Jakubczyk on Life

24 hours later

The continued discussion on the selection of Harriet Miers on various blogs and in the media has now moved into three strains of thought from conservatives. There is on the one hand those who are urging caution and restraint while the nation and the Senate learn about her. There is another starting to show support, especial after the president held a press conference this morning strongly defending his selection. I do not think that the White House appreciated the open and honest anger toward the president for not selecting a more obviously presentable candidate that conservatives would willingly defend.
Indeed I think that many conservatives were itching for a fight and hoping to put an end to the Democrats' arrogance by stuffing them with a Janice Rogers Brown or Michael Luttig. Then there is a third group who are just waiting for the president to stab them in the back. They are the perennial pessimists and always remind us that we got taken with O'Connor and Souter, not to mention Anthony Kennedy.
So what is the latest. Well, there is very interesting article by Thomas Lifson in The American Thinker that raises some very cogent points in defense of Bush's decision. There is a blog called www.confirmthem.com that contains scores of comments attacking the selection and predicting gloom and doom.
Then there is the quiet work being dome by pro-life activists throughout the country to insure that if she is placed on the bench, she will respect the sanctity of life, the rule of law and the proper role of the court. My sources (not connected with the White House) have informed me that she is pro-life. Her close friend Texas Supreme Court justice Hecht states that she is pro-life. While she was president of the ABA, she tried to remove the pro-abortion position of that lawyer's group. She also purchased an advertisement for a local Texas right to life dinner. She is a member of a conservative evangelical Christian church.

What gives me some solace is that Miers knows what the president wants in a justice on the Supreme Court. She was involved in the selection of the great appeals court judges that now sit on the bench. Unlike Souter who was an unknown to Bush 41, Miers is very much a known to Bush 43. The president knows that the selection of David Souter was the single biggest mistake made by his father.

Like Hugh Hewitt, Doug Kmiec, James Dobson and others, I think the country we will be served by this nominee. Were I the president, I would have chosen someone else. But I am not in the oval office. There are many who are angry at the "trust me" attitude by the Bush insiders. After all it was this attitude that got us O'Connor and Souter. In truth it was the attitude that dismissed the pro life movement when we were getting our feet wet politically. We made so many petty mistakes in those early days and we are still suffering from them.

Nevertheless, when a constituency elects a representative to a legislative post or an executive to administer a governmental post, there is a trust factor involved. We trust them to make the day to day decisions that affect our lives. The beauty of our republican process is that we can still influence those decisions and petition our government to hear us. That dynamic creates checks and balances and is good for the system. We also hold the strings at the ballot box. There is one problem though when the party who holds one's allegiance begins to take it for granted. For that reason alone the pro-life movement must strive to be involved in electing pro-life candidates from both parties and influencing elections in both primaries.

Ultimately the president gets to make the nomination and the Senate gets to approve it. The upcoming hearings will be interesting. I will keep you all posted.

posted by Jakubczyk on Life @ 12:14 PM