Two Strikes for Harriet Miers

The Founding Fathers oppose Harriet Miers. I’ll let them call the balls and strikes on this fine, fall, playoff baseball afternoon.

Strike 1: The Federalist Papers #76

“[The President] would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.”

[Via David Sirota]

Strike 2: The Constitution

US Constitution, Article VI, Clause 3: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

But a test is what we have:

Bloomberg: “White House Counsel Harriet Miers’s backers are stressing her evangelical Christian faith in urging skeptical conservatives to support her U.S. Supreme Court nomination.”

[Via Ed Cone]

I’m guessing Strike 3 is the smoking gun paper that Ms. Miers removed from the President’s gaze. The one that talked about some Bin Laden fellow intent on attacking the U.S.

Harriet Miers
Harriet Miers, at the time staff secretary, is seen on Aug. 6, 2001, briefing President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Harriet Miers, you’re out!

One thought on “Two Strikes for Harriet Miers

  1. Puritan pundits pull out their pliers,
    Pinching the Prez over Harriet Miers,
    Stunned that they’ve received no surety
    Of her ideological purity.
    Liberals of suspicious mind
    Naturally, though, expect to find
    Anyone Mr. Bush delivers
    “Pure” enough to give them shivers.

    And neither are greatly mollified
    By finding her so unqualified.
    Will any old lawyer suit that Court
    Who knows how to serve a half-baked tort?

    But the greatest objection to letting a crony in
    Is that it’s so patently un-Hamiltonian.
    Will the whole Senate exclaim with defiance, “We
    Shun insignificance! Veto pliancy!”
    Or will Mr. Bush get to keep his treasure,
    “Obsequious instrument of his pleasure?”

    Poor Mr. Hamilton can’t be blamed;
    Who’d think of a leader who can’t be shamed?

    nightquill.blogspot.com

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