Lame Online Poll of the Day
Right now, Findlaw has another online poll which is even lamer than the one on Abu Ghraib. This one currently shows 74.17% of respondents saying it doesn’t matter that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has never been a judge, and 25.82% saying that it does. Exsqueeze me?
October 5th, 2005 at 8:08 am
recognizing the percentages have changed since your post, are you upset because the two didn’t add up to 100% or because a not insignificant percentage of the respondents aren’t concerned about her not having been a judge?
October 5th, 2005 at 8:21 am
It used to be that judges were approved based for experience and temperament. Judicial philosophy might have been considered in their nomination, but ratification was supposed to be based primarily on ability.
This has broken down of late, but with the Miers nomination it seems to have gone out the window entirely.
October 5th, 2005 at 8:58 am
Steve: the latter. I’m agnostic on the merits of her nomination right now, but while it’s one thing to say we should appoint some Justices despite not having been a judge (Rehnquist, for example), it’s quite another to say that the absence of judicial experience doesn’t matter at all, which is what the poll asks.
Kevin: if by “used to” you mean “should,” I don’t disagree. I don’t believe for a minute that Thurgood Marshall or any of FDR’s cronies were confirmed because a bunch of Senators were wowed by their judicial temperament. As for experience, Miers has plenty; the question is whether her kind of experience will make her a good/bad/great/horrible Justice. You and Patterico seem to know the answer to that already, but I don’t.
October 6th, 2005 at 10:08 am
NewsMax needs you to vote in the URGENT POLL NOW!
Is Hillary Clinton the daughter of Satan?
A) Yes.
B) No, she’s his son.