MIERS HAS HIGH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Finally, a Supreme Court nominee who understands real people. Peggy Noonan grants the importance of that point but implies that Miers is too weak to stand her ground:
I don't know why this is, but I think it's connected to the fact that they're lucky, and it seems somehow hardwired in human nature that when people are lucky they come to think they deserve it: It's not luck, it's virtue. And since it's virtue my decisions are by their nature virtuous. I think I'll decree that local government, if it judges it necessary, can throw grandma out of the house and turn her tired little neighborhood into a box store that will yield higher tax revenues. Thus Kelo v. New London is born. I decree it.
She is right about Kelo but she forgets The barely noticed mayhem following the Supreme Court's Blakely decision. My daughter was working as a public defendant at the time the decision was made and told me about all the low-lifes that went free because saint Scalia ignored the warning of the previous woman with some real life experience, Sandra Day O'connor:
In her dissenting opinion in Blakely, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor predicted all the chaos we're now witnessing. She wrote,"The Court ignores the havoc it is about to wreak on trial courts across the country." To be sure, the mayhem has begun. Defense lawyers are filing Blakely motions daily with discordant results in various jurisdictions almost a certainty. The Senate judiciary committee will open hearings on July 13 on"Blakely v. Washington and the Future of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines." And intermediate appeals courts will be flooded with Blakely arguments until the Supreme Court revisits the issue.
Well, it has not and the issue has only become worse with state supreme courts entering the fray, legal expert unsure and dangerous criminal felons benefiting. Clearly, one associate judge cannot always succeed in bringing reality to bear. But without at least one matters are sure to get even worse.
The Supreme Court should not be a philosophical debating club but a place which is aware of its impact on real people's lives. For that they need high emotional intelligence and of that I an sure Miers has an unbelievable amount. I should know as I have none. In any case, there is no other way she could have achieved the leadership positions she did in the legal profession. If I am right, she will not only be confirmed but she will play just as important a role in shaping future court decisions as the woman she replaces.