XDA

The Republican base is seriously up in arms about the President's proposal that Harriet Miers take over as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court for Justice O'Connor. Some fear she is not conservative enough (as Jeff Goldstein said, tongue in cheek, that 'Miers' is German for 'Souter') while others, too many, say she's not qualified for the Supreme Court. This is elitism--unlovely, ironic elitism. To paraphrase Laura Ingraham's first sentence in her anti-elitism book, "They think she's stupid." When I make that charge, most right thinking people counter, oh no! we don't care where she went to school (Miers went to Southern Methodist University both undergrad and Law School) she's just not qualified. It's the second part that is the snobbish elitism which I find wrong. Let me explain.

It's elitism to think that being a Justice on the Supreme Court is only appropriate for brilliant, super minds, who have spent many years knee deep in Supreme Court arcana and who have devoted careers to an appellate practice and been federal court appellate judges, preferably on the D.C. Circuit. In other words, it is elitism to think that there are 9 philosopher kings (or Platonic Guardians, as Diomedes says) in this country and only a few, properly anointed, super intellects are capable of that pinnacle of service. Elitism on stilts! We conservatives used to reject the very notion that the judiciary are philosopher kings. We reject completely that the Supreme Court should set policy. They should review cases and decide if the issues and laws reviewed pass constitutional muster. That's it (and maybe not even that). And for that proper role, a prudent person, with good common sense and a judicial temperament is fine. Harriet Miers is probably fine. I trust our President to have the motherwit to recognize this sort of ability in another. Why don't you? You guys, howling in self-rightous pain, point out another person picked personally by President Bush who has let us down. I can't think of one. Maybe the guys over at Kos or DU can propose some. Yea, help out the left on this choice. What a good idea! The howlers, like Ann Coulter, George Will, Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol, to name but a few, have clearly bought into the notion that the Supreme Court are philosopher kings.

Because if we on the right really want super philosopher kings on the Supreme Court, I, for one, want some better decisions. Pick your favorite egg-head-brilliant-but-bone-headed decision recently. Here is mine: Clinton v. Jones, a 9-0 decision in 1997, authored by Justice Stevens in which the brilliant philosopher kings said that Paula Jones' lawsuit wouldn't have any effect on the Presidency (and the Nation), "[o]there than the fact that a trial may consume some of the President's time and attention..." Yea, no distraction to the President from that lawsuit, o annointed ones.

I say to my right thinking brothers and sisters, quit buying into the inflated importance of the Supreme Court. Let's put normal people on a more normal, self limiting court and restore not a better balance of power on the court (originalist versus activist) but a better balance between the three branches; where the Legislative and Executive branches (elected by We, the people) interact to set policy and the Judiciary puts the brake on only where those branches go too far.

This Republican revolt is truly revolting and ugly in that we're doing just what we hate so much by those on the left, denying that a good, normally smart person can handle any job in this Government, supposedly of the people. Hugh Hewitt is helping to lead the charge to stop this madness, but not with my arguments. I'm with him.