Obsequious Instrument of His Pleasure

"In Federalist No. 76, Alexander Hamilton warned that, in presenting nominations to the Senate, a president "would be both ashamed and afraid" to nominate cronies--or, as Hamilton called them, "obsequious instruments of his pleasure.""
-- The New Republic

I hope you have enjoyed this series -- consisting largely of excerpts from a single article in TNR. Perhaps "enjoy" is not the correct word in this context. If you "enjoy" the dark pleasure of seeing hacks and hypocrites unmasked and skewered, then I hope I have served you well.

Unfortunately, Bush has proved Hamilton wrong -- optimistic to a fault -- for this President has neither been "ashamed or afraid" to nominate cronies to the detriment of the nation. Indeed, his sole criterion for appointment is loyalty to the person of the President.

In the nominations of Roberts and Miers, there are few apparent parrallels, aside from the common thread of fealty to the President himself and to the power of the Executive. In this, Bush has gone further than the harm done by undermining FEMA with political hacks -- because in undermining the Supreme Court he has deliberately and cynically tampered with the checks and balances of our Constitutional system.

With thanks to The New Republic for an excellent article, excerpt below:

1: Harriet Miers
White House Counsel, Nominee for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

Miers's croniness quotient is high. After all, the president has given her five jobs over the past eleven years. And senior White House aides have repeatedly remarked about her devotion to Bush. [..] Miers's lifetime appointment to the highest position Bush is authorized to fill is like winning the hack lotto.

What, then, about Miers's qualifications? This is where she left the competition in the dust. Take, for example, her two-year stint on the Dallas City Council. Although she may not have been guided by any awe-inspiring understanding of constitutional law, she is credited with calming down a crowd of protesters after a county commissioner punched a police officer.

In announcing his choice, Bush pointed to her storied career as chairman of the Texas Lottery Commission. Although the Commission has historically not produced many Supreme Court justices, Bush has reason to be pleased with her lottery service. Miers may not have dealt with issues like civil rights or the death penalty, but she dealt with bingo. As chairman, she opined that she wanted all bingo-related games "to look and feel and smell like the game of bingo," which seems like a reasonable position.

Miers's solid job at the Lottery Commission and her other work for Bush catapulted her into the upper ranks of the White House. After three years as staff secretary, she beat out Brett M. Kavanaugh, a bright conservative lawyer with a John Roberts-like resumé, for the job of White House counsel. It was this job that positioned her to lead Bush's search for a court nominee.

This is quite a resumé, even before getting to some of Miers's legal writings. A search of the Nexis news database returns three articles by Miers. One is an opinion piece urging legislative calm in the wake of a string of deadly shootings. The second reveals Miers, who ran the corporate law firm of Locke Liddell & Sapp, to be an expert on a legal issue of great importance to the American people: managing the merger of two firms. The final article is a 1996 ABA Journal piece advertising the American Bar Association's new telephone seminars. "If you have heard any of the buzzwords of product promotions lately," she writes cheerfully, "we hope you will spot 'ABA Connection.'"

In hindsight, Harriet Miers was always the obvious choice for the Supreme Court. She is the logical conclusion of the unchecked Bush administration hackocracy.

Bush's case for Miers actually rests on her being a crony. "Because of our closeness," he said Tuesday, "I know the character of the person."

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