I was talking with a friend about the reasons Miers was so violently opposed by the religious, anti-abortion right.
It really puzzled me--she wasn't that big of a question mark about abortion, and it's not like Souter regularly attended an actively anti-abortion megachurch, so that analogy really didn't work. It's really unlikely she might have moved from whatever position she already held on abortion while on the bench.
No, what i think it was is that she is a woman. I don't think most of the abortion-rights big shots (who are largely male) really trust a female to adjudicate an abortion case.
Think about it, the anti-abortion position is predicated on a position that women should not have a choice on the matter. I recognize that this position is itself based on the belief that the unborn child is fully human and shouldn't be decided for, but the decision does inevitably cut out the woman's input. And it's not like the culture behind the anti-abortion position typically sees women as clear-headed decision-makers.
I'm not saying this was the factor, but I think it may have been a built-in, subconscious prejudice against Miers from the get-go. "Father knows best" after all.
Don't act like this is some dramatic, stunning insight you thought of all by your lonesome, Andrew (Drew? Andy?). Sexism was the very first defense the White House thought of too--it's hardly original, and its ad-hominem nature suggests you have no other compelling evidence.
ReplyDeleteMust everything be framed as a sexist/racist/[something]ist conspiracy even when the facts don't suggest it? Sometimes, just sometimes, the simplest explanation is the right one.
Your argument simply lacks evidence. The most vocal opposition to Miers came from the secular right (National Review, Limbaugh, libertarians, Krauthammer, etc.) and her major support was among the religious nuts who really are just one-issue types (Focus on the Family, Dobson, etc.). Are you saying they'd oppose Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen or Edith Jones? I think not.
Maybe, just maybe, Roe isn't the only reason the Right wants to have its guys on the court. Maybe there's this little thing called "the conservative movement" whose aspirations are just a wee bit broader than overturning one bad court decision.
i don't have any compelling evidence--i was just speculating. But I was referring to the Senators who opposed her. Brownback, Lott, Santorum--hardly the secular Right. I specifically called it a contributing factor, not a major factor. Also, if you really read blogs, the idea of Bush bowing to affirmative action was one of the first knocks against her. It calmed down quickly when people realized that wouldn't fly, but it was definitely there. I also disagree that Dobson really ever supported her. There's a little thing called "damning with faint praise."
ReplyDeleteAnd are you suggesting by your last paragraph that Miers isn't conservative? That seems to be more factually incorrect than you accuse my argument of being.
Makes sense to me, but I think the source of the criticism was from the intellectual "movement" types.
ReplyDeleteMiers clearly doesn't like abortion, and doesn't think that it should be too widely available. No problem (for conservatives) there.
But, when pressed in interviews, she didn't seem to understand the constitutional law arguments surrounding Roe v. Wade. Without a thought-out argument against it, it's really uncertain how she would rule once she had to go through the analysis.
And if you think it is certain how she'd rule, regardless of her knowledge of the laws and what they actually say, then to back Miers on that basis is to make a total hypocrisy out of the whole "judges shouldn't 'legislate' from the bench" argument. Of course, Dobson, Focus on the Family et al. do don't care whether judges rule, legislate, or whatever, as long as they don't support abortion, and that's why they support Miers.
Your speculation makes some sense, and it's not totally unfair to suggest that it may have played a part in the minds of some. But, I think that the critics who were the most forceful were coming at it from another angle.
Another thought, while I'm typing this. Clarence Thomas is, to my mind, the most persuasive critic out there of affirmative action. He has an extensively thought-out philosophy of the whole thing, and he actually has some stake in the matter. He is not as easily dismissed as WASP-y critics of affirmative action. If conservatives thought that Miers had a similarly comprehensively thought-out stance opposing abortion, that would probably put her at the front of the line (at least with those for whom abortion is the single most important issue).
There were elements of sexism and elitism in the criticisms of Miers, but at its core, I think the critics thought she was legitimately unqualified intellectually to do the job. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that they thought she was unqualified intellectually to do the job in a way that fit their ends. But I don't think the "women can't be trusted to oppose abortion" thought was doing much of the work.
PS: second anonymous is not the same person as first anonymous
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