Alphecca

Harriet Ellen Miers

Talk about cronyism! Still, not much is known about Harriet Miers, the President's choice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. I suspect that she is a moderate (that's not always a good thing) because even Democrats had suggested her. From Yahoo/AP:

Her lack of a judicial record makes it difficult to determine know whether Miers would dramatically move the court to the right. White House officials, who revealed Bush's pick on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to pre-empt the president, said Miers is conservative enough to satisfy the president's supporters and does not have a lengthy legal record that could embolden Democrats.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had urged the administration to consider Miers, two congressional officials said.

[...]

Both Democratic and Republican senators recommended Miers as a possible nominee, White House officials said. Senators also suggested that Bush consider picking someone who was not a judge so the bench would be flush with justices from all walks of life.

"Harriet Miers, like Justice O'Connor, has been a trailblazer and a pioneer," said Rick Garnett, a law professor at Notre Dame and former law clerk to the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. "Like Justice O'Connor, Ms. Miers has broken through barriers in the law, serving as a leader and role model, and impressing everyone with her decency and her sharp intellect. She would be a worthy and appropriate successor to Justice O'Connor, and would carry to the court a commitment to constitutionalism, judicial restraint, and the rule of law."

Miers, 60, has a string of firsts on her resume that track her quiet but steady march to the top echelons of power: first woman hired by her law firm in 1972, first woman president of the Dallas Bar Association in 1985, first woman president of the Texas State Bar in 1992, first woman president of her law firm in 1996.

Card, in a 2003 interview with the publication Texas Lawyer, said Bush's affinity for Miers is clear in the frequent invitations she receives to visit the presidential retreat at Camp David, "a privilege that is not enjoyed by a lot of staff."

"She's a quiet, highly respected force and someone who is seen as not having any agenda other than the president's," he said.

David Codrea at the War on Guns thinks she's a bad choice according to her support of some gun control programs.

Update: She supported Al Gore, according to Drudge. Al Gore was a very anti-2A and supported a national license and universal registration. I'm getting a bad feeling about Miers. So are other conservatives and this could be a case where the Democrats support her and the Republicans are the ones to scotch her nomination. Bush did bad here.

Update 2: Todd Zywicki is almost scornfull:

Put another way, looking at Miers resume, I can see nothing in her career or her resume to suggest that she has ever thought in any meaningful manner about larger questions of law. She went to a perfectly good law school, but during an era where it is hard to believe that she was thinking much about larger questions of law. She had a distinguished legal career, but from all appearances, one in which she would have rarely had the opportunity or inclination to think seriously about the Court or its role in American society. In private practice, she proved herself most distinguished, it appears as an administrator and manager at her law firm--useful skills, but different from those needed on the Court. Her practice at the various iterations of the Lidell firm in Texas appears to be a conventional trial litigation practice. Finally, her primary responsibility during her time working in Washington has been as a Staff Secretary--again doing management and administration, not intellectual heavy-lifting. There is simply nothing in her background to suggest that she will exert any intellectual leadership inside or outside the Court. At least Roberts, as a lawyer was engaged in the big intellectual issues of the day, even if his judicial philosophy is more incremental than systematic.

At the very least, she will have a heck of a lot of learning to do and will be forced, at the age of 60, to think about many, many difficult issues that she has never confronted in her entire life. I suppose it is possible for a 60 year old to start what amounts to a completely new career and learn a completely new set of skills for the first time, but.... She hasn't even been practicing law for many, many years, but rather serving in either policy or administrative roles. At the very least, if she is to ever exercise any intellectual leadership of the there is going to be a substantial learning curve that suggests that it will be several years before she has anything meaningful to say. This in contrast to Luttig, McConnell, Brown, Jones, Batchelder--well, at least 100 other people who are at least as well-qualified, but who would not need on-the-job training. It is really quite difficult to imagine that she will ever be in a position to exercise any substantial intellectual leadership of the Court.

Keep in mind that I voted for him but only because I couldn't possibly vote for Gore or Kerry, both of whom would have ruined the country and turned it into a member state of the socialist EU. In addition, both were hopelessly anti-Second Amendment and that is a critical issue for me.

As I said here: "With the Democrats hopelessly mired down in left-wing special interest politics and the Republicans apparently falling apart at the seams, maybe it's time for an intelligent 3rd party candidate to start planting seeds for 2008. By then, moderate America might welcome a change from having to choose between the usual idiots the two standard-bearer parties nominate. I sure would..."

Update 3, this on bearing arms: Time magazine has a snippet of her writings, including this... The first paragraph is the Time reporter and the second is from her writings (and I further indented it):

In 1992, in Texas Lawyer, while President of the state bar, Miers wrote about the effect on the criminal justice system of an episode in a Fort Worth courthouse, where in July of that year, a man angry about his divorce went on a shooting spree, killing two lawyers and wounding two judges and a prosecutor before surrendering at a TV station:

"The same liberties that ensure a free society make the innocent vulnerable to those who prevent rights and privileges and commit senseless and cruel acts. Those precious liberties include free speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of liberties, access to public places, the right to bear arms and freedom from constant surveillance. We are not willing to sacrifice these rights because of the acts of maniacs."