1. Miers will have four (I think) good law clerks who will likely be writing the first drafts of anything she signs her name to.

2. If the other justices don't think she's producing good work, she won't be assigned any important cases to write. (The senior justice in the majority says who writes the opinion. When Miers is writing in dissent, her writing won't matter much.)

3. In our current situation, I frankly don't care about Miers' qualifications. I care about how she'll vote. We've had undistinguished justices before. We have some now. If Miers is not a hard-right ideologue, then she should be confirmed. All the alternatives we are likely to get are hard-right ideologues. The country can handle an undistinguished moderate conservative far more than a right-wing extremist. Wake up folks. Who gives a shit if she can write nicely?

tom: I'm willing to bet that that's exactly the logic Harry Reid was following when he endorsed her.

Either that or, "Sure, I'll endorse anything that makes you look like an idiot."

Why would her gross incompetence be a BAD thing?

If Bush was loyal to his supporters, we'd be looking at Scalia Jr. Thats why the religious right got out the vote to elect Bush. Instead, we have a gross incompetent who (may or may not be) a stealth moderate.

We know she's a natural born toady. We also know she has almost no loyalty unless she needs to be loyal (Until she hitched herself to Bush, she was a democrat). And we know she's completely incompetent for the job.

But fortunatly, the supreme court is 9 people, not one. Which would you rather have as the 9th?

An incompetent toady who will probably have no impact, who will be flailing about, who will really have nobody to be loyal TO, or a bright, intelligent conservative slighty-to-the-right of atilla the hun.

"Don't do that!" sounds legal to me.

her work product appears to consist of the same sort of bafflegab that passes for modern corporate communication memospeak.....strings of adjectives and 3-syllable words that say absolutely nothing, but are so long-winded and opaque that uncareful listeners are impressed.

I was struck by how much she sounds like Karen Hughes, only with slightly bigger words. she is as on message as the rest of them.

Funny. David Brooks has found a mind even more bland than his own. And he is appalled.

Elision of "debatable points" is pretty much a standard characteristic of the meritocratic/bureaucratic class in the USA.

These people don't want to engage in any discussion of ideas, lest someone disagree with them and somehow hurt their career. They got where they are by playing it safe and repeating bromides.

She writes like my lesser-skilled MBA students write; big words strung together but not a clear thought among them. I'd like a justice to be able to write. It's a basic requirement of the job.

The criticism of the writing is one thing. I consider it even more dangerous since I believe it relects thinking that is shallow and without any point.

I see lousy thinking (a non-legal term) so I have no hope that over time she will grow in the job. She will be there for one side or the other to win her loyalty, since loyalty is the driving "intellectual foundation" of her work.

Her writing is no worse than Clarence Thomas. If you get your inspiration from divine revelation, who needs to be a scholar?

I agree with the above comment, after Thomas the bar is so low that any citizen with a pulse is an eligible candidate.

Still, I think Mier's is being installed to protect Bush from criminal prosecution after he leaves office and in that incarnation she is more than up to the job.

Maybe a soccer mom type is the right choice for the next slot on the Supreme Court, but...

Agree with your main point. Miers' writing is the worst "Corporatese," and corporations aligned with BushCo government is what she will really support on the SC.

However, I believe you unfairly denigrate "soccer moms" by comparing Harriet Miers to one in your last line.

Just sayin'.

jawbone -- no denigration of soccer moms intended. your point is very good one -- and i offer my comment only in the sense that politically, the bush white house thinks that they are appealing to soccer moms (in part) in this appointment. best, steve

Framework, mission, goals, strategies, programs, methods, evaluation - this looks like it came out of a résumé/business plan generator. As a joke.

Professional newsletters, esp. below the level of national organizations, are filled with crap. It's a constant struggle to meet deadlines and the publications tend to be, at best, pr vehicles for the organization & its membership. Much of the time, things are written at the last minute or (in the case of thought pieces) constitute a shorter version of something that reputable journals have rejected.

Getting a work sample is a resonable question, but this is not a reasonable example of what to use.

Sounds like the level of stuff Bush would write, if one took away his speechwriters and locked him in a room with pen and paper.

(Though I wouldn't expect the Kumbaya sentiments.)

She's gotta be capable of better than that. But at the same time -- having been involved with plenty of corporate publications, even at state and local levels -- most really sharp and incisive writers won't let that kind of stuff go out under their name, even under the pressure of organizational politics and deadlines.

(Which isn't to say that such publications aren't filled with garbage... just that the authors don't realize how mediocre they are.)

Nor would most mature, intelligent writers pen the gushing Christmas cards we've seen.

Of course, if this nomination goes down, don't kid yourself: expect Bork II. The next nominee will not evince even an iota of concern about "justice for all": you can be sure any such nominees will be carefully weeded out in advance.

"...the bush white house thinks that they are appealing to soccer moms..."

I thought they were appealing to NASCAR dads, but perhaps I am mixed up.

Miers' loyalty may be up for grabs after the rough treatment she receives from fellow conservatives. Maybe we oughtta treat her relatively nice and start her possible drift Left. Would she be loyal to conservatives who are not loyal to her, as in treat her badly? Let's send her a box of chocolates and some flowers as Harry Reid is probably doing.

"Getting a work sample is a resonable question, but this is not a reasonable example of what to use."

That, of course, begs the question of what writing samples the Bush Admin does have, and why they chose to release the ones they did.

I don't altogether agree that the writings revealed are business boilerplate and therefore aren't fair illustrations of Miers' reasoning.

I've read a lot of corporate boilerplate, and while most of it is indeed multisyllabic mush, someone who actually has a good mind and a decent education can convey something other than mush even with corporate boilerplate. It's like the difference between fingerpainting by a kindergartner and fingerpainting by the Lasceaux caves artists.

I also don't agree that we should "settle" for Miers because she's the least ideologically objectionable candidate Bush is likely to offer. Particularly now that Bush and the GOP leadership are at low ebb, this is a good time to push back. Hell, I wanted Reid & Co. to call the GOP's "Nuclear Option" bluff way back when. I'm definitely in favor of it now that the American public in general has soured on the GOP.

Bloody about time the Democrats showed they're capable of mounting a fight.

While criticism of Miers' education based solely on her attending SMU is certainly invalid it should also be noted that she apparently didn't stand out academically there. While I haven't seen anything about what her GPA might have been I found one posting from a conservative upset with the nomination that noted that she hadn't achieved any real academic honors. She isn't worth a filibuster but she darn well is worth a solid block of principled votes against her because she just isn't qualified. Everyone who writes that it wouldn't be bad for the Democrats to vote for her fail to recognize the positives that would arise from simply taking a principled stand by voting against someone who just isn't qualified enough to sit on the nation's highest court. They should do it nicely, say how much they regret it because she's a good person but in the end say that they must vote against her and should she fail confirmation that they hope President Bush will nominate someone more qualified the next time.

I had a wait-and-see attitude on Miers. Until now. If her writing is muddled -- so goes her thinking.

I found the Brooks column remarkable and posted on it a t tpmcafe this morning. I think Brooks is right to critique Miers, and after the right thoroughly works itself over about her, if she is still standing, the left should notice this important problem.

Were you also taken by Brooks' careful delineation between conservatives and establishment republicans?

Amy Goodman interviewed Yosri Fouda yesterday on DemocracyNOW!. It's a great interview:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/13/1359246

One exchange:

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ayoub, the killing of your journalist in Iraq, the bombing of al Jazeera twice in Afghanistan, the arrest of your journalists going to cover the Bush-Putin summit at Crawford, do you think that al Jazeera is targeted by the U.S. government and military?

YOUSRI FOUDA: Well, I hope not, at least. When it happened first in Afghanistan, we were told that, you know, “Sorry, that was accidental.” And during the buildup to what happened in Iraq later, my boss at the time wrote to the Pentagon and said, “Well, please do not bomb us accidentally again, should something happen in Baghdad.” And we got no response.
It's -- I don't -- you know, in the absence of information, it would be very -- not very proper on my part to accuse somebody, but when it happens twice, three times, when certain people within certain departments in this country do not really believe in freedom of information and what journalism is all about, when they take cue from and interpret in their way something like what President Bush said in the wake of 9/11, that you are either with us or against us, this is horrifying. I mean, hello, I'm a journalist. Can I stay in the middle? This is what my job is all about. And I think they were probably encouraged by this. They had their own interpretation. But I cannot really point fingers to certain people unless I have all the facts.

Please don't insult soccer moms by comparing Harriet Miers to them; many are well-educated, enlightened, articulate, and politically active! That was sexist, Steve.

Defeating Miers on the basis of creds and general qualifications won't gain much for the left. The best alternative we can hope for is an impressive hard right-winger. I care more about the Court's actual decisions than I do about the intellectual formidability of an individual justice.

If you are a liberal and you prefer a smart hard right-winger to a mediocre moderate, then you are a self-destructive intellectualist. I take little comfort from knowing that a wrong-headed decision that hurts people was, nonetheless, nicely reasoned and well written.

And it strikes me as quaintly naive to suppose that Supreme Court Justices generally are -- or even need to be -- intellectual paragons. Most of their work doesn't require anything like brilliance. Most of the work requires nothing more than a mediocre talent, and the Court has had an abundance of mediocre talent. Uncommon talent is necessary mainly when the Court strikes out in a direction that is new. And frankly, I don't want a smart, aggressive right-winger itching to instantiate some systematically thought out Federalist Society theory of the constitution.

Get over the creds and quals fetish. Think a little more about the actual decisions and the impact they have on actual people. Think about the little Jewish boy in Texas who is in a classroom with a teacher promoting Christian prayer, the little boy who is taunted and harassed because he is an enemy of God. When the Federalist Society Court gives the green light to public school promotion of religion and that makes life miserable for religious minorities in various localities, you can console the kid by explaining that the Court's opinion was really well written. Lots of active verbs and precise noun phrases.

In any case, I suspect that Miers' opinions - resolving specific questions in specific cases - will be clear enough. The questions will, I suspect, be answered about as clearly as they usually are (which is not such a high bar). If Miers doesn't write compelling op-eds for a bar journal -- well, that's why we have brilliant minds like David Brooks.

Just a little correction for Tom's first post.

The Chief Justice, no matter which side they are on, picks who writes for their side. The senior justice picks the writer for the other side. Id est, Chief status trumps seniority.

Not much to say after Clarence (as the white men who promoted him referred to him over and over, never Justice Thomas, very telling) the bar is low. And, LOL, Clarence seems to notice and does not say much himself...

My guess, Harriet slides in. And again, for a variety of reasons, the right holds the "conversation" and Democrats nod, softly demurr, suggest approvingly (Reid) and then vote (too damned many of them) with Bush or with/for Harriet, or with/for Clarence or for CAFTA or for the Bankruptcy...

It's an old refrain.

I still think Miers, BECAUSE she is an incompetent toady, is probably the best pick. Just imagine how much more damage an intelligent, articulate, well written Scalia clone could do.

Of all the words I've read penned by Brooks himself, I would have to say the man knows a "relentless march of vapid abstractions" when he sees them.

I'm not kidding. Go read his love letters to life in suburbia sometime. "Vapid abstraction" would be an improvement!

Susan, he's not appealing to this NASCAR dad. I hope the whole group of them ends up in jail. Oh, wait, that's why he wants Miers...

Miers will vote with Scalia 99% of the time as does Thomas. To prove her loyalty to Bush, conservatism, and evangelicals, all Miers needs to do is follow Scalia's lead, which she well knows and understands fully. Bush said he would appoint a Scalia type, and he did in that Miers will vote with Scalia, and she doesn't need any constitutional legal smarts for that, all she needs is loyalty, which is her strongest attribute. Would Miers ever make her hero Bush out to be a liar by not being the Scalia type as Bush promised his faithful he would appoint?

I'm so concerned about Mier's attorney/client relationship with Bush, personally and officially, that I can't even get into her 'qualifications". They don't matter because her continuing duty to her client, George Bush and, as WH Counsel, to the office of the president and the executive branch, gives her an ethical conflict of interest, that could impoede Congress' ability to perform its oversight duties and could destroy the balance of power between the three branches of government.

I called every member of the Judiciary Committee to ask if there is legal precedence for a sitting president appointing their own lawyer to SC or a current WH Counsel.

The Dem committee staff actually researched my question and called me back. It seems Andrew Jackson appointed Roger Taney, who did serve on the SC and later Lyndon Johnson nominated Abe Fortas, who did not serve.

So, only once in all our history did a sitting president appoint his own lawyer. On a current WH Counsel, they found none, but it was not an exhautive search. Still, if it was commonplace, it would have appeared. certainly there is no precedence for a nomineee being both personal and WH Counsel.

If Bush is going to pat himself on the back for a being a "strict constructionist" he should value Alexander Hamilton's opinion on the importance of the separation of powers and the role of Congressional oversight. Bush likes to think that because he is president he can do whatever he GD wants, to quote him, but that is wrong. The final word goes to Congress for advice and consent or NOT. I think it would be a very dangerous precedence to set to permit a president to appoint his own attorney or a WH Counsel.

Miers cannot write sentences, but Brooks' punctuation undermines his argument.

In the first paragraph, 90's should be 90s, to distinguish it from the possessive and to save newsprint. And the final sentence of that paragraph has an errant comma - it should come after the 'and', not before.

If Miers' writing disqualifies her from the Court, oughtn't Brooks' from the NYT?

Oh Picky~Thanks for making my day!

This is OT but interesting to think about:

Plame in the Courtroom

Is the Intelligence Identities Protection Act really impossible to prove?
By Elizabeth de la Vega

"Pundits right, left, and center have reached a rare unanimous verdict about one aspect of the grand jury investigation into the Valerie Plame leak: They've decided that no charges can be brought under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, because it imposes an impossibly high standard for proof of intent. Typically, writing for Slate on July 19th, Christopher Hitchens described the 1982 Act as a "silly law" that requires that "you knowingly wish to expose the cover of a CIA officer who you understand may be harmed as a result." Similarly, columnist Richard Cohen, in the July 14 Washington Post, said he thought Rove was a "political opportunist, not a traitor" and that he didn't think Rove "specifically intended to blow the cover of a CIA agent." Such examples could be multiplied many times over.

Shocking as it may seem, however, the pundits are wrong; and their casual summaries of the requirements of the 1982 statute betray a fundamental misunderstanding regarding proof of criminal intent..."

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=11747

Breaking news: this just in, sources reveal that some of the New Orleans refugees that were sent to Camp Williams, Utah directly after Hurricane Katrina were being kept in cages at Camp Williams. Some investigating is in the works. Details at 11.

Let me get this straight. David Brooks is castigating Harriet Miers for writing thuddingly leaden sentences? Woe - Mr Pot meet Ms Kettle.

At least widely published exposition is not her professed occupation. And god knows organizatonal writing has never even had the conceit of being anything but what it is - leaden.

Ostentation's aside over nominee Miers' written word, if she is confirmed, it will be her interpretation of the word torture which will come to the forefront. This should come as no surprise, even the President's own Attorney General Gonzales is perplexed over it.

Another word which will likely come her way is abortion. With over a million abortions carried out yearly in the U.S., the impact will be huge. Further, what will be the consequences if abortion is deemed illegal? The well to do will simply travel to get abortions whereas the poor will be unable to do the same. And if abortions are indeed ruled illegal is that not imposing a guilt trip on the millions of veterans of this procedure? Case law ruling abortions legal in Canada was arrived at when no juries would find Doctor Henry Morgentaler guilty, despite several attempts by prosecutors - thus rendering women's lives much safer. (www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/06/16/morgentaler050616.html)

Then there are some fifty thousand American children - mostly blacks - who are adopted out of country every year. I would expect more adoptions if abortion is the rule of law.

Illegal is another word which is sure to surface at the supreme court, as it applies in this Iraq war: Point of fact: a growing number of legal scholars are opined this war is in fact an illegal war for which the President and his gang of hoods - presumptions aside - should be impeached.

Reparations is also another word which may well crop up in Supreme Courts in Washington and/or at the Hague - reparations to Iraq for the illegal war by President Bush.

Overturning Roe V Wade would hand the ball back to the states. Abortion would be illegal in a number of states, but legal in others. However, with the rise of abortion pills, the most likely option for poor in illegal states will be black market abortion pills. These pills would be cheaper than legal abortion and there would be no control over sale to minors. Making abortions illegal might actually increase the numbers of abortions. The illegal abortions will be less safe and illegal states will be hit with medical bills of poor women injured by unsupervised use.

The anti-abortion people naively believe that making abortion illegal will eliminate abortion. They are wrong and all the statistics point to how wrong they are. Making abortion illegal has little impact on abortion rates. Making birth control widely available with high adoption rates does reduce abortions significantly. Pro-birth control is anti-abortion.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.html

According to Time Magazine the re-set button has been pushed:

http://tinyurl.com/9myzc

"Get ready for a whole new Harriet. After a disastrous two weeks, White House officials say they hope to relaunch the nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court by moving from what they call a "biographical phase" to an "accomplishment phase." In other words, stop debating her religion and personality and start focusing on her resume as a pioneering female lawyer of the Southwest. "We got a little wrapped around the axle," an exhausted White House official said. "As the focus becomes less on who she's not and more on who she is, that's a better place to be."

So, as the White House counsel begins her formal prep sessions this week for a confirmation hearing that's likely to start in early November, President Bush will hold a photo op with former chief justices of the Texas Supreme Court who will testify to Miers' qualifications and legal mind. The White House's 20-person "confirmation team" will line up news conferences, opinion pieces and letters to the editor by professors and former colleagues who can talk about Miers' experience dealing with such real-world issues as the Voting Rights Act when she was a Dallas city council member and Native American tribal sovereignty when she was chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission..."

It is very reminiscent of the meaningless corpo-babble that has infected corporate life in recent years.

''More and more, the intractable problems in our society have one answer: broad-based intolerance of unacceptable conditions and a commitment by many to fix problems.''

This could also read: Society's problems have one (1) answer: (1.)intolerance of unacceptable conditions and (2.) many committed to fix said problems.

"Miers" is no Christian Fundamentalist. Clearly she is a Jewess under cover, like Madeleine Albright. A fervent neo-con, no doubt, and sharp as a tack. And Roberts is a closet homosexuual, a tool of the neocons. Wake up.

You misspelled Harriet's name in paragraph three, senetence one.

crucial:

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/pol/103307581.html

Earl Warren could not write a good opinion. That's what Brennan did, remember?

please. Why not another mediocre justice? look at Clarence Thomas. The man is no intellectual heavyweight. The idea that the Supreme Court has the best legal minds in the country is really just so much tripe.One can wish for that situation but that will never be the case. The election in 2000 was stolen and perhaps in 2004 as well. Democrats did not get to name this vacancy and I would rather have this woman than another Thomas or the supposedly brilliant Scalia. Just how brilliant is it to insist that lawyers view everything from the 18th century.?

Those quotes by Miers are some of the worst I've ever seen for convoluted, meaningless verbiage. My 9-year-old daughter writes more pointed prose than what Brooks presents above. This nominee has gone from being a big mistake to an unmitigated catastrophe. Bush should be ashamed for the lack of vetting that obviously occurred here. I hope that these examples of her written thought along with those from the Christmas cards that are now in the public domain, finally sink this nomination by whatever means. Bush can then do what all the imbecilic, anti-religious bigotted bloggers from this socialist listserv fear the most...give the people what they want and need...Antonin Scalia Jr. in male or female form. Luttig, Jones, Brown, McConnell, Owen, Batchelder, Pryor...it doesn't matter.

We sexist, chauvenist right-wing whackos frankly don't care. In fact, I'd rather have Janice Rogers Brown more than anyone else, including Luttig, so that we can watch the heathen swine like Kennedy, Biden and Leahy actually shoot themselves in the foot, groin and head repeatedly, as they pitch their lies, bile and demagoguery at a living embodiment of the American Dream...a black, sharecropper's daughter who is being nominated to sit on the highest court in the land, the most elite group of lawyers, bar none, in the world. There's American racism and the glass ceiling for you. With the moronic dems self-destructing, 2006 will be a landslide...and I'll be smoking a nice fat non-Cuban cigar toasting in the new year of 2007 with my good ole' pals Rush, Sean, "the Great One" and Billy Kristol. It's getting closer to reality each day.

KMarx,

You've got to be kidding me. Bush..vindictive?! That's a joke. Here's a guy that's been called a liar, a hitler, a dunce, an evil Christian, and on and on. He's even been personally maligned by ex-prez Bubba, white-trash Clinton and what does he do? he names the former philanderer in chief to yet another team with his Dad to raise money and get more undeserved positive press. There's vindictiveness for you. When O'Neil dissed him in a book, he said nothing. When Richard Clarke lied in a book and contradicted his own testimony Bush said nothing. When Dan Ratherbiased tried to steal an election by putting out forged documents to make Bush appear like a draft-dodger, and then got caught, Bush said and did nothing.

Remember, Clinton had a fellow white-trash bouncer from Little Rock, Craig Livingstone go and steal 200 FBI files on GOP leaders, if you want a real example from historical fact on what vindictiveness looks like. Read the account of travelgate and the firing of all those people if you want to know what vindictiveness is. Read about Kathleen Willey if you want to know....

When Sandy Burglar tried to destroy evidence of the criminal negligence of the Clinton policy against terrorists, Bush did nothing. You're as clueless on recent history as 99% of all your Marxist ilk. Utterly Clueless. Yes, a brainwashed socialist mind is a terrible thing to waste....not!

Miers' successor nominee wouldn't possibly be a liberal, because Bush is NOT vindictive and because his mistake was just that, a rushed mistake. I'm sure he's been swayed by all the columns coming out of the thinking leaders in American political punditry and he'll redeem himself if required and if given the opportunity to save face. Nice leftist fantasy, but its dead in the cradle, to use a Democreep inspired metaphor.

As a Conservative Republican who regards Bush as an unholy combination of the worst features of Nelson Rockefeller and Woodrow Wilson, I'm hardly prone to leftist fantasies :-)

Bush is vindictive, but like most vindictive people, more to nonwholehearted supporters than to opponents. You watch!

Clift (13 Oct): Are you trying to infer something with your deft (drift Left) reference to a box of chocolates? Please forswear any mockery of my Momma.

Oh Pickey, Oh ruffian:
"90's" in place of "90s" is very acceptable in "English" usage. The comma before "and" is correct; though, I agree, there should be one following.
Brooks's argument undermines his rationale, no matter his punctuation.
Let's just say, "We fired that typesetter once we became aware of her error."