Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Justice Harriet

Rich Galen

Wednesday October 5, 2005

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Let me make sure I understand this: Three weeks ago, we were beyond angry with Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy because they were applying an ideological test - an IDEOLOGICAL TEST - to then-Judge John Roberts.

How low. How narrow. How mean. Didn't Republicans vote for Ruth Bader Ginsberg even though she was as Liberal as � Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy?

How horrible of the 22 Democrats - including such Backbones o' Steel as Evan Bayh and John Kerry - to have voted against Judge Roberts on ideological grounds, bowing to the wishes of the president of the National Organization for Women.

[Sound of Whip Cracking]

So, now the President has nominated Harriet Miers as an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court and who is doing the majority of the complaining? The ideological right which, since Monday morning has been wailing, "HOW DO WE KNOW SHE'S CONSERVATIVE ENOUGH?"

Whoa! Check please.

Isn't that just the mirror image of the Schumer/Kennedy view of the Supreme Court?

Harriet Miers is a lawyer. Even that is not required to be a member of the Supreme Court, but it seems to have been the custom.

She has not been a judge and she is not a Constitutional scholar. This upsets the intelligentsia - but doesn't upset me.

As far as I'm concerned her highest and best credential is that she was a member of the Dallas, Texas City Council.

As a former member of the Marietta, Ohio (45750) City Council I am thrilled that one of our own has been nominated to the Supreme Court.

As some of you know, the Lad, the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices, and I lived in Dallas for most of the 1990s. I was around the Dallas City Council now and again and I can report to you that the Dallas City Council makes the US House of Representatives look like the Ladies' Sewing Circle of Upper Cornfield, Kansas by comparison.

Dallas City Hall is located on a street named Marilla. The building was designed by famed architect I. M. Pei and actually looks like it was built upside down.

Anyway, some years ago two members of the City Council got into an actual fistfight in City Hall. The Dallas Morning News headlined the story: "The Thrilla on Marilla."

True.

If Harriet Miers survived her term as a member of that snake pit, she'll do just fine holding her own on the Supreme Court.

Based upon the first 48 hours, it appears we, like Alice, have walked through the looking glass. Left is right. Right is wrong:

"Let's pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it's turning into a sort of mist now, I declare!" � And certainly the glass WAS beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist.

It has been amusing to listen, over lunch and dinner, to the Washington cognoscenti admitting they know nothing about Ms. Miers.

Here's someone who knows about her: The President of the United States.

Does anyone truly believe that George W. Bush - who has one of the great BS detectors in history - would have had someone like Harriet Miers around him for the past 10 years if she were a Liberal - closet or otherwise?

Does anyone truly believe that Ms. Miers has been plotting this since she became, at the request of Governor Bush, the chairman of the Texas Lottery Commission?

"Billy Bob, this here's the plot: Ah'm gonna go ta Austin to head up this here lottery thang. Then ole George Dubalya's gonna run for President of the EWE-United States and win. Then ahm gonna go up to Warshington and work in the What House and then ahm a-gonna git me appointed to the Ewe-Ess SOO-Preem Court!"

Yeah. That works for me.

Here's what's going to happen: Those on the Left who have been embracing Harriet Miers will begin to back away. Those on the Right who have been concerned about her will begin to warm up to her.

In the end Harriet Miers, sometime in late November or early December will become an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court with about 72 votes.

To my Jewish friends, Happy New Year. Happy 5766.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to a very good summary of myths and truths about Harriet Miers from Business Week; another breathtaking Mullfoto, this time from California, a photo of Dallas City Hall, and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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