikeyouinthatway...

She's No Edith Clement!

Note: This post started at 9:11 a.m., but I'm moving it back up to the top since there have been so many updates.

Because it turns out she wasn't a head-fake. Confirm Them, a bastion of smart conservatism, is jumping off the bandwagon. (Also here and here.)

David Frum is harsher still:

The Senate would have confirmed Luttig, Alito, or McConnell. It certainly would have confirmed a Senator Mitch McConnell or a Senator Jon Kyle, had the president felt even a little nervous about the ultimate vote.

There was no reason for him to choose anyone but one of these outstanding conservatives. As for the diversity argument, it just seems incredible to imagine that anybody would have criticized this president of all people for his lack of devotion to that doctrine. He has appointed minorities and women to the highest offices in the land, relied on women as his closest advisers, and staffed his administration through and through with Americans of every race, sex, faith, and national origin. He had nothing to apologize for on that score. So the question must be asked, as Admiral Rickover once demanded of Jimmy Carter: Why not the best?

I worked with Harriet Miers. She's a lovely person: intelligent, honest, capable, loyal, discreet, dedicated ... I could pile on the praise all morning. But nobody would describe her as one of the outstanding lawyers in the United States.

And John Hinderaker may be the harshest of all:

I'm sure that she is a capable lawyer and a loyal aide to President Bush. But the bottom line is that he had a number of great candidates to choose from, and instead of picking one of them--Luttig, McConnell, Brown, or a number of others--he nominated someone whose only obvious qualification is her relationship with him.

While Paul Mirengoff adds:

This nominee is a two-fer -- she would not have been selected but for her gender, and she would not have been selected but for her status as a Bush crony. So instead of a 50-year old conservative experienced jurist we get a 60-year old with no judicial experience who may or may not be conservative.

Update, 10:50 a.m.: Bill Kristol is disappointed, depressed, and demoralized:

What does this say about the next three years of the Bush administration--leaving aside for a moment the future of the Court? Surely this is a pick from weakness. Is the administration more broadly so weak? What are the prospects for a strong Bush second term? What are the prospects for holding solid GOP majorities in Congress in 2006 if conservatives are demoralized? And what elected officials will step forward to begin to lay the groundwork for conservative leadership after Bush?

Bonus: From Galley Friend G.B.:

It's Brownie on the Court! If this is what Bush wanted, why not just nominate Karen Hughes and be done with it?

Update, 12:15 p.m.: Ed Morrissey drops anchor:

All that being said, I find this pick mystifying. Miers just turned 60 years old, not exactly ready to retire but potentially giving up at least a decade for the Bush legacy on the Supreme Court. Other women with judicial experience and/or a stronger track record of conservatism could have been found. She didn't graduate from a top-drawer legal school (SMU), and she didn't clerk for a highly influential jurist (US District Judge Joe Estes).

Not only does Harriet Miers not look like the best candidate for the job, she doesn't even look like the best female candidate for the job. If judicial experience is a liability, why not Maureen Mahoney, who is younger, has argued cases at the Supreme Court, and worked within the Deputy Solicitor's Office after clerking for William Rehnquist? Better yet, why not nominate J. Michael Luttig or Michael McConnell, with their brilliant and scholarly approaches to the law and undeniable qualifications through years of judicial experience? Why not Edith Hollan Jones, if Bush wanted to avoid the confrontation that Janice Rogers Brown would have created?

Miers may make a great stealth candidate, but right now she looks more like a political ploy.

Update, 1:08 p.m.: Patterico writes:

My reaction is pretty much the same as the Clam’s, though I am saving the profanity for friends and family. I don’t know much about this woman, but what I do know does not impress me. Bush could have done much, much better. I am likely to sit this one out and simply watch in appalled disgust.

It’s looking like my days of supporting this President may be over.

P.S. From the L.A. Times story:

“I know her heart. I know her character,” [Bush] said.

Translation: she is a crony.

And Professor Bainbridge:

1. She's 60. There were lots of highly qualified younger candidates out there who would have sat on the court for decades.
2. She has no judicial experience.
3. She has no public track record of proven conservative judicial values (what happened to Bush's 2000 promise to appoint people in the old of Scalia and Thomas?). How do we know she won't be another Souter? or Kennedy?
4. She's a Bush crony, which is an unfortunate choice for an administration that has been fairly charged with excessive cronyism (anybody remember ex-FEMA head Mike Brown?).
5. Her resume pales in comparison to those of some of the other leading candidates.
6. Why is the leader of a party that supposedly about merit and against affirmative action making an appointment that can only be explained as an affirmative action choice?
7. And if Bush was bound and determined to make an affirmative action choice, why not go with a more experienced and qualified woman like Edith Jones or minority like Emilio Garza?

This appointment reeks of cronyism, which along with prideful arrogance seems to be the besetting sin of the Bush presidency.

And this may be the best day of the year to be reading NRO. No surprise that the best post of the morning is from Ramesh Ponnuru, who's even funnier than he is smart:

It's an inspiring testament to the diversity of the president's cronies. Wearing heels is not an impediment to being a presidential crony in this administration! I can only assume that the president felt that his support was slipping in this important bloc, and he had to do something to shore it up.

Religion of Peace (cont.)

Mark Steyn has another fabulous rant:

I found myself behind a car in Vermont, in the US, the other day; it had a one-word bumper sticker with the injunction "COEXIST". It's one of those sentiments beloved of Western progressives, one designed principally to flatter their sense of moral superiority. The C was the Islamic crescent, the O was the hippie peace sign, the X was the Star of David and the T was the Christian cross. Very nice, hard to argue with. But the reality is, it's the first of those symbols that has a problem with coexistence. Take the crescent out of the equation and you wouldn't need a bumper sticker at all. Indeed, coexistence is what the Islamists are at war with; or, if you prefer, pluralism, the idea that different groups can rub along together within the same general neighbourhood. There are many trouble spots across the world but, as a general rule, even if one gives no more than a cursory glance at the foreign pages, it's easy to guess at least one of the sides: Muslims v Jews in Palestine, Muslims v Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims v Christians in Nigeria, Muslims v Buddhists in southern Thailand, Muslims v (your team here). Whatever one's views of the merits on a case by case basis, the ubiquitousness of one team is a fact. . . .

The reality is that there are more Muslim states than a half-century ago, many more Muslims within non-Muslim states, and many more of those Muslims are radicalised and fundamentalist. It's not hard to understand. All you have to do is take them at their word. As Bassam Tibi, a Muslim professor at Gottingen University in Germany, said in an interesting speech a few months after September 11, "Both sides should acknowledge candidly that although they might use identical terms, these mean different things to each of them. The word peace, for example, implies to a Muslim the extension of the Dar al-Islam -- or House of Islam -- to the entire world. This is completely different from the Enlightenment concept of eternal peace that dominates Western thought. Only when the entire world is a Dar al-Islam will it be a Dar a-Salam, or House of Peace."

That's why they blew up Bali in 2002, and last weekend, and why they'll keep blowing it up. It's not about Bush or Blair or Iraq or Palestine. It's about a world where everything other than Islamism lies inruins.

Who's the Cool Guy?

While all people of good character abhor name dropping, this bit by David Edelstein is so excellent, that it has to be applauded:

A few months ago I got a note from the "Dude" himself, Jeff Dowd, the inspiration for Jeff Bridges' character in The Big Lebowski and now a director's rep . . .

Edelstein abides.

It's an Illusion

John Hinderaker has some of the smartest analysis I've seen on the Judith Miller-Scooter Libby situation. His very plausible theory: Miller used Libby as cover to get a deal with the Feds concerning another, more important investigation, where she also might have some exposure.

Fly, Eagles, Fly

Normally, I get no pleasure out of seeing the Eagles beat either Dick Vermeil or Herm Edwards, both of whom are great guys who bleed green. But yesterday's gutsy comeback win was sweet. You can't spot a team like the Chiefs 17 points, on the road, and win. Just can't do it.

In other, semi-related news, my heart goes out to Hugh Hewitt and other Tribe fans. In my experience, Indians and Cardinals fans are pretty much the best in baseball--smart, genteel, passionate. It's a shame this very nice and very young Cleveland team couldn't hold it together down the stretch.

But Indians fans: Courage! This is a young club and the important thing is that the organization has rebounded. In modern baseball, small-market teams are supposed to diminish into .400 ball once the core of players from their last generation pass on. This Indians team defied that logic. It couldn't happen to a better city.

Holy #*&@!!!!

Have you seen the Pontiac Solstice? Unless I'm missing something, I'd take this over the Boxter, the Z3--even the way hot Lexus SC. Paging Mickey Kaus . . .

Notes from the Left University (cont.)

Following up on a post about trouble at Bucknell, Evan Coyne Maloney has more about bad administrative behavior.

Another Blogger Who Gets It

Early on I was hard on Patterico, but he's proved me wrong time and time again: He's clearly one of the best bloggers out there. I'd go so far as to say that he should be a model for what bloggers should aspire to. And now he comes out with this bit of sense.

Good for him.

Until the End of the World

Can you believe this man wants to remain chancellor? At an SPD rally some weeks ago, a student reminded me never to underestimate Gerhard Schröder. And he was right. Just last June, the chancellor and his Social Democrats were polling around 25 percent. But in less than four months, he turned the tables on the opposition, went on the offensive, pummeled Angela Merkel in a televised debate, and increased his support by almost 10 percentage points. His coalition doesn't have enough seats in the Bundestag to rule. But neither do the Christian Democrats, who are now talking about a compromise. They want to form a Grand Coalition with the SPD. Schröder says he is willing to join them. On one condition: That he be chancellor.

Ugh.

Reihan's New "Girlfriend"?

If this depressing post is to be believed, then the blogosphere has lost one of its big talents.

Mind you, all of Reihan's fancy talk seems designed to obscure the simple fact that he's fallen in with a Fembot. Yeah, baby!

Serenity Now?

The gifted and very smart Seth Stevenson argues that Joss Whedon's talents are better used on the small screen.

White House Denounces Bill Bennett

The story here.

What Bennett said was perfectly defensible, standard-issue ad absurdum argument. In fact, it’s the White House that’s in the wrong, pushing cheap, anti-intellectual statements that are transparent attempts to prove they are not the racist, unfeeling bastards their enemies accuse them of being.

September Straw Poll

You might want to take a minute to vote in Patrick Ruffini's September straw poll. Ruffini is one of the real good guys in the blogosphere: No navel gazing, no "Blog Crushes"--just serious, interesting thoughts about politics and the medium.

Whoa

In the course of a post which is a pretty tough assessment of Bush's tenure, David Frum adds this anecdote:

Harriet Miers is a capable lawyer, a hard worker, and a kind and generous person. She would be an reasonable choice for a generalist attorney, which is indeed how George W. Bush first met her. She would make an excellent trial judge: She is a careful and fair-minded listener. But US Supreme Court?

In the White House that hero worshipped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met.

Potent Potables

I hope the Blog Crush won't take it the wrong way if I correct him for saying that Vanity Fair doesn't do nudes. The September 2000 issue of VF featured a couple of skin shots of Paris Hilton that were totally, shockingly out of place in the magazine. They were displayed in the course of a devastatingly awesome Nancy Jo Sales profile of the Hilton family. (Kathy Hilton comes off even worse than Paris.) Excerpts:

The River Club in New York hosted a sweet-16 party in 1998 for debutante Marissa Bregman, a friend of Nicky's. It was covered by a reporter from the New York Times "Styles" section, and the whole story ended up as a star vehicle for Nicky. It seems that Nicky and her good friend Olympia Scarry took over, grabbing boys off the dance floor and kissing them.

And not everything made it into the Times's account, says Patricia Eden, the River Club's membership secretary. "There were a lot of other things that took place that I'm not going to discuss on the phone," she says, hanging up.

Kathy doesn't like such talk, and she doesn't quite believe it when the Post's "Page Six" runs an item saying Paris was doing a karaoke version of a Madonna song at the Moomba club in Manhattan wearing a coat over fishnet stockings, a see-through camisole, and a thong.

"Oh, absolutely not!" Kathy says. "The girls were singing Madonna at one of the new places in the city, and it was a lingerie party, and I know exactly the outfit Paris was wearing, and it was a little short thing with a little fur that goes around it and little shorts that go under it. It wasn't a G-string! Paris is the most modest girl."

And:

Rick Hilton looks up from his plate and asks, "What are Eminem's big songs?"

Paris brightens. "Eminem? He's so funny—he's hysterical."

"Eminem?" Kathy says.

"Conrad has the CD, Dad," says Nicky. "Remember? You got mad."

"No one has a style like his, and no one's gonna copy him, either, 'cause he will totally embarrass them!" says Paris.

"Well, I guess I missed all that," Kathy says.

"Does Puff Daddy perform a lot?" Rick ventures on. "What is his big song?"

Kathy looks exasperated. "Well, would ya know him if you tripped on him?"

Rick thinks a moment. "No."

Next topic of conversation: Puffy's legal troubles—the gun charges, bribery, assault.

"Well, just because you're a celebrity doesn't mean you shouldn't get in trouble if you do something," Paris says.

Nicky laughs.

"Oh, yeah, celebrities think that all the time," Kathy says quickly.

"You keep interrupting me," Paris tells her mother.

There's a long silence.

Nicky laughs again, dryly and somewhat mysteriously.

"There are some people, I guess," continues Paris, "who feel they can get away with anything—"

"This is just so ironic," scoffs Nicky.

Kathy giggles nervously. "We were having this conversation last night," she says.

No one says anything for a while. The silence is deafening.

I say, "Your eyes are so blue, Paris."

"Yeah," says Paris. "They're contacts."

Nicky says, "Mine are real."

Whoa. Worth reading in its entirety.

Hey there, Chief

Chris Levenick has an excellent piece on a bit of Robertsania that has been so far overlooked: Aside from how he is likely to function as a justice, how do we think Roberts will work as a chief justice?

Levenick thinks the outlook is good:

Needless to say, sole recourse to such soft power enormously complicates the task of leadership. But Roberts is--and has been for at least two decades--acutely attentive to the difficulties and possibilities that attend upon the office. A fine example may be found in a June 4, 1985, memo he wrote for the White House regarding the controversial case of Wallace v. Jaffree. . . .

There's more.

Joe Loconte and Nile Gardiner have great piece at NRO on more human rights failings at the United Nations.

Need a Wellness Massage?

One of the things I love about Berlin is the escort service. Okay, I mean the ads for the escort service. They're usually on the other side of the complimentary city map with pictures of attractive models and taglines such as:

Exclusive Lustbegleiterinnen für den anspruchsvollen Herrn! (Exclusive desirable escorts for the hard-to-please man!)

Auch exzellente Massagen (no translation needed)

Another reads:

Ein Vergnügen der besonderen Art (Enjoyment of a Special Kind)

Besuche--Escortservice--Wellnessmassagen ("Besuche" means visits.)

One simply has this text inside a heart-shape:

Escort Hotel/Wellness-massagen/Duett

Who knew they were so concerned about one's wellness?

Notes from the Left University, Part II

This story at Brain-Terminal seems like exactly the sort of thing James Piereson was talking about:

On August 29th, the Bucknell University Conservatives Club sent out a campus-wide e-mail announcing an upcoming speaker: Major John Krenson, who had been in Afghanistan "hunting terrorists." Those two words--"hunting terrorists"--resulted in three students being called to Bucknell's Office of the President by Kathy Owens, the Executive Assistant to the President.

According to the students, when they arrived at the President's Office for the meeting, Ms. Owens held up a print-out of the offending e-mail and said "we have a problem here," telling the students that the words "hunting terrorists" were offensive. For the next half-hour, the three students were given a lecture on inappropriate phrasing.

Notes from the Left University

A number of commenters from my post on James Piereson's article on the left university suggested that Piereson was not accurately reflecting the situation on campus. Here's an email from Galley Friend D.D., who's an undergrad right now:

As far as your commentary on Piereson's article, remind me to tell you sometime about the utterly worthless undergraduate degree I'm getting right now. Heck, I even had the joy of having a sociology professor (self-described as "ethnic" to avoid the stigma of being Caucasian) tell the class on the eve of the war in Iraq that if the American people were real patriots we'd "overthrow the corporate junta now ruling Washington" and set up a "real democratic society." Of course, the individual in question also told us after the last election that the US was "doomed" and that the American people were "caught in the thrall of their Semitic war god."

To be fair, the students ignore 99% of this crap . . .

GIANT SQUID! GIANT SQUID! GIANT SQUID!

For the first time we now have pictures of a live giant squid.

But wait, there's more!

Watch the interactive CNN video linked to the story and you'll see video of the squid and catch a revelation left out of the print version of the story: While struggling to free itself from the bait, the Architeuthis in question left behind a six-meter long tentacle. And when they pulled the line up, the tentacle and its suckers were still alive and functioning.

Go ahead, read that last part again.

David Grann: The world needs you.

U. of Hades

James Piereson's long piece on the left university is gratifying for all sorts of reasons, the most personally gratifying is the revelation that Johns Hopkins is source of the original sin which has corrupted our system of higher education:

The model of the German research university spread rapidly in the United States in the decades after the Civil War, inaugurated by the founding of Johns Hopkins University in 1876 as our first institution organized around graduate research studies. The late scholar Edward Shils referred to this as "the most decisive single event in the history of learning in the Western hemisphere." This innovation, as Shils pointed out, put pressure on other institutions to establish their own programs of research and graduate study. Harvard soon created its own Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in order to keep pace with Johns Hopkins. Stanford University was established in 1891 along similar lines, which induced the University of California to follow suit. The University of Chicago, underwritten by John D. Rockefeller, was established in 1892 with research as the basis for faculty appointment and promotion. Other institutions in the Midwest, especially Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, were then in the process of embracing the research model. Here, then, in the wake of the Hopkins innovation, occurred the first important competition among universities for rank and reputation; and here, through this competition, the modern American university was born.

Shils was certainly correct to emphasize the far-reaching consequences that followed in the United States from the adoption of the German university model. In the United States, as in Germany, the research model transformed the status of the professor from a teacher to an independent scholar and researcher. Professors would no longer pass along established truths and traditional moral ideals, but would subject these truths and ideals to scrutiny in the search for new knowledge. The faculty, as the new priesthood of the research enterprise, would shortly claim authority to decide all matters dealing with curriculum, new faculty appointments, and promotions. The modern doctrine of academic freedom, which gives professors wide latitude to teach and conduct research as they wish, also followed in due course as a consequence of these premises. Much as Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the law is what the judges say it is, the reformed university would henceforth be whatever the faculty decides it is.

As the modern university took shape, faculties began to organize themselves into specialized departments, or disciplines, with their own formal rules for study, research, and publication. It was in this period that the various academic associations were formed, including the American Historical Association (1884), the American Economic Association (1885), the American Physical Society (1899), the American Political Science Association (1903), and the American Sociological Association (1905). These were national membership associations that held annual conventions and published their own journals containing research studies representing authoritative work in the respective disciplines. These associations were, in a way, national communities that reoriented the attention of professors away from students at their own college and toward colleagues working in the same discipline at other institutions across the country. The status of professors in their various disciplines was based on their published research, which established in turn a new basis upon which to rank departments and entire institutions.

At the risk of burdening you with too many personal details, Johns Hopkins is the establishment from which I purchased my thoroughly useless undergraduate degree. It is a place of insidious evil. If the American collegiate landscape is DisneyWorld for adolescents--think of Harvard as Cinderella's Castle, the Florida schools as Space Mountain, and MIT as the Carousel of Progress--Hopkins would be Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. What starts out as childish adventure soon becomes a descent into Hell and eventually every student is made to feel as though they've been hit by an oncoming train.

What I find funny is that though Hopkins began the trend which has created the left university, today (or at least a few years ago when I was there) it is largely untouched by the political climate it created. Neither the students nor the faculty nor the administration care about multiculturalism or political correctness or radical politics or anything of the sort. The students care only for their GPA's, the faculty care only for their research, and the administrators--the good guys on campus--care about building the endowment and trying to keep the students from killing themselves (and each other).

But enough about me; the Piereson article is great stuff.

Would You Believe...

...that Agent 86 is no longer with us? Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart in the hit series Get Smart, past away Sunday night at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center, having suffered a lung infection. He was 82. Thanks to syndication, many of us who grew up after the show's cancellation were still able to enjoy his antics, along with his fellow Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldman. Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart also featured the likes of Bernie Kopell, as archvillain Siegfried who, despite the show taking place during the height of the Cold War, sported a German accent. (Kopell later went on to become the sex-obsessed "Doc" on The Love Boat.)

Besides doing commercials and the voiceover for the animated series Inspector Gadget, Adams (born Donald Yarmy) served in the Marines and contracted "blackwater fever" while on Guadalcanal. He then became a drill instructor. (It boggles the mind that this drill instructor would one day star in a movie called The Nude Bomb.) He will be missed.

P.S. For the superstitious, this marks the second death of a 60s sitcom star in the span of a few short weeks. First was Bob Denver. Now Adams. Who's next? Ernest Borgnine?

Oooo, Math!

The Wershovenist Pig comes up with his own valuation model (which I nominate we call the Pork Number). Warning to humanities types: Math is involved.

The New Storytelling

Because neither you nor I can get enough of Jon Klein.

Whedonesque

A gigantic, wide-ranging 9,500 word interview with Joss Whedon. Covers all sorts of interesting stuff, including thoughts about screenwriting, lighting, and scoring (in the Williams, not Bay, sense of the word).