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October 06, 2005

George Will Hits One To The Cheap Seats

Yesterday George Will wrote a column that was stunning in its arrogance and snide condescension, even when one pauses to consider that it was written by George Will. I make no demur from his opening lines, though I could not disagree more with the callow and sloppy rhetoric he uses to justify them:

Senators beginning what ought to be a protracted and exacting scrutiny of Harriet Miers should be guided by three rules. First, it is not important that she be confirmed. Second, it might be very important that she not be.

It is, indeed not important that Miers be confirmed merely for the sake of confirmation. This process should not be a rubber stamp. Ms. Miers, and this nation, deserve a rigorous, thorough examination of her philosophy and qualifications. And it might indeed be very important that she not be confirmed, should it come out during the hearings that she is unsuitable. That has yet to be proven, and is the entire purpose of the confirmation process should some of our more excitable brethren decide we are entitled to have the Constitutional process play out as the Founders intended.

Third, the presumption -- perhaps rebuttable but certainly in need of rebutting -- should be that her nomination is not a defensible exercise of presidential discretion to which senatorial deference is due.

The President is tasked with the power of appointment by the Constitution. It is an enormous task. Indeed, it is one of the reasons I voted for him, and he has (with Ms. Miers' able assistance, I might add) done a stellar job so far of appointing nominees to the federal bench. But then being President is an enormous job. Many are outraged because they assert the President asks us to "trust" him. Nonsense. He has no more done that with this nomination than with any other nomination he could have made.

As conservatives have seen to our cost in past years, Senatorial examination of a nominee's prior judicial record doesn't magically predict everything we wish it would. Witness the Reagan administration's recommendation of known pro-lifer Sandra Day O'Connor. As HumanEvents notes, somehow The Great Communicator failed to 'communicate' her record on abortion to the Senate, and they certainly failed to uncover it. Those who argue the Senate (or anyone else) is able to divine how a nominee will rule from their appellate decisions are willfully ignoring history.