WP: 'The Right Result' Was Key to Miers("Miers was an Independent Voice")

[Pirate Smile]

'The Right Result' Was Key to Miers
In Dallas, She Made A Name for Candor

By Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 8, 2005; Page A08

DALLAS, Oct. 7 -- This city was already on edge, divided along racial and class lines over how to desegregate public housing, under court order to change an election system that kept minorities out of power, and seething from a series of police shootings that killed innocent blacks.

So when a black county commissioner was arrested after a physical altercation with an off-duty police officer who allegedly had spat a racial slur at him, more than 1,000 demonstrators marched on City Hall. Many feared violence until Harriet Miers, a first-term City Council member and local lawyer, spoke to the crowd.


"If it means anything to you, I want to apologize," Miers said in her native Texas drawl. "I want to apologize to the African American community of this city for an unprovoked and unexcusable attack on one of their elected leaders."

Her apology, met with applause from the crowd, played a key role in defusing the tension that November night in 1990, many here recalled. Those who knew Miers at the time said her apology that night was characteristic of her tenure -- unafraid to take on controversial issues, sometimes even to her own political detriment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/07/AR2005100701813.html

This article will not help her with the wingnuts.

[Pirate Smile]

1. Here is more - interesting - the RW'ers wont like this:

"Now President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, Miers served one term on the Dallas City Council, from 1989 to 1991, a period that offers a rare view of her political philosophy and style. Her campaign, votes and public stances defy easy characterization.

She would meet with abortion rights advocates and gay rights activists but tell them firmly she did not agree with them. She backed a redistricting plan aimed at electing more minorities even though conservatives called it a quota system. She voted to raise taxes two years in a row even though some on the council were willing to cut city services instead.

"That's the thing about Harriet -- she did things she didn't have to do and that if you were only looking out for yourself, you wouldn't do," said John Wiley Price, the Democratic county commissioner whose arrest sparked the protest. "She was gutsy."

-snip-
A loner who liked to say that she made her decisions based on "the facts," Miers brought a lawyer's intellect and courtroom demeanor to a venue where ego-massaging, compromise and vote trading were more common. She left elected office of her own choosing after one term, lamenting to a local reporter that "decisions are more political" than an effort to reach the "right result."'

[Child_Of_Isis]

2. She voted to raise taxes two years

ruh roh!

:popcorn:

[Selteri]

3. I'm beginning to think he's going to try to force Meirs through as a

Recess Appointment.

[chookie]

4. Can he do that?

I agree that he wishes he could...not sure if this can be done in the case when the retiring judge (SDO) is not officially retired until the new justice is appointed.

If he does, he's going to piss off even those who haven't been pissed off yet.

George doesn't have the kind of political capital to pull this dictatorial move off, IMHO.

[Pirate Smile]

5. Oh, geez, some of this could be the kiss of death to her.

"In another instance, candidate Miers agreed to sit down with a group of abortion rights activists. Operation Rescue was staging regular protests at area abortion clinics, and the group of about 10 women who met with Miers wanted to know whether she supported a 1985 city ordinance that protected patients from harassment. Four of the women in attendance said in interviews that Miers was immovable.

"She said, well, I'm sorry, it's murder, and that's that," said Joy Mankoff, founder of a local women's political action network. "There was no room for any discussion."

Although the women left the meeting convinced that Miers was completely opposed to abortion rights, one, liberal lawyer Louise B. Raggio, continued to support Miers and still does. Miers, for her part, has raised money to promote a lecture series on women's issues bearing Raggio's name. The first speaker was feminist Gloria Steinem.

"The abortion issue is a bad issue for me," Raggio acknowledged, "but overall you look at the whole, and there are many issues I could agree with her on."

[daleo]

6. I still think this is all Trojan horse stuff.

When push comes to shove, she will do the neo-cons bidding. Every little bit of apparently reasonable behavior will be trotted out to throw people off the scent, though.

Heck, even Nixon and Reagan supported some non-looney causes. It doesn't make them progressive.

I read this to mean she met with pro-choice people to tell them how wrong they were. Big deal.

[Pirate Smile]

7. kick