Harriet Hangs Herself
The New York Times' David Brooks points out that the most disturbing words about Harriet Miers' nomination are those she wrote herself -- in a column called "President's Opinion" for the Texas Bar Association:
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's prose. Nearly every idea is vague and depersonalized. Nearly every debatable point is elided. It's not that Miers didn't attempt to tackle interesting subjects. She wrote about unequal access to the justice system, about the underrepresentation of minorities in the law and about whether pro bono work should be mandatory. But she presents no arguments or ideas, except the repetition of the bromide that bad things can be eliminated if people of good will come together to eliminate bad things.
Or as she puts it, "There is always a necessity to tend to a myriad of responsibilities on a number of cases as well as matters not directly related to the practice of law." And yet, "Disciplining ourselves to provide the opportunity for thought and analysis has to rise again to a high priority."
Throw aside ideology. Surely the threshold skill required of a Supreme Court justice is the ability to write clearly and argue incisively. Miers's columns provide no evidence of that.
Write clearly and argue incisively? On the Supreme Court? With mush like that, she wouldn't have made it out of my eighth-grade debate class!
(and sorry, Brooks is "Times Select" -- been avoiding blogging them because few people have bought access -- but these words from Miers were just too frighteningly banal and incoherent o pass up.)
I don't mean to defend Harriet Miers, but every "opinion" piece in the Texas Bar Journal is written that way - bland and vague to the point of meaninglessness. There are a variety of reasons for this.
At work, lawyers are very careful about how they use words, for good reason. And even though writing opinion pieces isn't part of practicing law, when you're writing a piece that will only be read by other attorneys, I can imagine that one would be inclined to use the same guarded style. Also, the fact that the bar president always has political aspirations will make his or her pieces even more watered down for fear of challenging or offending anyone.
Jason Ginsburg at October 13, 2005 6:07 AM
It's possible to take a subject that's inoffensive and opine about it. These sentences are scary.
Amy Alkon at October 13, 2005 6:43 AM
> opine about it. These sentences
> are scary.
Scary! Scary! Grrrr! Sharp teeth and warted noses on a dark night in late October! Scary!
We've covered scariness in comments before:
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2004/12/jesus_of_the_br.html#comments
How come things are never "scary" to conservatives? They may be propelled by any number of fears, but how come they never use that particular half-serious locution?
The Miers nomination seals the fate of this administration in the history books as a mediocrity.
>
But the constitution doesn't require that justices be jurists, or even lawyers. They don't have to be popular or good-looking or colorful writers or dogmatically rigid. Most people in America aren't any of those things. I'm not trying to be backhanded about it, but stupid people need representation, too. Honest Abe: "Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them." Me: "If we're counting on the really clever people to lead us to a better world, we're fucked."
There's much to be said for allowing our president to appoint justices who aren't so lawyerly... I can imagine a time when that might be a precious option indeed.
>
This is not such an hour.
I think Kaus had the right idea about withdrawing the nomination and shipping her off to a federal appeals court.
>
But if that happens, I hope everyone realizes that she was rejected because --amongst other, minor problems-- she wasn't polarizing enough. For anyone. So let's not have any more chatter about togetherness and meeting in the middle and non-partisanship. Sing along: "We're not the world, we're not the children; we're not the ones who make a brighter day" etc.
Crid at October 13, 2005 7:48 PM
Hey, it bungled the pagination.
Crid at October 13, 2005 7:50 PM
Hey - this looks like yet another recommendation for Strunk & White's The Elements of Style !
Radwaste at October 14, 2005 1:31 AM
"How come things are never "scary" to conservatives?"
Remind me again who came up with the color-coded "Terror Alerts"?
"stupid people need representation, too."
I reeeeeally think we have that covered.
LYT at October 14, 2005 2:27 AM
Science scares the phony conservatives we have running this country.
Amy Alkon at October 14, 2005 7:36 AM
Here's a real conservative:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article319542.ece
Amy Alkon at October 14, 2005 8:18 AM
> yet another recommendation for Strunk & White
Don't be a nancy-boy!
> color-coded "Terror Alerts"?
Would we have expected better from another administration? Yes, the Dept of Homeland Security, and the TSA, and all the rest of them are bogus and ineffective technocracies. They're pathetic, but they're not sarcastic. They're typical, not "scary."
> I reeeeeally think we have that covered.
Touche, that can't be disputed. But as this woman's nomination is savaged, however rightously, let's keep our rhetoric in check. Let's not pretend that putting our super-elite achievers in the highest seats of government will make things go perfectly, or even much better. Time and again they prove to know little more about decency than anyone else.
> Although Lady Thatcher remains a strong
> supporter of the decision to topple Saddam...
It's at this point that my confidence in the context of the oncoming quote is broken.
> it is the first time she has questioned the
> basis for the war.
Do you really believed she questioned the "basis for the war?" Or did she merely question the puffery that was applied to WMD reports?
Crid at October 14, 2005 12:06 PM
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