Bush and the Supreme Court
 

I know this was a long time ago but I was curious what the lawyers on here thought about President Bush's failed appointment of Harriet Meyers to the Supreme Court. I'm obviously not qualified to comment on her qualifications, but to even a non-lawyer like me she did not seem to be remotely qualified compared to say, Roberts or Alito or a lot of other choices he had. What was Bush thinking? Was that mostly an attempt at rewarding a friend, or what? Or was she qualified and why?

It was stunning. One of the biggest brain farts Bush has had while in office.

Bush, I think, once again fell into the trap of thinking that he can do whatever he wants to do as president no matter what anyone else thinks about it.

I think he was looking to put someone on the Court with whom he was very familiar and comfortable. He has known Miers for a very long time and was confident in her abilities, to the point that he was blinded by her lack of obvious qualifications. He also doesn't care nearly as much as the base cares about Roe v. Wade, I think, so her positions on abortion didn't bother him in the least (or she expressed she would be a pro-choice judge and he believed her as a close friend).

He appears to have chosen well, but I have not read many of the new court's decisions.

My Civ Pro professor felt Meyers' nomination was just a strategy, that Bush expected the public to cry cronyism from the start, and she would never get in. It was a ploy so when Bush later nominated Alito, who was the person he wanted all along, people would be relieved that it wasn't another Meyers and Alito would get in without facing the same backlash.

I was fine with Miers in comparison to ALito. She was older and presumably a lesser legal mind and than Alito, who is formidable. He is going to be around forever and so is Roberts.

This idea crossed my mind at the time. I did do a quick refresh of The Prince during that semester.

I don't buy it at all. Read Jan Crawford Greenburg's account of the story. It wouldn't add up to say that Miers was a decoy. Besides, I don't think Bush would let Miers be crucified like that to grease the wheels for Alito (when he could have probably gotten Alito without the Miers nomination anyways).

It's always a source of amusement to me that the opinion that Bush is dumber than rocks and the conjecture that he's smart enough to craft this kind of twisted plot can exist in the same person at the same time.

I'm not entirely sure you read my post before responding. I just said he DIDN'T craft that kind of twisted plot.