Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Can we trust Bush’s faith in court nominee Miers?

Sunday, Oct. 9, 2005 | 10:13 a.m.

The right wing will reign supreme.

I can't be certain, but I feel like Alice must have felt when she went through the keyhole and into a wonderland that, at best, turned her world upside down by making a Mad Hatter seem sane and a Cheshire Cat's smile appear tame. In short, this whole Supreme Court thing is getting curiouser and curiouser.

First, my bona fides. I wrote shortly after President George W. Bush's nomination of John Roberts that he would be overwhelmingly confirmed and that from all I could find out, he was a man of principle and high intellect and that he would serve the high court well, even though he might be a bit more conservative than the country would like. So, whether I agree with his conclusions as to the law and other matters of political thought, the fact that he was qualified for the job would carry him through. Especially since the people gave President Bush a Republican Senate with which to approve his nominees.

So, now it is time to opine about the president's next choice to fill the seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. This is the one that can be life-changing because Justice O'Connor has been the swing vote on most cases that deal with social issues and other matters of individual rights and privacy. How her replacement votes on the issues that Americans have come to rely upon for the past few decades will have a profound effect on the way we and our children live their lives as Americans. Yes, this is a big one.

So, who has the president appointed? For the most part, nobody really knows. Harriet Miers has not been a judge so there are no judicial opinions to pore over to determine where or why she might stand on a particular issue. That, in and of itself, is not a disqualifier, although in this world of most complex court cases that make their way to the Supreme Court, it is saner to argue for judicial experience than against it.

Harriet Miers has not really written all that much in the jobs she has held so that people could get an idea whether or not she believes in the Constitution of the United States, the precedents set by the high court, or even the kind of judicial reasoning that has been accepted as appropriate for America in the 21st century. That doesn't mean she should be disqualified either because there have been a number of excellent Supreme Court justices who learned to write from the bench and who learned to think critically only after they were elevated to the lifetime seat on the court.

The simple fact is that very few people really know Ms. Miers, and most of those who claim to know her are just guessing. What is interesting, though, is what the few people who do know her are saying.

Chief among those supporting the Miers nomination is President Bush himself. In the face of a barrage of criticism by right-wing evangelical Christians, President Bush says "trust me." And in a chorus of naysayers -- I choose to believe they are part of the orchestration of the Miers nomination drive -- many people appear loathe to accept anything from the president, choosing instead to believe he betrayed them by not appointing an "in your face" nominee who would split the Senate in half and the country even wider.

I am not one to criticize a person's religious beliefs unless those beliefs conflict with my own to the point of advocating a violent mind-changing event. Fundamentalist Muslims who believe anyone who differs from them should be destroyed are an example of the kind of people who should not only be criticized but convinced -- one way or another -- to give up their evil ways. There are fundamentalists in all religions, and I am ecumenical in my disdain for them too.

I know a number of evangelicals in this country who are deeply religious, but also deeply committed to the Constitution of our country. They keep their religion close to their hearts and their country close to their minds. When there are conflicts, they seem to have little difficulty understanding them and dealing with them. I also know the other kind. And, I am afraid, with the Miers nomination we are dealing with a group of people who are hell-bent on creating a United States based on their image of life rather than a democracy in the image foreseen by the founders of our country.

As hard as it may seem, it is easy to confuse the two images.

There are certain fundamentalists for whom "compromise" is a dirty word. Religion may have its place when preaching uncompromising themes from the church pulpit. But when preaching the way of a democracy, with almost 300 million Americans with diverse backgrounds who have diverse opinions about the direction this country should take, there is no room for the uncompromising sort. In this regard, fundamentalism and democracy don't work.

So, who is squealing the loudest about Harriet Miers before there have even been hearings held to find out whatever is find-outable? It is the usual culprits of right-wing fundamentalist thought and their political allies from the even farther right. And what is President Bush doing about all this dissension from his usually reliable base? He, through his minions, is assuring them that Harriet Miers is exactly the person they want her to be. (But, please, don't tell the other side.)

And who might that be? Nothing less than the swing vote who will overturn Roe v. Wade and allow government to delve even further into our personal lives, trampling our individual rights and liberties and subverting what it means to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Now, I don't believe for a minute that President Bush wants to do all that I just said, but I do believe that he wants to create a country more in the image that he believes God wants and less in the image of what Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Franklin and the others worked so hard to achieve.

And, therein lies the rub. There are many religious people who take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States who do so admirably and with great honor. And when it comes to a particular religious belief that may run contrary to a Constitutional principle, they are only too willing to give their oath of office the benefit of the doubt.

But there are many others who cannot and will not "check their uncompromising religious beliefs at democracy's door" before they enter to do the people's work, and that is where the danger exists.

If Harriet Miers is elevated to the Supreme Court to do what she thinks is God's will rather than the people's will, according to our Constitution, then she will be doing a great disservice to our country. I don't know if that is her plan, and I don't know that, even if it is her plan, that she will carry it out once confirmed. But I do know someone who believes he knows the answer.

That is the man who most likely has prayed late nights at the White House with her and knows her heart better than any other. That would be the president of the United States. And that is why when he tells his base to "trust me," he knows what he is talking about.

And that is why the rest of the country needs to know so much more about Harriet Miers than it currently does. A "trust me" from this president is worth far less today than it once was. Especially when a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court hangs in the balance.

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