BCT Editorial – 10/9/05

This page was last updated on October 10, 2005.

Changing times; Editorial; Beaver County Times; October 9, 2005.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Contrary to what Bush says, we hope nominee Miers is a different person in 20 years

“Harriet E. Miers appears to be a tabula rasa on which people can project their own ideas.

“That’s because President Bush’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has never been a judge, which means she doesn’t have a history of rulings and opinions that supporters and detractors can endlessly parse.

“That’s one reason her nomination has caused as much consternation with some on the right as it has on the left.

“Bush seems to be winking and nodding to his conservative base to trust him on this nomination. Speaking in code, he said that she would never attempt to ‘legislate’ from the bench.”

[RWC] When did expressing opposition to legislation from the bench become “speaking in code” for something else?

“However, something Bush said about the 60-year-old White House general counsel is troubling, and it is as much a reflection on him as it is his nominee.

“‘I’ve known her long enough to know she’s not going to change, that 20 years from now she will be the same person with the same judicial philosophy she has today,’ he said at a press conference last week.

“Actually, we hope Miers is not the same person in 20 years that she is today. That’s because it would mean that she had grown and evolved, that she had not stopped learning or being open to new ideas, that she was constantly reassessing and questioning herself personally and professionally.

“We don’t mean that she should become more liberal, conservative, whatever. Rather, it would show that she had never stopped learning and growing. Show us someone who is the same person he or she was 20 years ago and we’ll show you someone who is intellectually and emotionally stunted.

“If history tells us nothing else, it is that nothing stays the same. For that reason, we hope Supreme Court Justice Harriet Miers is not the same person in 20 years as she is today because she will be dealing with a different world two decades from now.”

[RWC] I might agree with this position if Ms. Miers were 20 or 30 years old. I can’t agree when the person is 60. If you are 60 and did not settle on your core beliefs long ago, that’s a problem. After all, we’re talking about judicial philosophy, not “boxers vs. briefs.” What is truly “right and wrong” today will be “right and wrong” 20 years from now.