E-mail:
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Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
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Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
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Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
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Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
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John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
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Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
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Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
This Washington Post article suggests that the Bush White House has finally figured out the correct strategy for promoting a stealth candidate: emphasize her qualifications rather than send signals about her ideology. The reasons why this is the better strategy for a stealth candidate are detailed here. The basic idea is that stealth candidates are most likely to be successful when their qualifications are impeccable and their ideology is fuzzy; when their qualifications are doubtful, they tend to lose votes not from the opposition but from the President's allies. That is precisely what we have seen with the Miers nomination.
Is it anything more than spin at this point to claim that Miers is qualified for the Supreme Court? Perhaps. Most people don't recognize that the majority of the Supreme Court's docket does not involve the sorts of constitutional issues that regularly draw attention in the press but rather consists of fairly technical statutory and administrative law questions. With respect to these cases, a lawyer with long experience in the business world is surely as competent as many experts in constitutional law.
Nevertheless, it may be too late to convince the public and the Senate that Miers' qualifications are truly excellent. Miers' qualifications pale in comparison to John Roberts, and conservative pundits have been arguing that she lacks the necessary experience and intellectual heft to be a Supreme Court Justice. At this point, the most that the Bush White House can do is convince people that she is not unqualified. Whether that will be enough to secure her appointment is anyone's guess.