« First ,Tragedy | Main | A Little Late for Columbus Day, but ... »
October 26, 2005
Oh, Crap
Does Harriet Miers even know what she believes? Seriously.
From today's Washington Post:
"Parties should not be able to establish social policy through court action, having failed to persuade the legislative branch or the executive branch of the wisdom and correctness of their preferred course," she said in the document.So is it okay for the courts to address social issues, or not? This should be troubling to the social conservatives that Hewitt is so concerned about - unless of course they want to now support, say, the actions of the Massachusetts Supreme Court regarding gay marriage. No matter how you feel about gay marriage, it's not the place of the courts to order lawmakers to pass a particular piece of legislation.But she offered a different view of the judiciary in the 1993 speech to Dallas women executives and another one a few months later...
"My basic message here is that when you hear the courts blamed for activism or intrusion where they do not belong, stop and examine what the elected leadership has done to solve the problem at issue," she said.
At a speech later that summer titled "Women and Courage," Miers went further. Citing statistics that showed Texas's relatively high poverty rates, Miers said the public should not blame judges when courts step in to solve such problems.
"Allowing conditions to exist so long and get so bad that resort to the courts is the only answer has not served our state well," she said. "Politicians who would cry 'The courts made me do it' or 'I did not do that -- the courts did' should not be tolerated."
Also, if those supporting Miers are doing so because they believe she will overturn Roe v. Wade, then perhaps they should examine how seriously she seems to take "self-determination" when considering questions of public policy.
This woman's beliefs are incomprehensible.
Posted by slublog at October 26, 2005 08:18 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.slublog.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1901
Comments
When Bush says about both his nominees, "Trust me," it's a whole lot easier to trust him with someone of the caliber of Roberts. With him at least you knew he would be excellent at being a judge, even if you weren't sure how his vote would match what yours would be. With Miers Bush is asking us to take a step of faith both on her stance on hot-button issues and on her competence itself.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at October 26, 2005 09:12 AM
This really would be a nail in the coffin for the kind of support Hugh Hewitt is trying to drum up. The idea was that conservatives should just be excited to have someone on the court who will challenge judicial activism. But if we can't even be sure of her on that . . . she doesn't have a prayer.
Posted by: Hal at October 26, 2005 11:59 AM