White House Counsel Harriet Miers announced her resignation today. According to news reports, the President "reluctantly" accepted the resignation. While the position of White House Counsel is certainly an important and influential post, what is more significant is the fact that due to a conservative uprising in 2005, Miers does not hold life tenure on the United States Supreme Court. Miers is, upon all information available, a competent advisor to the President; this does not qualify one, however, for a seat on the Supreme Court.
Robert Bork noted at the time that the Miers nomination was a
kind of a slap in the face to the conservatives who’ve been building up a conservative legal movement for the last 20 years.
The judiciary has become one of the most hostile environments in recent years towards conservative values and principles. It was an unwise choice to nominate someone who had not written extensively on constitutional interpretation in the way that Justice Scalia or Robert Bork had, or someone who did not have a "paper trail" of decisions that would have revealed one's method of interpretation. George H.W. Bush nominated David Souter to the Court and presented him to the nation as a nominee with the moderate, or even right leaning, views that would sufficiently mollify wary conservatives. His nomination has been one of the disasters of recent Court history and there is nothing that would indicate Miers would have been any different.
Indeed, with the confirmation of John Roberts, Jr. and Samuel Alito to the Court, the President has left an indelible mark on the Court. These fine nominees (both of whom were well respected jurists at the time of their nomination) have so far proven themselves as justices who, at the very least, do not read their own perspectives or views into the text. Out of the disaster that was the Miers nomination came a gift in the form of a well regarded, card carrying member of the Federalist Society who has not been afraid to proclaim himself as a conservative.
For the last several years, the courts have asserted a more activist role (though the term "activist" is not a particularly helpful label) which has produced decisions like Kelo, Hamdan, Casey, et cetera. These decisions run contrary to the very traditions upon which this country was founded and can only be prevented by nominating candidates who will reasonably interpret the text of the Constitution while considering the meaning of the text when it was written.
Harriet Miers' departure from the White House should be a reminder that bad nominations can have a serious impact upon the work good conservatives are accomplishing. Her service to the President is admirable, but she should never have been nominated to the seat vacated by Sandra Day O'Connor.
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