(No, the title of this post is not in error; keep on reading for the explanation.)
Doonesbury was plannning to devote a series of comic strips to the Harriet Miers nomination. After the Miers nomination got pulled, the comic strips did too. For those of you who are curious, you can check out the strips -- which are quite amusing -- by clicking here. (Gavel bang: Howard Bashman/How Appealing.)
In a similar spirit of not letting Harriet Miers-related efforts go to waste, Article III Groupie offers you the post appearing below. This post was more or less fully drafted, and A3G was just putting the finishing touches on it, when news of Harriet Miers's withdrawal broke. A3G thought she would just delete this post. But since she put so much work into it, she figured she might as well share it with her readers, in case some of you might find it interesting or amusing.
So here it is, for what (little) it's worth in the post-Miers era. It's the perfect thing to post on a slow weekend evening. Enjoy!
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Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers is preparing frantically for her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which are currently set to start the week of November 7. In preparing for those hearings, Miers is going to need all the help she can get. Right now she is going through "murder boards," led by the beautiful and brilliant Rachel Brand (who would, despite her youth, be a better SCOTUS pick than Harriet Miers). But even UTR's Prom Queen may not be able to spin straw into gold.
Well, Article III Groupie is here to help. She would like to offer Harriet Miers ten suggested strategies to employ at her upcoming confirmation hearings:
1. "Talk to the Hand." Senator Arlen Specter observed that Harriet Miers is in need of a "crash course on constitutional law." Well, if she's worried about forgetting the names and holdings of any important Supreme Court decisions, she can always take this approach...
2. She Gets By with a Little Help from Her Friends. Harriet, take a page from the playbook of your boss: inside your decolletage, or maybe within the thicket of your disastrous hair, conceal a radio transmitter. Then let legal geniuses like Brett Kavanaugh and William Kelley feed you the answers to all of the senators' questions!
3. Running Out the Clock. Because Harriet Miers is not exactly brilliant, her main goal in the hearings is to avoid total embarrassment. Unlike John G. Roberts, she can't hope to impress the senators or the American people with her legal acumen; she just wants to escape relatively unscathed.
So, like a basketball team with a healthy lead in the fourth quarter, Harriet Miers should try to run out the clock. She should speak very slowly and deliberately, and she should take many long pauses -- before, during, and after her response to each query. This will prevent the senators from getting in too many of those pesky questions of theirs, and it will minimize Harriet Miers's chances of embarrasing herself. As she demonstrated in her visits to various senators, every time Harriet Miers opens her mouth, something stupid comes out.
How will Harriet Miers know if she is doing a good job? If the transcript of her confirmation hearings looks like a Harold Pinter play! ("Pause." "Silence." "Slight pause." "Long silence.")
4. More Public Scatology. This strategy should be used in conjunction with "Running Out the Clock," supra. Whenever she's asked a question that she needs time to think about (or consult with someone about), which will be often, Harriet Miers will also ask to go the bathroom.
When Chairman Specter expresses irritation with the countless bathroom breaks -- which Harriet Miers's boss, President Bush, is also known to take -- Harriet Miers will then come clean. She will patiently explain to the Committee that she suffers from explosive diarrhea. At that point, the members of the Committee, completely disgusted and grossed out by the thought of Miers's exploding bowels, will immediately adjourn the hearings -- FOREVER!!!
5. Turning the Tables. This tip is also a variation on "Running Out the Clock." As the Roberts confirmation hearings painfully reminded us, senators love to talk, and talk, and talk... There were times during the Roberts hearings when a senator would ramble on for so long, it was possible to forget there was a nominee in the room!
Harriet Miers can use this senatorial loquaciousness to her advantage. She should sit in her chair, very patiently and silently, as the senators ramble on; she should give no indication whatosever of impatience or any desire to speak. When the senator finally finishes his speech and poses a question, she should then "turn the tables" on him. In good Socratic fashion, just like a law professor, she should ask: "Well, Senator, what do you think?"
The proper response would be: "Excuse me, Counsel Miers, but these are your confirmation hearings." But how many senators will actually respond like that? Have you ever known a member of Congress to turn down an opportunity to talk? There is nobody alive who loves the sound of his own voice more than a United States Senator.
6. "Ain't I a Woman?" Harriet Miers should -- and will -- "play the gender card" at her hearings. One of the (few) talking points that the White House has been pushing to sell Harriet Miers is her series of female "firsts": first woman hired at her firm, first female president of her firm, first woman president of the Dallas Bar Assocation and the Texas State Bar, etc. In her opening statement, Harriet Miers will probably allude to her achievements as a female lawyer. When Senatrix Dianne Feinstein starts grilling Miers about abortion, Miers will probably spout some platitude about how she, as a woman, is especially sensitive to women's issues. (And we know that Miers is very good with the platitudes.)
7. Stand Behind Her Man. Ever since President Bush's announcement of the Harriet Miers nomination, the nominee's voluble ex-boyfriend, Justice Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court, has been serving as her unofficial spokesperson. Justice Hecht is everywhere, serving as the mouthpiece of Harriet Miers (and perhaps in ways that might cause him to be subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee, thanks to his participation in the infamous conservative conference call).
So, dear Harriet, why not just let Nathan Hecht take your place at the confirmation heaings? If he can blab to people about how you'll vote on Roe v. Wade, surely he can field a few questions from a handful of senators about your jurisprudence. Up to this point, Justice Hecht has been doing all the talking for you, and we've all gotten used to this arrangement. So why change things now?
8. The Art of Seduction. Seduction is the oldest trick in the book for a woman who wants something from a powerful man (or men). And employment of feminine wiles is not without precedent at Senate confirmation hearings. At her 1983 confirmation hearings for the district court, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry (3d Cir.) successfully flirted up a storm. At the end of her hearings, Senator Strom Thurmond, who was at the time the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told her: "I’m sure your attractiveness as a lady will not handicap you in your work, and I wish you well in your tenure on the bench."
So does this mean the senators will succumb if Harriet Miers starts batting her eyelashes at them? Alas, most of them will probably be unmoved; Harriet Miers is no longer the hottie that she was in her youth. But she might get Senator Ted Kennedy's vote...
9. Adoption of an Incomprehensible Accent. Speaking of the late Senator Thurmond, A3G always found his thick Southern accent impossible to understand. In Harriet Miers's case, she should adopt a Texas twang so heavy that no one -- not even her fellow Texan, Senator John Cornyn -- can understand her remarks. The Senators will then treat her testimony like a collection of auditory Rorschach blots: each senator will hear exactly what he wants to hear.
For example, take the sentence "I would overrule Roe v. Wade." Mumble it in a super-strong Texas accent, slowly and incoherently, as if you were mentally challenged. It kinda sounds like "I'd uphold the rule of Roe v. Wade," doesn't it?
10. The Familial Charm Offensive. This is a strategy that worked beautifully for Chief Justice Roberts. He deployed the adorable Jack and Josie Roberts masterfully, using his photogenic children to distract and to win brownie points from the senators.
Yes, it's true; Harriet Miers doesn't have any children. But she does have an aged mother, and that's almost as good. Once 93-year-old Sally Miers starts flashing those gums for the members of the Judiciary Committee, her daughter's speedy confirmation will be guaranteed!
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