The blank canvass is filling up. The picture is unpleasant. Harriet Miers, who no one ever accused of possessing the legal intellect of a Clarence Thomas or an Antonin Scalia, clearly won't even be a reliable vote with the Constitutionalist bloc of the bench either. George Bush promised his constituents Supreme Court nominees in the mold of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Instead, he offered up Harriet Miers, a political camp follower of his who, in a moment of either insanity or sycophancy, declared the current president "the most brilliant man I ever met." There are many reasons any American should oppose the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Here are a few relevant to conservatives:

5. Miers's law firm donated money to elect Hillary Clinton senator. Miers herself donated money to Al Gore and Lloyd Bentsen during the 1980s. President Bush assured the Bushites who'd gone wobbly that "twenty years from now she'll be the same person, with the same philosophy." Is this because today's Harriet Miers is the same person, with the same philosophy, as the Harriet Miers of twenty years ago?

4. Miers joined something called the Progressive Voters League, but testified in 1989 that she would not join the conservative Federalist Society because it was "politically charged"--a designation she declined to apply to the NAACP. Can you picture Antonin Scalia joining any organization with the word "progressive" in its title? WWASD?

3. Miers successfully lobbied SMU to launch a feminist speakers program in the late 1990s, and then procured and made to donations to fund the women's studies department-administered endeavor. Speakers for the annual lecture include Gloria Steinem, Anna Quindlen, and Patsy Schroeder. Can you imagine Clarence Thomas, even under the effects of large doses of mescaline, ever helping to start and bankroll campus lectures featuring Susan Faludi?

2. During the 1980s, Miers supported divestment from South Africa, welfare spending, and a massive pay raise for city council members while sitting on that body in Dallas.

1. As David Frum points out, Miers seems to have a fetish for the word "diversity." Why not? It's gotten her this far. On the Dallas city council, she voted to revise height and weight requirements to help women applicants to the fire department. In the Bush White House, she helped persuade the administration to back racial preferences in the Grutter v. Bollinger case before the Supreme Court. All of this is no surprise considering that Miers headed a committee assigned to pick the next justice of the Supreme Court, and picked--who else--a hack lawyer with no judicial experience from Texas who fulfilled a political quota.

At least conservatives supporting past Supreme Court duds could claim ignorance.

Dan, in articles on intellectual morons, you've described Noam Chomsky as Michael Moore with his brain on steroids. The former is more of an intellectual and the latter is more of a Mooreon. Dan, I've never seen you as a moron. I've always thought of you as an intellectual. I'd like to consider myself as one of your most loyal fans). This said, what's happened to your brain? It's like your you've introduced a dose of deca dianabol to your mind. Your last several posts have been unbelievably outstanding. The quality if writing put forth is truly awe-inspriing. You've made "wow" the most apt word in my vocabulary.

Dan,Dan your'e the man if you can't do it no one can!

Perhaps Bush, as his father did, is just preserving the activist tilt of the Supreme Court to keep the issue alive for Repubs to flog in every election. The same seems true of abortion, a not unrelated issue. How else do you explain all those repub presidents and all those judges that consider themselves above the Constitution? As long as these issues remain alive the party remains strong.

It is a crazy world.

Thanks for this additional information...

Unfortunately, there are some bloggers and commentators who seem beyond being able to put away the Kool-Aid... but I think that at this point, even many of the loyal Bush Republicans in the conservative movement have realized - due to revelations like this - that we've had enough. This blog is always principled, but it is refreshing to see that some of those who aren't have become more so by now. I wish that the remaining folks would follow through.

cc: Patrick Ruffini

She is in her early sixties right? So what she said and did in the 80's is a fair indicator of her views since she would have been in her late 30's and 40's then.

I see on Drudge how he found comments by her praising the Federalist Society in more recent years as much of her staff at the WH consists in members (no surprise there actually). This just further indicates that she is a political lackey, looking to get along in order to get ahead, that is, she is unprincipled.

I expect all 45 Democrats to vote against her out of the fear that she's opposed to abortion (based, say, on Dobson's comments and support). If six Republicans joined them, that would be enough to defeat her.

As I expect her to get destroyed in the committee hearings, that shouldn't be hard to accomplish.

Here's a great one-liner that Gerard Baker uses to close his latest piece over at the Weekly Standard's website:

"The trouble with Harriet is that she has given us a depressing glimpse into the vast open space that now appears to be the Bush political mind."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/210dxtbz.asp

As PZ points out, there is an anti-intellectualism meme in the US right now: http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/idiot_america/

Miers may be a perfect example. Unprincipled and generally incompetent, she shifts position as needed to survive which ever idiocy is currently popular. Thus Bush gets labelled a genius by someone with the possible mental capacity of a rock, while the rest of the country sinks past mediocracy and into drooling. I can see a time when much of the country thinks like the aliens on one Star Trek episodes, which equated the ability to push people around as being 'smart', even when they had to kidnap someone from the Enterprise to even get their weapons working right 'so' they could push people around...

"We smart, since we strong. Not strong, we not smart." No, your just plain stupid and some of us don't want you draggin the rest of us down with you...

Yes, Kahegi, among some red-state types there is an anti-intellectual meme. And among Left-leaners, there is also a pretend-to-be-intellectual meme (think Kerry and Gore, and your own claim that Miers has the mental capacity of a rock), a pretend-to-be-scientific meme (think stoner environmentalists' babbling, leftist anti-religious rhetoric, your allusion to memes, and your completely unnecessary use of Star Trek), and also a meme-meme. Man, am I sick of the meme-meme.

Personally, I find 'meme' to be a useful, but in many ways stupid word, so I agree with you, its an overused word that is based on what imho amount to a phylosphical concept that is completely idiotic. Thoughts don't evolve or leap around to other people like some sort of disease, which is what the whole meme nonsense proposes. That said:

Maybe claiming Miers has the mental capacity of a rock was inappropriate. I really don't know what her mental capacity is, save that con artists are very good at convincing people to do things, even when they are themselves sometimes too ignorant to know why what they are selling is snake oil. You won't find a lot of palm readers that don't honestly believe that the lines on your hand or their deck of Tarot cards really 'speek' to them. You don't have to be smart to con people, just good at manipulating them and saying what 'they' want to hear, and if you are really good at it, even you start believing the BS. Hell, you don't even have to know what the words you use mean, just when to quote them, just look at Behe or Dumbski. Both know the language, but their biology and math would get them sent back to 1st. grade remedial courses.

As for the pretend-to-be-intellectual bullshit, I certainly qualify a lot better than a lot of people that claim expertise on the net, even if I am not one of the supposed elite, and putting me in the class of Kerry or Gore is an insult I want an apology for.

As for anti-religious rhetoric, how can you use the term skeptic and imply that negative reactions to religion is mere rhetoric? Its hardly necessary to make fun of religion, it makes fools out of its followers and itself in a far more efficient manner than I could ever achieve myself, though sometimes it does need help to point out to borderline believers how screwed up some of its ideas can be. True believers on the other hand will never change their minds, they have too much invested in it, so their brains shut off the moment you contradict them.

Oh, and if I could think of a better example, I wouldn't have used a 'Star Trek' episode. However it is one of the only shows that has 'ever' even tried to deal with political issues, without insisting one include angels, talking to dead people, imaginary 1950's ideals that never really existed or some other form of irrational nonsense, which it proudly claimed was all 'real'. Sci-fi doesn't appologize for being made up or try to tell people that the world really does have people wandering around fixing the worlds problems at the behest of imaginary voices in their heads. In the real world, the sort of people that do that are more likely to be like this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Birdsong

Not some teen age hand maiden to God.

Why is it considered by some people that quoting a poet that has been dead for centuries, like Shakespear is *intellectual*, but quoting an episode of Star Trek is geeky or worse? The hypocracy of that is exactly the sort of anti-intellectual bullshit I am talking about. If its not either in a 2,000 year old book or intombed in a crypt, it can't contain truth, isn't useful, can't be scientific, is undermining civilization, etc. ad naseum. There are 'way' more people out there that believe in ST than believe in what ever BS you read or watch and the vast majority of them are either strongly interested in science or **are** scientist. This is hardly the Gore or Kerry crowd. The vast majority of people watching, "Touched by an Angel", or the more recent variations on the theme are not looking to think, they are looking for visual confirmation of what they have already decided is reality. Al Gore, Kerry and even Bush probably find this idea comforting...

The simple reality, which you seem to have missed, is that the anti-intellectual trend (is that word better) in this country is universal. If you are a right winger it is the abandonment of all rational thought, to replace it with religious rhetoric. If you are on the left, its rejection of all 'valid' science in favor of the lattest pet rock or magnet healing bracelets. While the majority in the middle have grown up as a generation that has either never had a real science education at all or spent most of their lives being told by advertisers and other con artists that science will solve every problem 'in their lifetime', which when it didn't happen, sent these same, "I want it now!!!!", people away from reason and towards promises made by faith. Intellectually, most of this country is going down the tubes, and your complaining that I used a Star Trek quote to point out how the clowns currently in charge of making it worse think. Yeah, avoiding Star Trek is *really* going to have a major effect on reversing the trend towards universal education in quack theories, religion nonsense and indoctrinated ignorance. I can't imagine why I didn't figure out that this was the solution we have been looking for for years myself...

Kagehi:

My complaint about your citing of ST: many people do this because they think that ST is deep or something. It's philosophy for science-admirers. When people start talking about ST in a political discussion, it basically indicates to me: chances are, this person has picked up this habit from other people who also like science but occasionally like to put on philosophical airs. I am actually a huge sci-fi fan, but I think that ST in all its manifestations tends to be boring, self-important, superficial. It is subpar sci-fi IMO.

You won't get an apology from me for accusing you of fake-intellectualism and posing-- You certainly are setting yourself up as an intellectual when you make fun of the vast majority of the world as dumbies (regarding religious belief and anti-intellectualism), when you call Miers dumb as a rock, and then (and this is the kicker) when you go out of your way to riducule Behe and Dembski, who (even forgiving your grammar and style) almost certainly have better credentials than you do regarding intelligence. You probably feel free to make fun of them because it is a ritual practice of a cultural clique (the anti-ID people) from which you are probably passively acquiring habits and attitudes.

As far as "religion" goes, I'm just a more thorough skeptic than you are. I understand the antireligious intellectualistic tradition that assumes that all theological beliefs are irrational, and I'm skeptical of it. Not all religious beliefs are created equal; in fact, there isn't really anything properly called "religion", the name you so enthusiastically attack. There are particular religions; they differ drastically. You went out of your way to make fun of magnetic bracelets, "some teenage hand maiden of God," and then ALL "religion." The assumption operating here is that all beliefs not condoned by empirical data and contemporarily approved scientific theories are equally silly BS-- as though Kant's ideas about God and the beliefs of stone-age anamists are equal in your eyes. People who make this arrogant (and neo-positivist) assumption make themselves look bad-- similar to someone who can't tell the differences between Bill Clinton, Michael Moore, and Stalin because they are all left of center. This behavior simply indicates a gang-mentality, an ideological perversion and misunderstanding of science. It uses the name of science to attack people that one doesn't like culturally and politically-- which is precisely the crime most ID people are correctly accused of. Were I religious and a smart ass, I would say the following: Physician, heal thyself.

Ok.. Let me clear some stuff up then. Behe claims expertise in biology, but defends ID with concepts that he continually repeats, despite most of them being completely debunked as bad science. This isn't necessarilly unusual. Its not uncommon for someone in biology to have no clue how particle physics works, but continually bringing up the second law of thermodynamics, when you don't have a clue what you are talking about, is stupid. His only valid arguement is Irreducible Complexity, which every example he has given have been proven to be neither as complex as he insists or impossible to reduce to simpler forms without breaking them.

Since his entire basis for his argument seems to be, "Well, if you Darwinists (I love how they can't call them anything else..) would just look, I am sure you could find something irreducibly complex, so I wouldn't have to."... He should stick to his field. Sadly it seems that field isn't biology, even if his degree is in that. Dembski.. Well, lets just say that his math is not far from 2+2=5 in some cases. This is not based on repeating other people's opinions, this is **my** opinion of their work. They just happen to be useful examples of a disturbing trend, even among educated people to make shit up, invent arguments that are 50% personal philosophy, then insist that the only problem with the argument is that no one else will take the hypothesis seriously.

There are also clowns that claim HIV doesn't cause Aids, floride is a mind control drug and a lot of other nonsense, some of them 'also' have prestigious degrees. It doesn't make them any less wacko. Behe has BTW been officially disavowed by Lehigh University. Apparently tenure didn't stop them from calling him a total quack:

http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/news/local/12905068.htm

As for my grammer. I know it is bad. Einstein had trouble tying his shoes, yeah I know, another cliche example, but what is your point anyway? When I bother to re-read what I post, I usually correct my mistakes. Like most people that use the internet for a while though, I often just click post, without really re-reading anything. I also used to stutter when younger. My grammer issue stems from the same problem. I tend to think faster than I talk or write when under stress, and polititics tends to put me under stress. The more some when someone accuses me of being a fake.

As for my own intellectual capacity... Money issues and a slight case of depression affected my grades the last year I was at college. My grades went from 4.0 the first year, to 3.95 the second, due to one stupid class on accounting, under a teacher that graded people based not on if they got the answer right, but if they did it the way 'he' wanted them to, even if the text book contradicted him. I never quite figured out what the heck 'he' wanted, nor did 80% of the rest of the class. I graduated with a 3.65, because of the issues I had in the last year. This was in a 3 year accelerated course, in which 50% of the class quit 'before' they even got to the second year. We graduated with only 25% of the orignal students we started with. Half of them got lower final scores than I did.

Also, I have read well over 1,000 books by choice, most of them over a period of 10 years. I also read numerous science magazines. *If* I could afford to, I would be reading real journals, not the of the shelf ones. My favorite TV channels, other than Anime and the Sci-Fi channel are Discover, Discovery Science, Health, Animal Planet and other similar ones. Though the appearance on all of these of goofy BS like Ghost Hunters pisses me off. I hate most of the rest of TV, can't stand sports (let alone play them) and think sitcoms are little more than regurgitated version of the same BS written 20 years ago. Same with movies, which in many recent cases literally 'are' regurgitations of 20 year old movies, instead of, "Gasp!", picking one of the 80,000+ books published in the US each year, or the 50,000+ in Canada, or the who knows how many in the rest of the world...

Yes, occationally I pick bad wording and I am sorry I can't come up with some high brow and obscure reference to use as an example, which 90% of the world wouldn't even know, so I would sound properly intellectual to you. One skill I have always had though is the ability to step down to the level of the people I am trying to describe something to, when I need to do so. Most of the people in my family joke behind my back that most of the time it seems like I am speaking a foreign language when ever I talk about something, and this is even true of my father, who spent most of his college carrier bouncing around everything from aviation to engineering, without ever being satisified to stick with any of them long enough to get an actual degree. You should be happy I chose to step down to 'your' level to describe these things. ;)

As for religion.. In the general sense of the supernatural, I stand by my statement. There are things in many religions that have value, once you strip them of the stuff that has either been completely disproven or is completely unfalsifiable. That doesn't alter the fact that religion in the US tends to mean Xian religion and the three major, and thousands of subdivisions of them, tend to be universally drenched in hypocracy, injustice and bigotry. If I don't like someone culturally or politically, its based on reason, not just dislike.

And sorry, but I don't agree with you that it is the same thing. The scientific community has 'chosen' to not get involved with such attacks and its only resulted in the crazies getting crazier, the general populace getting more confused about which side makes sense and given the people who attack science time to invent new and unique methods to confuse the issue even more. For the most part, I have no problem with people being Christian, Budhist, Muslim, Wiccan, or whatever. I may think they are all delusional, but usually I won't say it to their face, until and unless they shove it in mine or try to rewrite laws, the constitution or history to support their delusion. I am sorry if I came off sounding like one of the lunitics at Jihad Watch and others that think, "If you are a member of religion X, then you are a lost cause and your entire belief system should be erased." For someone like Bush, I might agree with that idea, but for someone like:

http://tildblog.blogspot.com/

I could care less if they waste time once a week praying to something that they have no evidence for the existance of or logical reason to believe even cares. Its a small and relatively unimportant part of his views that only wastes 'his' time, not mine.

In any case, we can grumble back and forth at each other for the next century and its not going to change the fact that I made some stupid comments without thinking about it, which you decided to blow out of all proportion, nor apparently alter your opinion of people that you arbitrarilly conclude based on a personal bias against common cultural icons are somehow fakes who don't think for themselves.

Kagehi: did I touch a nerve:

(1) In my experience, people unabile to speak and write clearly usually don't think precisely and carefully. Generally, such people think they understand something; the fact that they don't really understand what they think they do shows up in their inability to say it calmly and clearly. You give me the impression of someone with great talent intellectually, but perhaps a little linguistic more discipline could help you think even better. Just a suggestion for self-improvement: use only complete sentenced and control the run-ons.
(2) I suspect you have higher natural intelligence than I do, but it is irrelevant to the truth of my claim that you read a lot or what your grades were or what personal issues caused you to have an A- GPA. My statement about Behe and Dembski remains-- they have better credentials regarding intelligence than you do. This doesn't mean they're smarter or that they're right (my hunch is that they're wrong). One thing you might want to acquire before saying that famous scientists have 1st-grade math skills is a tinge of skepticism about your own abilities, instead of blaming others for every B+ you ever earned. Being skeptical of one's own abilities actally helps one develop natural abilities more. Again, just a suggestion for self-improvement.
(3) You certainly believe quite a number of things that "ha[ve] either been completely disproven or [are] completely unfalsifiable"-- it's just part of the human condition (limited intellect, limited time, the practical need to trust hear-say, etc.). We all believe things on insufficient evidence. E.g., the constancy of physical laws through the history of the universe is completely unfalsifiable. Also, most moral and political beliefs fit here; unless they are simply self-contradictory, they are unfalsifiable. Now, if something is unfalsifiable it is usually bad natural science, but not all of our justified belief is under the scope of natural science. Religions that try to make natural-scientific claims are rather silly, but many don't make this error. Bottom line: We all believe some things that would amount to bad natural science if these beliefs were presented as science, so that alone is not a sound objection to belief in transcendent reality. Physician, heal thyself.

Why is everybody complaining?
First, if she's incompetent,it will be painfully
obvious before the SJC and we'll all know that they're both on crack.
That's entertainment!
But if it turns out that she's a closet genius,(and a conservative one at that!)George W. Bush
comes out looking like president Svengali.
Don't misunderestimate "W"'s choice before one Question is asked by Sen. Teddy "Chappaqidick" Kennedy or Sen. Joe "God I love to hear my own voice" Biden.
I know My tivo is going to be glued to C-SPAN
for this one!

I'm sorry, I was commenting on the Harriet miers nomination.But the meaning of existence is much more important
I can't add much to the discussion (in intellectual terms.)I just wish I had
read the exchange between Skeptic and Kagehi
Before I changed the subject! Blog on, my intellectual brothers (or sisters).

Dan,

It seems to me like Bush is trying to do what The New Republic said he would: appoint anti-Federalists with short paper trails who would rigorously enforce the "interstate commerce" clause and undo FDR's social state.

In addition, he wanted someone in there he could depend on - in a pinch.

My question is - what made him and his people think this would fly?

Again: my theory is that you can't trust someone who won't drink a beer with you. Or, well, he will, but it would be a Buckler.

D.

Where do you get that hunch (the anti-federalist one) from Ali G? Bush is clearly not anti-federalist (or even authentically fedralist) in the least.

And why is having someone on the court "he can depend on" mean much when he doesn't have much time left in office and has opposed none of the SC's rulings in the past 5+ years he has been president anyway?

"Undo FDR's social state." You mean like reject his prescription drug plan as unconstitutional? Huh?

Ali G: By anti-federalist, do you mean Bush is against federalism? Or, are you suggesting that he's a big "states' rights" guy, as the original anti-federalists were? Brian's question suggests that he understands you to mean the latter; I understood you to mean the former. Please clarify what you meant by "anti-federalist."