Today's News & Views                            
October 4, 2005

Dave Andrusko can be reached at dandrusko@nrlc.org

Underestimating the President Yet Again

I am in the final throes of producing the October issue of National Right to Life News, must reading at any time but especially now. There are several important cases the Supreme Court will hear (or perhaps hear) that are of enormous significance to us. We talk about them all in the October issue. If you are not a subscriber, call us immediately at 202-626-8828.

The biggest news, obviously, is the President's selection of Harriet Miers to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. We talk about that a lot, as you would expect.

There are many people who are angry and confused about the selection. To some Ms. Miers is not the legal "giant" they believe some other nominee might have been. To others there is no clear "paper trail" to indicate how she would come down on controversial issues.

I could say a great deal about first impressions, but let me just say two quick things and then reprint the comments of Dr. Richard Land, a hard-core pro-lifer if ever there was one, who is President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

First, quiet and demur does not mean weak. Miers, by all accounts, is organized, efficient, and (to put it mildly) task-oriented. She is also fiercely dedicated to the President who firmly believes that Miers would not be changed by the culture of the High Court.

Second, just because you don't graduate from an Ivy League law school doesn't mean you are not sharp as a tack. The widely respected legal commentator Stuart Taylor observed this morning that initially he underestimated Miers. "But the more I learn about her, the more I read about her in this mornings paper this morning, and talk to people, the more impressive a person she looks to me."

There are a lot--a LOT--of firsts in her life, including first woman president of the Texas Bar Association and first woman president of the Dallas Bar Association. According to this morning's Washington Post. Miers was so well thought of in American Bar Association circles that it was expected someday she would be ABA president.

The more I think about it, the more it reminds me of how opponents and critics have repeatedly underestimated Mr. Bush, to their great chagrin. And wouldn't be ironic--not to mention foolish--for any pro-lifer to underestimate Mr. Bush's commitment to choosing women and men who are determined to interpret the Constitution according to its actual text and history and not legislate from the bench.

As I say, Dr. Land put it beautifully this morning:

NASHVILLE-- "This President has kept no promise more faithfully than his promise in 2000, and again in 2004, that he would nominate only strict constructionist, original intent jurists to the Supreme Court. In the face of unprecedented obstructionism, led especially by former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle in the last term, this President has held fast to his promises and nominated scores of sterling and extremely competent judges. One of the people helping him to fulfill those campaign promises has been Harriet Miers. She played an instrumental part in helping the President select those judicial nominees, as his staff secretary, deputy chief of staff and White House counsel. She has worked closely with this President for more than a decade. I do not know Harriet Miers. I do know President Bush and his commitment to a federal judiciary that lives within its constitutional assignment and interprets the law and doesn’t write it from the bench. If the President trusts Harriet Miers to fulfill his campaign promises to the American people, then I trust Harriet Miers until I am given compelling evidence to the contrary."

Please send all comments to Dave Andrusko at dandrusko@nrlc.org.