Ultimate Stealth
by Chris Bowers, Thu Oct 20, 2005 at 06:43:03 AM EDT
Forget actually having a record of rulings or, like Roberts, claiming that everything you ever wrote in your entire life was the opinion of your client / superiors rather than yourself, Miers has taken the threshold of stealth nominees to an entirely new level. She didn't even answer the questions on the private questionnaire distributed to her by the Senate judiciary committee:
The Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers suffered another setback on Wednesday when the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked her to resubmit parts of her judicial questionnaire, saying various members had found her responses "inadequate,""insufficient" and "insulting."Senators Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee chairman, and Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat, sent Ms. Miers a letter faulting what they called incomplete responses about her legal career, her work in the White House, her potential conflicts on cases involving the administration and the suspension of her license by the District of Columbia Bar.
Their letter also asked her to provide detailed accounts of private reassurances about her views given by the White House or its allies to some conservative supporters who have been anxious about her positions on abortion and other social issues.
This is pretty absurd. It shows, once again, that the White House is far more willing to tell people like Dobson the truth about Miers than they are willing to tell the public. It also raises further questions about Miers competence: she can't even properly complete a questionnaire for the most important job in her life? It also shows the hole that Democrats dug themselves into when they allowed half of their caucus to vote for a stealth nominee like Roberts. In light of that vote, the Miers nomination and her refusal can almost be seen as understandable. After all, if Democrats were not willing to stand up to the White House's refusal to hand over important Solicitor's General documents involving Roberts, not to mention all of the other stealth aspects of his nomination listed above, one could only expect that the Bush administration would respond by releasing even less information about their next nominee.And would it kill Senator Leahy to say he was insulted by this, when a reporter made it easy for him to give such a line? From the press conference on the matter:
Q Senator Leahy, are you insulted personally by her lack of responsiveness?SEN. LEAHY: I have seen an incomplete questionnaire. We've sent out -- I thought -- a very good questionnaire. I was satisfied with the questionnaire that went out. Democrats and Republicans on the committee -- and you know this is a committee that goes across the political spectrum -- were satisfied with it. I don't know of anybody who would tell you in that committee, that they were satisfied with the responses. So I would describe myself as unsatisfied, and I have to be satisfied before I'll vote for anybody, Republican or Democrat.
You are playing far too nice Senator. The White House is giving you the middle finger on nominees, as they make it perfectly clear that they don't think they have to tell you anything about who they want on the court. If you want more responsiveness on Miers and future nominees, then you need to take a harsher stance against stealth than simply saying you are "unsatisfied."








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