|
|
|
Jewish World Review Oct. 10, 2005 / 7 Tishrei, 5766 Merit matters; then it does not By Ruben Navarrette Jr.
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
‘I think it ought to be based on merit.’
—President Bush
Aug. 6, 2004
President Bush almost had me convinced. For a while, it looked like the nation's first MBA president put a high premium on merit.
Of course, that was before last week and Bush's underwhelming choice of his underqualified friend from Texas, Harriet Miers, to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Now I feel like I've been punked.
You see, I heard Bush defend, before a group of minority journalists, his administration's decision to challenge an affirmative action plan at the University of Michigan because, he said, the plan was a quota system that discriminated against white students.
When the subject of legacy admissions came up, Bush praised the idea of merit selection. He told the journalists that he opposed the idea that anyone could get into college based on who their parents were.
But, of course, no one thought to ask Bush the real question — how he felt about the idea that individuals could get onto the United States Supreme Court because of who their friends were.
Now we know the answer. We see evidence of a mutant strain of affirmative action — for FOBs, or Friends of Bush.
So much for merit.
For the last 20 years, I've heard conservatives whine about how all the best opportunities go to minorities and how more qualified candidates are aced out by an insidious system of racial preferences that lowers the bar in pursuit of diversity.
Now, given Bush's choice of Miers, I'm not sure the bar can get much lower.
And it's not because she's a woman. The president was right to try to make that a priority in his selection. Yet, there are any number of other more qualified women that Bush could have chosen for this position, including one or two federal appellate judges whose only liabilities seem to have been that they didn't hit it off with the president in interviews.
As it is, I'm wondering what happened to all the lofty rhetoric about how merit should carry the day and win out over all other considerations. And I'm stunned at how quickly Bush's supporters — after playing up Chief Justice John Roberts' indisputably Grade-A resumé — can now turn on a dime and start praising a candidate who has never even been a judge before. Not in federal court, state court, municipal court or even traffic court.
I had assumed some sort of judicial experience might be good preparation for taking a seat on the Supreme Court. The administration knows the fact that Miers has never been a judge is the single most damning thing about her nomination. The concern that she's not sufficiently conservative is getting all the attention at the moment, but it's the fact that she's never worn a black robe that is really her Achilles' heel. That's why the White House spent the first hours after the announcement spinning the line that this isn't the first time a novice had been appointed to the Supreme Court.
True. But you have to go back 33 years to the last time it happened with a young nominee named William Rehnquist. A whole generation — mine — has grown accustomed to the thought that only judges should be considered for the Supreme Court. Besides, Rehnquist was assistant U.S. attorney general at the time, arguably a more powerful and prestigious post than White House counsel.
Experience counts. John Roberts sat on the federal appeals court for just two years before his nomination, and that was something that led some of his critics to argue that he needed more seasoning before ascending to the high court. Two years isn't much. Still, next to Miers, Roberts looks like Oliver Wendell Holmes.
And remember Miguel Estrada? He is the powerhouse Washington lawyer with the Ivy League degrees, the clerkship with the Supreme Court, the experience in the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Office of the U.S. Solicitor General whose nomination to a federal appellate judgeship was killed by Senate Democrats. One line that Democrats offered up for public consumption was that Estrada was unacceptable because, despite the fact that he seemed to be one heck of a lawyer, he had never been a judge.
Now if any Democrats turn around and support Miers, what will that say about them — and the real reason they opposed Estrada? And for Republicans who support Miers, what does that say about their commitment to merit?
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
To comment, please click here.
|
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
