Letter to the Editor: Reardon misinformed

n Re: “Harriett Miers?” (page 6, Oct. 13)

In Thursday’s paper Dennis Reardon expressed his disdain for the nomination of Harriet Miers. The title of Mr. Reardon’s column, World of Dennis, is very fitting, as he made apparent in yesterday’s column that he lives in his world and is out of touch with that of his readers. He made obtuse comments, such as “Not since the Emperor Caligula named his horse as a Roman consul has someone so unqualified and so underwhelming been nominated for such a high office.” The question is not about being qualified – in this situation it is about being the most qualified.

Qualification for a Supreme Court justice is determined by the vote of at least 51 U.S. senators. There are no set rules for qualification. Although every past justice has been a lawyer, 41 of the 109 justices had no prior judicial experience. This includes justices such as Earl Warren, who wrote the majority opinion in landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education, or John Marshall, who authored the decision in the landmark case of Marbury v. Madison, in which the principle of judicial review was established; the list continues with Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter and William Rehnquist.

I would agree that there may be someone in the United States more qualified for the position, but the question is whether she is qualified, not whether she is the most qualified. To state that she does not know what her constitutional rights are presumes that Mr. Reardon is personally acquainted with Ms. Miers’ knowledge of the law and the Constitution. When one makes ad hominem against a person, one presumably knows that person. Mr. Reardon, are you qualified to make your comments? Do you know Harriet Miers? Are you aware of the background of other Supreme Court justices?

Lewis Powell was president of the American Bar Association, while Miers was head of the Texas Bar Association. Abe Fortas was President Lyndon Johnson’s personal attorney before nomination. Miers was President Bush’s personal lawyer and White House counsel. Furthermore, eminently qualified candidates for the Supreme Court, persons such as Judge Robert Bork, an appellate judge in a federal Court of Appeals, were rejected by Democratic senators even though it was undisputed that Judge Bork was an intellectual giant. It is hypocritical to condemn a nominee to the Supreme Court merely for lacking judicial experience when history demonstrates that highly qualified federal judges were rejected by a liberal senate. Compared to previous justices, it sounds as if Harriet Miers will be able to stand her ground and I bet she knows more of her constitutional rights then you. Our previous justices were nominated in a time before your birth; perhaps if you had been around to make your snide comments, our judicial history would not be so incorrect.

Amy Breguet CAS ’08