More Miers links
Both Virginia Postrel and Ann Althouse have plenty of posts up about the Miers confirmation, so go check them out. In this one, Althouse asks: I have yet to see a single piece of writing by Harriet Miers dealing with an issue of constitutional law or even anything purporting to demonstrate the analytical, interpretive skills ...
Both Virginia Postrel and Ann Althouse have plenty of posts up about the Miers confirmation, so go check them out. In this one, Althouse asks:
Both Virginia Postrel and Ann Althouse have plenty of posts up about the Miers confirmation, so go check them out. In this one, Althouse asks:
I have yet to see a single piece of writing by Harriet Miers dealing with an issue of constitutional law or even anything purporting to demonstrate the analytical, interpretive skills required to serve on the Supreme Court. The nomination was announced on Monday. It’s Thursday. Can we have something in writing that shows her mind in action, that inspires confidence that this is a person whose judgment we should all trust for the next two decades?
This Jim Lindgren post probably won’t assuage her. In this post, Postrel partially corrects Lindgren’s assessment — but then goes onto observe, “The prose is indeed clunky, however, and the article is banal in that well-known corporate way, where you make an argument–her main point is that the courts need more money–without any sharp points.” I’ll give the last word to Postrel, who rebuts the snobbery argument:
The anti-snobbery defense of Miers is an understandable but wrong-headed one–doubly so when it comes from graduates of large, research-oriented public universities that attract great students with low tuitions. My father, a math and physics major at Davidson (a far more academically oriented school then and now than SMU), always had that same southern chip on his shoulder about the Ivy League. Then I went to Princeton, and he discovered that they really do teach you more there. Most important, of course, is that nobody would care where Miers had gone to school if she had a track record, whether as a scholar, a policy maker, or a litigator, on constitutional law. (emphasis added)
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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