Where do we go from here?

In response to my post that Power Line linked to, Common Sense Political Thought crafted a response, which can be found here.

In turn, I'd like to reply to some of the thoughts expressed there.

Well, that’s just it: we do know that Miss Miers is a conservative. However, the evidence of that is not from a long paper trail of previous judicial decisions, and that does have conservatives riled up. The evidence is from personal testimony (by other people), and from the judgement of President Bush...

As a skeptic, I don't know which testimony to accept, and which to discount. For example...

This New York Times article:

"You know, she's a very gracious and funny person," said Joshua B. Bolten, the director of the Office of Management and Budget whom Ms. Miers succeeded as deputy White House chief of staff in 2003. "I was racking my brain trying to think of something specific."

In the next breath, Mr. Bolten recalled relaxing with her at Camp David. "She is a very good bowler," he said. "For someone her size, she actually gets a lot of action out of the pins."

That's the best Mr. Bolten could come up with? She's a good bowler?

From the same article:

"It wasn't that she didn't do the job right," said David Frum, who was a White House speechwriter when Ms. Miers was staff secretary and has been one of her sharpest critics, "but the way she did the job rules her out of being a person you would think of as capable of handling this enormous responsibility."

Frum says this in his diary at NRO:

If you pierce the (uncharacteristic) sarcasm, you will notice I think that Scully has just confirmed everything that the critics of Miers have said.

He concedes that she never has taken those risks I spoke of, never demonstrated that backbone and courage.

He concedes that she was never much of an intellectual force, and that the case for her rests entirely on her pleasantness of manner.

David Brooks, in a recent column, highlighted some of her writing, and it wasn't exactly star quality.

Of all the words written about Harriet Miers, none are more disturbing than the ones she wrote herself. In the early '90s, while she was president of the Texas Bar Association, Miers wrote a column called "President's Opinion" for the Texas Bar Journal. It is the largest body of public writing we have from her and, sad to say, the quality of thought and writing doesn't even rise to the level of pedestrian.

Of course, we have to make allowances for the fact that the first job of any association president is to not offend her members. Still, nothing excuses sentences like this:

"More and more, the intractable problems in our society have one answer: broad-based intolerance of unacceptable conditions and a commitment by many to fix problems."

Or this: "We must end collective acceptance of inappropriate conduct and increase education in professionalism."

Or this: "When consensus of diverse leadership can be achieved on issues of importance, the greatest impact can be achieved."

Or passages like this: "An organization must also implement programs to fulfill strategies established through its goals and mission. Methods for evaluation of these strategies are a necessity. With the framework of mission, goals, strategies, programs, and methods for evaluation in place, a meaningful budgeting process can begin."

Or, finally, this: "We have to understand and appreciate that achieving justice for all is in jeopardy before a call to arms to assist in obtaining support for the justice system will be effective. Achieving the necessary understanding and appreciation of why the challenge is so important, we can then turn to the task of providing the much needed support."

I don't know if by mere quotation I can fully convey the relentless march of vapid abstractions that mark Miers' prose.

We skeptics are looking for reassurance that when Miers is on the Court, she is firm enough in her convictions, and certain enough of her judicial philosophy, that she won't be swayed by the inevitable pressure to drift leftward. So far, I haven't seen strong evidence of that kind of strength and conviction.

From Common Sense Political Thought again:

I suspect, especially after reading the long complaints on Patterico’s Pontifications, that the word "betrayal" stems more from a deep-seated conservative mindset that they must be ever vigilant for betrayal, because everyone in a position of power is out there, just looking for the opportunity to betray them.

No, not at all. I am looking for the President I supported as a candidate to show clear signs he understands the importance of returning the Court to its Constitutional roots. This picks seems like a retreat, an effort to avoid a fight about principle.

Some have claimed we skeptics should remain silent because it's the President's right to make this pick. No one is claiming it isn't, but the power to make this pick isn't the President's personal plaything. He has that power because the Constitution gives the President that power, and Bush is President because we, the people, elected him. It's avoiding the issue to say the President has no obligation to the people who elected him.

Perhaps Mr. Kouba referred solely to [John Roberts] not facing strong Democratic opposition (although half of the Democratic senators voted against him), because he did not face a serious filibuster threat.

I was. It is true, Roberts didn't engender wild, enthusiastic conservative support. However, compared with Miers, Roberts came with a solid conservative background, and a history of thinking important legal issues. The Roberts pick did slide by without much fanfare because everyone, conservatives included, understood that the Miers pick was the one that would change the balance of the Court.

I’m sorry, but that’s valuing the fight more than the outcome. Is it our goal to put a conservative on the Supreme Court, or is it more important for us to have a fight with the Democrats? Mr. Kouba wrote, as noted in his comment on our old blog, that, for him, "it's not so much the person of Miers, it's the person we're not getting." Yet his article is all about the fight he’s not getting, not the person he’s not getting!

In a recent New York Times article, Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review outlined several reasons why conservatives are divided. He closes with this:

In the past, conservatives had overlooked disappointments and disagreements for the sake of getting solid appointments to the Supreme Court. The president's judicial appointments will be among his most lasting legacies. But then Mr. Bush nominated Ms. Miers. Conservatives are not sure she's a legal conservative at all, and they are still less sure that she will be a forceful advocate for originalism. Not even her strongest defenders outside the administration say she would have been their top choice.

Those defenders say that we should nevertheless trust Mr. Bush's judgment. At the very moment that conservatives have begun to conclude that their bets on Mr. Bush are no longer paying off, Mr. Bush has asked them to double down. That request has even pro-Miers conservatives feeling disillusioned, and other conservatives feeling betrayed. That's what's dividing conservatives - and it's why they're thinking more and more about life after President Bush.

Hugh Hewitt responds to this Ponnuru colomn:

In fact, it is elitist to refuse to acknowledge the deep seated convictions among Republicans, which are trending very heavily towards supporting the president. The debate is fierce at every level of the conservative movement and the GOP. But it ialso being won by the anti-anti-Miers people.
...
At this point, it may be that anti-Miers elites like Ramesh would like to keep the debate among elites because they are not winning it among GOP voters.

I am obviously only one small fish in a big ocean, but the kind of arguments Ponnuru and the others at NRO have been making have resonated with me, and indeed, are arguments I've formulated on my own.

I am not looking for a fight for its own sake. As Ponnuru writes, President Bush has given me several reasons to distrust him when it comes to conservative politics, and now President Bush is asking him to trust him on something even more important. I was hoping this pick would reassure me. It didn't.

I don’t want to make this seem like a personal attack on Jeff Kouba. His original article was cited on Powerline, one of the most widely read conservative websites, and that was what got my attention. (Heck, I’d like to get a reference from Powerline; that’s a big readership booster!) Mr. Kouba has simply expressed sentiments very similar to a lot of the conservative opposition to Miss Miers, and his specific use of the word "betrayal" made a good starting point.

Intellectual debate between people who respect each other is always a good thing; we can disagree without being disagreeable, and respect each otherafter the debate as well as before. So, while I used Mr. Kouba’s article as a starting point, I want to go ahead and express my respect for his opinions and for him; I simply happen to think that he’s wrong on this issue.

Well said, and I am in no way offended. I think it's important to have discussions on these important issues, and I appreciate the opportunity to have a little back and forth on the Miers pick.

Where do we go from here, then? I don't know. Hope? Cross fingers?

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Michelle Malkin gives a glimpse at the next attempt the White House might make to convice skeptics like me.

Captain Ed also comments on this next "phase".

Watchman's Words thinks of the sins of the fathers.