In today’s Washington Post, David Broder thinks he’s figured out what Harriet Miers believes in.
It’s too soon to judge this nomination. But my guess is that in the end it is the liberals who will have the most misgivings about Miers.
I came to that conclusion after a breakfast interview — by coincidence the morning of the president’s announcement — with Leonard Leo, who is on leave as executive vice president of the Federalist Society to work with the White House on judicial confirmation issues.
The first thing Leo said was that Miers’s statement accepting the nomination from Bush was significant to him. “It is the responsibility of every generation to be true to the Founders’ vision of the proper role of courts in our society . . . and to help ensure that the courts meet their obligations to strictly apply the laws and the Constitution,” she said. “When she talked about ‘the Founders’ vision’ and used the word ’strictly,’ ” Leo said, “I thought, ‘Robert Bork,’ ” Ronald Reagan’s Supreme Court pick, who was rejected by the Senate after a bitter fight. “She didn’t have to go there. She could simply have said, ‘Judges should not legislate from the bench.’ But she chose those words.”
I’m glad that Broder and Leo both think that their mind-reading skills are sufficiently advanced to accurately predict where this latest stealth candidate will come down on the issues that would come before her. I prefer not to have to guess, especially when there are so many well-qualified judges out there whose views we are completely aware of.
I might consider changing my mind on the Miers nomination, but only if someone can answer this question — Why Harriet Miers and not Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, or J. Michael Luttig ?
