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COMMENTARY
October 5, 2005
Harriet Miers
I've always loved the name Harriet, or "Hattie" for short. To me, the name evokes some sweet, willowy thing in red hair and freckles, with lively observant eyes, a whimsical self-deprecating wit, and a streak of harmless sentimentality, alert alike to charity and danger. I don't know why. I've never met a Harriet.There is a well-circulated novel by May Sarton entitled The Education of Harriet Hatfield, which I can't recommend. It is one of that author's apparently innumerable accounts of sheltered, genteel women coming out into society at fairly advanced ages. It is set in 19th-century Boston, freighted with psychological anachronisms, and the characters, including the protagonist, are rather wooden and "representative". Still, the author seems to grasp what the name Harriet ought to represent. I think my favourite Harriet in literature is not Harriet Beecher Stowe, but instead the Harriet who is an Icelandic-American orphan, dropped into an English finishing school in The Philosopher's Pupil, one of Iris Murdoch's wonderful novels on the dark power of an intellectual. This Hattie is the "lost" granddaughter of a certain Oxford Professor Rozanov -- a philosopher of terrifying charm, who destroys everything he touches. She steps into the plot as an afterthought, then swims to the middle of it, as a figure of redemption. I was quite shocked, when I first read the novel, to discover that this character had at least seven of my top ten requirements for a girl named Hattie; and came close to satisfying the other three. Not for the first time I thought, "Iris Murdoch knows deep things." But why am I bothering my reader with such Harrietine musings? Because that is about all anyone knew, about Harriet E. Miers, when President Bush nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her name. And that she's a close friend of Laura Bush, which is alarming. It is not cronyism I fear. Mr Bush has nominated some excellent cronies, and I'll pray he has done it again. What I fear, more realistically, is the appointment not of another David Souter, but of another Sandra Day O'Connor -- who, though born and raised "home, home on the range", proved worse than any liberal could be. A liberal might still make decisions that are right on the law. But Ms O'Connor made decisions (such as her celebrated ruling on gerrymanders) akin to the stereotype of a woman shopping. The "culture wars" are truly raging in those United States, unlike up here. In Canada, if there was any fight, it was a brief kitchen skirmish, and the other side quickly emerged in control of all the cutlery. Canada is now a jurisdiction over which the brushed steel curtain of political correctness has descended. But in the U.S., there is still some hope. I don't doubt, that as she came from Dallas, and President Bush likes her, Ms Miers is outwardly conservative. The point is, no confused nor tepid opponent of political correctness can stand up to what is aimed daily at the U.S. Supreme Court, by the liberal enthusiasts of social engineering. That is where key battles over the nature of society are decided. From reading around the better informed American commentators, I have now tallied about 40 good choices President Bush passed over. Not all were white males: there was a sprinkling of impressive Hispanics, and others of more exotic hue. But all were male (I refuse to say "alas"). There was truly "no paper trail" for this nominee, who has no judicial experience -- i.e. the question is whether she's even qualified for a federal court appointment. From what I can see, not. I gather she's on record backing the International Criminal Court, women in combat, homosexual adoption, and so forth -- all markers for the other side of the culture wars. And is suspiciously closed-mouth on abortion. The best thing I've heard about Ms Miers is that Nathan Hecht, the least ambiguously conservative member of the Texas Supreme Court, thinks she will do. Notwithstanding, were I a liberal Democrat, I might be in a rush to confirm this appointment. Politically, I would say, a disaster. President Bush has telegraphed his weakness to his enemies ("not spoiling for a fight", as the New York Times gloated), and shaken the confidence of important allies. The legal consequences we must wait and see. The John Roberts appointment was already a slide -- a smooth, ultracompetent, legal technocrat as Chief Justice, not a man of deep convictions. It's a war, and convictions are not optional.I've always loved the name Harriet, or "Hattie" for short. To me, the name evokes some sweet, willowy thing in red hair and freckles, with lively observant eyes, a whimsical self-deprecating wit, and a streak of harmless sentimentality, alert alike to charity and danger. I don't know why. I've never met a Harriet. There is a well-circulated novel by May Sarton entitled The Education of Harriet Hatfield, which I can't recommend. It is one of that author's apparently innumerable accounts of sheltered, genteel women coming out into society at fairly advanced ages. It is set in 19th-century Boston, freighted with psychological anachronisms, and the characters, including the protagonist, are rather wooden and "representative". Still, the author seems to grasp what the name Harriet ought to represent. I think my favourite Harriet in literature is not Harriet Beecher Stowe, but instead the Harriet who is an Icelandic-American orphan, dropped into an English finishing school in The Philosopher's Pupil, one of Iris Murdoch's wonderful novels on the dark power of an intellectual. This Hattie is the "lost" granddaughter of a certain Oxford Professor Rozanov -- a philosopher of terrifying charm, who destroys everything he touches. She steps into the plot as an afterthought, then swims to the middle of it, as a figure of redemption. I was quite shocked, when I first read the novel, to discover that this character had at least seven of my top ten requirements for a girl named Hattie; and came close to satisfying the other three. Not for the first time I thought, "Iris Murdoch knows deep things." But why am I bothering my reader with such Harrietine musings? Because that is about all anyone knew, about Harriet E. Miers, when President Bush nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her name. And that she's a close friend of Laura Bush, which is alarming. It is not cronyism I fear. Mr Bush has nominated some excellent cronies, and I'll pray he has done it again. What I fear, more realistically, is the appointment not of another David Souter, but of another Sandra Day O'Connor -- who, though born and raised "home, home on the range", proved worse than any liberal could be. A liberal might still make decisions that are right on the law. But Ms O'Connor made decisions (such as her celebrated ruling on gerrymanders) akin to the stereotype of a woman shopping. The "culture wars" are truly raging in those United States, unlike up here. In Canada, if there was any fight, it was a brief kitchen skirmish, and the other side quickly emerged in control of all the cutlery. Canada is now a jurisdiction over which the brushed steel curtain of political correctness has descended. But in the U.S., there is still some hope. I don't doubt, that as she came from Dallas, and President Bush likes her, Ms Miers is outwardly conservative. The point is, no confused nor tepid opponent of political correctness can stand up to what is aimed daily at the U.S. Supreme Court, by the liberal enthusiasts of social engineering. That is where key battles over the nature of society are decided. From reading around the better informed American commentators, I have now tallied about 40 good choices President Bush passed over. Not all were white males: there was a sprinkling of impressive Hispanics, and others of more exotic hue. But all were male (I refuse to say "alas"). There was truly "no paper trail" for this nominee, who has no judicial experience -- i.e. the question is whether she's even qualified for a federal court appointment. From what I can see, not. I gather she's on record backing the International Criminal Court, women in combat, homosexual adoption, and so forth -- all markers for the other side of the culture wars. And is suspiciously closed-mouth on abortion. The best thing I've heard about Ms Miers is that Nathan Hecht, the least ambiguously conservative member of the Texas Supreme Court, thinks she will do. Notwithstanding, were I a liberal Democrat, I might be in a rush to confirm this appointment. Politically, I would say, a disaster. President Bush has telegraphed his weakness to his enemies ("not spoiling for a fight", as the New York Times gloated), and shaken the confidence of important allies. The legal consequences we must wait and see. The John Roberts appointment was already a slide -- a smooth, ultracompetent, legal technocrat as Chief Justice, not a man of deep convictions. It's a war, and convictions are not optional. * I defamed eight New Democrats in my column Sunday, who, it turns out, voted in favour of Rick Casson's (defeated) private member's bill to raise the Canadian age of consent from 14 to 16 years -- thus cancelling the votes of eight other party MPs. I implied that the whole caucus had voted to wink at sexual predation. I can rarely say anything nice about NDP members, and thus regret this missed opportunity. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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