Will and Hewitt Differ Significantly

George Will

Wow!! George Will has come out swinging again in a hard hitting op-ed on the selection of Harriet Miers to replace Sandra O'Connor on the court. Read the whole thing. Will makes some very, very compelling points regarding the proper role of the SCOTUS, and what the institution is NOT supposed to be.

"...The crowning absurdity of the president's wallowing in such nonsense is the obvious assumption that the Supreme Court is, like a legislature, an institution of representation..."

Will is really going after the president more than he is Miers in the piece. He also points out the presidents signing into law of the scary McCain-Feingold atrocity.

"...In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech..."

I really want to trust the presidents judgement regarding Miers. I really do. But Will makes a very compelling point here that perhaps the president has abrogated his role as constitutional custodian.

Will also goes on to make the point that the Senate has no obligation to confrim Miers, I think that is probably wishful thinking, she will probably be confirmed.

Hugh Hewitt

Hugh Hewitt is still coming down on the trust-the-president side of the argument, and also adresses the constitutional abomination known as the McCain-Feingold law. Hewitts take is that Miers understands the "deep poison" it is injecting into the American body politic.

"... Then there is McCain-Feingold, and the Supreme Court's deference to the bizarre set of rules and restraints on speech that led to Soros being the most important man in American politics on the left, but restraints on television ads blasting incumbents by name in the closing days of an election. How the Court upheld these and other provisions in the face of near unity among legal scholars left and right is still a mystery, but conservatives rightly point to the president's signature on the bill. (They could just as rightly point to the "guarantees" of certain provisions unconstitutional status, but that's another debate.) Miers wasn't White House Counsel when the president signed this awful bit of law, but she's tainted by it. On the other hand, she has first-hand experience of the deep poison McCain-Feingold is spreading in American politics, an excellent perspective to bring to the court..."

Okay; she wasn't the White House Counsel when the president signed this nonsense into law, what is her position on it? It seems to me the question is: Does she have the spine necessary to stand this and other nonsense like the Kelo v New London decision recently upheld by the court, regardless of stare decisis?

In light of recent foolishness like Kelo, conservatives are rightly concerned that the Supreme Court has veered over the left edge of reason, and have abandoned their core charge; that is, to interpret the constitutionality of legislational issues before the court.

As such, conservatives wish to see the court brought back to it's correct purpose, and have fought long and hard to achieve just such an opportunity as we had, only to be told to trust the president. A hard pill to swallow after Bush the elder saddled the republic with Justice Souter, while Bush the younger has, among other things, failed to utilize his veto power to stop foolishness like McCain-Feingold.

As Will asks rhetorically "...For this we need a conservative president?..."

I hope the president is right, he has staked the future of the republic on this, not to mention his legacy and the future cohesiveness of the republican party. -SpinDaddy

Update 1240hrs 05OCT05: Reginald Brown over at The Volokh Conspiracy has a rebuttal to Wills column.