Posted 5:06 PM by Robert

Another Looming Miers Disaster

From Washington, James Taranto reports: "Having spent last evening communing here with some 1,000 conservatives at National Review's 50th anniversary dinner, we see a political disaster in the making." He may be right. He's very smart. And he's there.

But having reviewed the increasingly personal, nasty and ill tempered criticism of Harriet Miers (including that of Charles Krauthammer, who ridiculed the nomination as "a joke" - and worse), I see another disaster in the making of quite a different kind: I see a likely intense alienation of a Supreme Court justice from the movement conservatives, thereby fostering drift by that justice away from conservative values generally.

Personal feelings matter. The liberals who so savagely and personally attacked Clarence Thomas did the conservative movement a great favor: They sealed off any reasonable chance that Justice Thomas might be led to views more like those of his critics through the back door of personal relationships. Those doors can accommodate much traffic. Justice Brennan, for example (whose credentials at the time of his appointment certainly did not tower over those of Ms. Miers) became one of the most influential people who ever served on that Court largely by the artifice of personal charm. Harry Blackmun had retreated from many conservative values through those back doors, once he was offered shelter on the other side from the increasingly personal and hostile critics of his Roe v. Wade decision. But Justice Thomas' critics made sure that he would never make that trip. Thank you, movement liberals, for making quite sure that Clarence Thomas was immune to personal charm of the Brennan variety from the first day he first put on those robes.

Is it really going to be a good thing for conservatives to have a new Supreme Court justice who feels that she only made her way onto the Court by opposing conservatives, and that the Democrats and liberals were really not all that bad? Do conservatives really want to start Ms. Miers down the Blackmun-trod path before she even writes a single decision?

Is that what Mr. Krauthammer wants? More generally, do Mr. Krauthammer and his ilk really live on this earth? You wouldn't know it by me.

Critics of the Miers nomination have a perfect right to speak their minds. But they would do themselves, the conservative movement and the nation a big favor by toning down the tenor and personal nature of the attacks.

MORE: Duane Oyen has observations well worth considering.

UPDATE

Posted 1:06 PM by Robert

Well Above Average

Is there good reason to think that Harriet Miers will make a good Supreme Court justice?

Of course there is. And it's really not that difficult a syllogism if one keeps an open mind:

First, Ms. Miers has been nominated to fill the seat of Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring having garnered a nearly universal reputation of having been a pretty average justice. No luminary, but not that bad.

Second, by any reasonable standard of comparison, Ms. Miers is far more qualified and generally capable than was Ms. O'Connor at the time of her appointment.

Third, since Sandra Day O'Connor was about average, and Harriet Miers is far more qualified and accomplished than was Ms. O'Connor at the time of her appointment in 1981, there is good reason to believe that Ms. Miers will be at least well above average in her service on the Court.

Ms. Miers critics may think that they know of a better pick - and perhaps they are right. But it is clearly wrong to claim that there is not good reason to think that Harriet Miers will make a good - even well above average - justice.

And that conviction should grow the more one looks at the facts and the details of the comparison. Sandra Day O'Connor attended Stanford University for college and law school during the late 1940's and early 1950's - a time when Stanford (especially the law school) did not have the full reputation for excellence that it has acquired more recently. O'Connor served as an Arizona assistant attorney general from 1965 to 1969, was appointed to the Arizona Senate, in 1974 was elected a state trial judge, and was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals in 1979. Big deal. Can anyone argue that up to this point in her career Ms. O'Connor had performed with brilliance? No.

Then, a mere eighteen months later, President Reagan appointed her to the Court in 1981. She was a long time friend - today some would say "crony" - of Justice Rehnquist. Her name never would have come under serious consideration but for that friendship.

In comparison, Ms. Miers received both her undergraduate and law degrees from Southern Methodist University - a perfectly good school whose top students were then quite as good as those of Stanford at the time Ms. O'Connor attended that institution. So I give Ms. O'Connor and Ms. Miers roughly equal standing in the area of early education - for all that matters (which is not much).

What is by far more important than her early education is what Harriet Miers made of it. There is no real question that Ms. Miers is brilliant - and her critics suggestions to the contrary are nothing short of disgraceful. She is obviously brilliant in many ways. She was successful as Co-Managing Partner at Locke Liddell & Sapp - a major law firm - from 1998-2000. In 1992 she became president of the Texas State Bar, in 1985 she became president of the Dallas Bar Association, and she has been a long-time major player in the American Bar Association. She was a very successful trial lawyer with lots of tough, major clients and hard cases. She has been Counsel to the President for a while, and there have been no problems with her performance in that office. (It's actually hilarious to consider how few of her critics - especially those in academe and the media - could perform that job - or any of her jobs - as credibly as she did.) She was the president's Deputy Chief of Staff, and prior to that she was Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary. Her career leaves no reasonable doubt that Harriet Miers is brilliant in many matters pertaining to the law and public service. That brilliance is not of a sort that her critics fully value as a credential for the Court. That is their right. But those who challenge her level of accomplishment, intelligence or general competence are grossly wrong. And those things matter.

And they especially matter in comparing Ms. Miers to the justice she is replacing. No reasonable person could doubt that Harriet Miers has far better credentials, and displays many more signs of ability to perform on the Court, than did Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981.

Yet Sandra Day O'Connor turned out about average.

Anyone care to differ on that?

Posted 12:24 AM by Robert

Bad Reporting, Or Responsible Journalism?

Suppose two major newspapers - one in Los Angeles and one in Washington, D.C. - learn of a supposed plot to blow up the Library Tower in Los Angeles. Suppose further that the newspapers have reason to believe that the report of the plot was bogus.

Does the reader think something like that might explain something like this?

Would it be less responsible for a Los Angeles paper to publish what it believes likely to be a bogus report about a plot to do something really bad in Los Angeles than it would be for a paper in Washington to do so? The bad, real-world consequences of the Los Angeles paper publishing a bogus report about its home town would seem to be worse than if an out-of-town paper did so. Does that matter?

Of course, publishing big, bad, suspected-bogus reports about local events (and non-events!) would spice up the copy! Policies favoring that kind of thing would sort of move the whole paper towards being one, big gossip column - wouldn't they?

Just asking.

Posted 11:49 PM by Robert

What's In A Plame?

According to this report from Reuters this May 6, 2003 Nicholas Kristof column may have been the trigger for a meeting between Scooter Libby and Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel on June 12, 2003 - before Joe Wilson's notorious New York Times item appeared on July 7. The key Kristof passage seems to be this:

I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.

According to Reuters, Ms. Miller discovered her notes from this meeting after she testified before the grand jury. She has now turned the notes over to prosecutor Fitzgerald and is to meet him again next Tuesday.

Kristof's column supposedly contained the first public mention of Wilson's mission in Niger, and Libby supposedly wanted to dispel Wilson's assertion (was Wilson Kristof's nameless source?) that he was sent to Niger at the urging of the vice president.

It certainly would explain why the prosecutor is having some key witnesses give repeat performances before the grand jury. But the Reuters suggestion that this earlier meeting is suggestive of a "conspiracy" seems weak at this point - especially since we don't know what is in those notes. And the whole story makes a rather jarring read compared to prior assertions by administration critics that the alleged administration anti-Wilson actions were prompted by his July article.

Posted 10:06 AM by Robert

What's In A Name?

It amazes me that Volokhyries (and others) are worrying over this report:

In an initial chat with Miers, according to several people with knowledge of the exchange, Leahy asked her to name her favorite Supreme Court justices. Miers responded with "Warren" - which led Leahy to ask her whether she meant former Chief Justice Earl Warren, a liberal icon, or former Chief Justice Warren Burger, a conservative who voted for Roe v. Wade. Miers said she meant Warren Burger, the sources said.

As a preliminary matter, look closely at this passage. The word "admire" does not appear in it. The phrase actually used was "favorite." So why the heck do the Volohkyries keep chattering on about whether or not it is a good thing that Ms. Miers said she "admires" Warren Burger? (Kathryn Lopez says Ms. Miers used the word "admires" in her NRO report describing the Miers/Leahy exchange, but only said that she "admires" Burger's administrative skills - not his jurisprudence.) What does "favorite" mean? Harriet Miers probably knew Warren Burger personally. Maybe Burger flirted with her - she's dated a member of the Texas Supreme Court for years, so maybe she likes the type. In any event, she is not recorded as having been asked which justices she "admired."

And why do the Volohkyries suggest that almost nobody calls a former Chief Justice by his first name with no indication that they have done any research into what people actually did or do call him? Harriet Miers has had a long career as a senior player in a major law firm and both the American and Texas Bar Associations. She is therefore easily in a position to think of Warren Burger as "Warren." Would anyone be surprised to find that she thinks of the president as "George?"

In fact, I have my own story on this non-issue. Warren Burger was very active in organizing celebrations for the 200thanniversaryy of the Constitution. In that capacity he worked with some people in private legal practice in New York who I know rather well. They all called him "Warren" when they spoke to him or about him, in or out of his presence - even the junior legal associates. They all called the former Chief Justice by that name because in that context he insisted on it.

Did Warren Burger have senior people in bar associations and major law firm, such as Ms. Miers, call him by his first name? Beats me. But I could answer that question with a few phone calls if I really cared about it. The Volohkyries seem to care. The Washington Post seems to care, and provided the original report - a report in which the word "admire" does not appear even once. Why don't they make some calls?

The entire exercise in Volohkyrie-driven hand wringing is just absurd. Regardless of what Ms. Miers' political affiliations may have been in the past, enough is known about her views now that nobody can seriously propose that Earl Warren is today Harriet Miers favorite justice or that she ever intended to say such a thing to Patrick Leahy because she pays a lot of attention to detail and she is not stupid. People who seriously suggest the likelihood of such things should loosen their tinfoil hats and spend more time in the Grassy Knoll, their natural grazing grounds.

Posted 6:34 AM by Robert

A Fantasy Land Called "Third Way"

The Washington Post and the New York Times both report that William Galston and Elaine Kamarck think Democrats need to be "centrists" of some kind (they're not exactly sure what kind, apparently) in order to win the presidency.

No doubt Democrats will one day - perhaps as early as 2008 - win back the presidency. A presidential election is generally mostly determined by the national economy, and that economy swings in cycles. Eventually the Democrats, if they survive, will catch a wave and be sitting on top of the world - or at least 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

But the Galston/Kamarck reports come complete with very predictable, and numerous, suggestions that Democrats must take the Third Way because that's what Bill Clinton did, and he was the last Democrat to "do it."

Fine. History is what it is.

But, as Henry Ford famously pointed out, history is bunk. What is missing in the Galston/Kamarack reports is any mention of the fact that Bill Clinton failed to get a majority of the popular vote in either 1992 or 1996, or that Clinton won in 1992 because Ross Perot launched a personal vendetta against the incumbent Republican and the economy had been in a slump, or that Clinton won in 1996 because the economy was in a boom that had already begun when he took office in 1992 (O, that business cycle), or that Clintonian "centrism" caused the Democrats to completely lose Congress in 1994, or that Clintonian "centrism" has lately been failing to win many elections even when its tried (Georgia's ejection of Max Cleland), or that ...

Well, you get the idea.

Posted 6:08 PM by Robert

Mickey Comes For The Copy Editors

Mickey Kaus does not like copy editors, at least not a lot of them at the Los Angeles Times:

Various Times-people assure me the Tribune execs are bad news, but you have to sympathize with them ... They've bought a paper with a history of bloat, gold-plating, and soul-deadening complacency--the "velvet coffin," as it was known. ... [I]t has a thousand editorial employees! With a third of that, you could easily put out a paper that wouldn't be as good--it would be much, much better. Yet Carroll defends every last copy editor. ... P.S.: I admit, I have a natural enmity with copy editors. My position: A good copy editor will make your copy better--but only on rare occasions will it be enough better to justify the delay and hassle, let alone the copy editor's salary. And good copy editors are hard to find--the best quickly move on to other jobs these days. Those that stay, especially in big organizations like the LAT, are too often repositories of self-justifying pedantry! Usually they just make copy duller. ... Does Carroll really think the Times would be discernibly worse if Ron Brownstein were allowed to type his articles right from his Blackberry onto the front page? Even if you could take the copy editors' salaries and hire more Brownsteins? ...You could make them all use spellcheck!

I forwarded Mickey's comments to a friend who has a fairly high editorial position at the Los Angeles Times without attributing the comments to Mickey or anyone else. I received back the following reply from my friend, who was not impressed, to say the least:

Without having any clue to the identity of the person in the paragraph below, I am tempted to respond bluntly -- but I'll resist. It is clearly someone with substantially more opinion than information. Anyone who thinks a good copy editor can be replaced by a simple investment in spell-check software is most likely the kind of self-perceived artiste who actually thinks he can write. There is, no doubt about it, mediocrity in the ranks of copy editors -- are there is within the ranks of bankers, lawyers, pundits and presidential aides -- but that doesn't condemn the whole lot of them to disposability. And yes -- Ron Brownstein's copy would be discernible worse (most days) if it was not edited. I'm sure he'd be the first to say so. After more than 32 years of writing for this paper -- from its Velvet Coffin days to its Tribune afflicted ones -- I can assure you we do not have enough top notch copy editors. But neither do we have an abundance of poor ones. Let him who is without a streak of mediocrity cast the next stone.

Well, Mickey, are you going to take that bitch-slap lying down?

Posted 1:23 PM by Robert

Rove Apparently Clear

Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th hour testimony .... The U.S. attorney's manual requires prosecutors not to bring witnesses before a grand jury if there is a possibility of future criminal charges unless they are notified in advance that their grand jury testimony can be used against them in a later indictment. .... "I can say categorically that Karl has not received a target letter from the special counsel. The special counsel has confirmed that he has not made any charging decisions in respect to Karl," [Karl Rove's attorney,] Luskin said.

The business in the linked article about the prosecutor not having made decisions to prosecute or giving any "guaranties" of no future indictments is just nonsense. Prosecutors are not in the guaranty business. But they are subject to Justice Department rules.

Link from DRUDGE.

UPDATE (via Kausfiles): Lawrence O'Donnell says: [B]ecause Fitzgerald is not subpoening Rove to testify, he has no obligation to send him a target letter.

Really? Here is what the Department of Justice grand jury guidelines say:

9-11.151 Advice of "Rights" of Grand Jury Witnesses

It is the policy of the Department of Justice to advise a grand jury witness of his or her rights if such witness is a "target" or "subject" of a grand jury investigation. See the Criminal Resource Manual at 160 for a sample target letter.
A "target" is a person as to whom the prosecutor or the grand jury has substantial evidence linking him or her to the commission of a crime and who, in the judgment of the prosecutor, is a putative defendant. ... Although the Court in Washington, supra, held that "targets" of the grand jury's investigation are entitled to no special warnings relative to their status as "potential defendant(s)," the Department of Justice continues its longstanding policy to advise witnesses who are known "targets" of the investigation that their conduct is being investigated for possible violation of Federal criminal law. ...

9-11.152 Requests by Subjects and Targets to Testify Before the Grand Jury

It is not altogether uncommon for subjects or targets of the grand jury's investigation, particularly in white-collar cases, to request or demand the opportunity to tell the grand jury their side of the story. ...[U]nder normal circumstances, where no burden upon the grand jury or delay of its proceedings is involved, reasonable requests by a "subject" or "target" of an investigation, as defined above, to testify personally before the grand jury ordinarily should be given favorable consideration, provided that such witness explicitly waives his or her privilege against self-incrimination, on the record before the grand jury, and is represented by counsel or voluntarily and knowingly appears without counsel and consents to full examination under oath. ...

9-11.153 Notification of Targets

When a target is not called to testify pursuant to USAM 9-11.150, and does not request to testify on his or her own motion see USAM 9-11.152), the prosecutor, in appropriate cases, is encouraged to notify such person a reasonable time before seeking an indictment in order to afford him or her an opportunity to testify before the grand jury, subject to the conditions set forth in USAM 9-11.152. Notification would not be appropriate in routine clear cases or when such action might jeopardize the investigation or prosecution because of the likelihood of flight, destruction or fabrication of evidence, endangerment of other witnesses, undue delay or otherwise would be inconsistent with the ends of justice.

If Karl Rove is testifying before that grand jury, is a "target," has not received a "target letter" and has not waived his unenforceable "right" to receive such a letter, the special prosecutor is almost certainly acting against many "encouragements" included in these guidelines.

FURTHER UPDATE: The New York Times says that it was the special prosecutor, not Karl Rove, who wanted Mr. Rove to testify again:

The special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case has summoned Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, to return next week to testify to a federal grand jury in a step that could mean charges will be filed in the case, lawyers in the case said Thursday.

(emphasis added)

Posted 11:15 AM by Robert

Harriet, Meet Byron and Robert II

InstaPundit's link to the predecessor of this post (a link that I appreciate) comes with Glenn's note that he finds the comparisons of Ms. Miers to Byron White and Robert Jackson less than fully convincing.

I agree with Glenn.

At least, I agree with him if the comparison he describes is taken as arguing that because Robert Jackson didn't have a law degree, or because Byron White was a corporate lawyer and a personal friend of the president who appointed him, Harriet Miers must therefore be well-qualified.

But I think it's obvious that my post argues for no such sweeping conclusion - and I think Glenn is right to warn his readers not to make that kind of thing out of it. The post is instead directed at countering some specific arguments made by Ms. Miers' critics by adducing evidence that (i) accomplishment later is life (especially in the case of Justice Jackson) can be a very good substitute for whatever evidence of qualification for the Court service that is provided by a law degree or faculty appointment, (ii) close friendship with the president (especially in the case of Justice White) is good evidence neither of cronyism or that such a justice will be impaired on the Court, and (iii) a pre-confirmation career not involving frequent considerations of constitutional law (in the case of both men) is not good evidence of any infirmity in dealing with constitutional law on the Court.

Abe Fortas - who is generally thought to have worked out badly on the Court - may be evidence at least partially supporting Ms. Miers' critics. Fortas is widely viewed as having been a crony of President Johnson and he had no judicial experience prior to his appointment to the Court. On the other hand, Fortas attended Yale Law School, joined the faculty there after graduation and argued important constitutional cases in the course of his Washington legal career. So Fortas had plenty of the "credentials" and other signs of competence that some of Harriet Miers' critics say they value. But he had less of the ethical fiber, personal integrity and sheer guts that seem to reinforce her being.

On the larger question of whether Ms. Miers is the best pick the president could have made, or even an acceptable pick, I have not yet made up my mind. In making up my mind I will most certainly not be employing the preposterous - one might say notorious - criteria and arguments of George Will. Mr. Will thinks: It is not important that [Ms. Miers] be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court's tasks. Mr. Will's thinking savors too much of Firesign Theater's High School Madness: "Give them a light, and they'll follow it anywhere. We think that is a fair, and a wise guy - rule to be gelded... guided ... by." Somehow, my copy of the Constitution omits that provision in Mr. Will's version about the importance of making Supreme Court appointments from some population of "leading lights of American jurisprudence" (whatever that means). My copy only says that the president has the important right to appoint to the Court, subject to the Senate's important right to advise and consent.

To understand just how preposterous Mr. Will's thinking is on this point it is worth noting that perhaps a handful of all persons ever appointed to the Supreme Court have been at the time of their appointments among the "leading lights of American jurisprudence." For a reality check, one might consider the fact that whether or not Harriet Miers is a "leading light," compared to the credentials of the justice she is replacing, Harriet Miers is a supernova. Moreover, the performances of such luminaries as have been appointed to the Court have been uneven, to say the least. Justices Holmes and Cardozo were "leading lights," for example. While the best years of both lay behind them in state courts, Holmes did well enough in Washington, although some of his federal decisions (in antitrust, for example) are just embarrassing, almost wordplay. ("I could carve out of a banana a judge with more backbone than that," Teddy Roosevelt exhaled over Holmes' opinion in Northern Securities, a case under the Sherman Antitrust Act, an opinion that opens with: "What we have to do in this case is to find the meaning of some not very difficult words." Most people familiar with antitrust law consider Holmes to have rather badly missed the point, to put it charitably.) And very few observers view Cardozo's performance on the federal bench as anything special - although he had made quite a splash in New York.

Does a Harvard Law School mandarin such as Felix Frankfurter count as a "leading light" for George Will? Frankfurter performed credibly on the Court despite his lack of prior judicial experience. Justice Scalia has had a stellar run on the Court, and he was at least arguably a "leading light" as both an academic and an appellate judge before being elevated to the Court. But was it more "important" to the nation that the Senate confirmed Justices Douglas, Breyer or Ginsburg because they had been on major law school faculties? I don't think so. Larry Tribe and hundreds of other academic blowhards eager for judicial appointments would like to think so, but the republic is a lot better off with those leading lights shining on right where they are. Douglas became an anti-intellectual embarrassment on the Court. And so far Justices Breyer and Ginsburg have turned out to be almost cramped technicians who seem most concerned to function as the safe liberal votes President Clinton intended them to be, where the far less "qualified" Clarence Thomas generally runs rings around them as someone with a coherent vision of the constitution and law generally. If one can know a man by his enemies, it counts that micro-Senator Harry Reid publicly hates Justice Clarence Thomas. Prior academic luminescence doesn't seem to strongly correlate to exceptional performance on the Court.

Returning to Mr. Will, do we need evidence that Miers' nomination resulted from the president's careful consultation with people capable of "sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution" - which the president himself is not? Plenty of smart, fully aware people have advised Mr. Bush on such matters. What George Will means is that he doesn't like what Mr. Bush has done with that advice. But the Constitution correctly gives the decision to the president, not his advisers. And whatever Mr. Bush's deficiencies as a president may be, neither an inability to understand what is at stake in the choice among the currently popular ways of construing the Constitution (it's not rocket science) nor an insensitivity to the problems created by bad Supreme Court activism, are among them. His choice of John Roberts for Chief Justice, and his often and clearly expressed admiration for Justices Thomas and Scalia, are proof enough of that. Mr. Will's condescension is mostly unbecoming to Mr. Will - even a little bit creepy.

And did the president really "forfeit" his right as a "custodian of the Constitution" because he signed McCain-Feingold, as Mr. Will asserts? Even assuming that Mr. Bush should have resisted signing McCain-Feingold more than he did despite the overwhelming support of the bill in the Senate (which would likely have made a veto ineffective - a filibuster was ended by a cloture vote of 68-32), the president's foolish acceptance of a bad bill drafted by two misguided Senators and then passed by a large majority of those same silly people is hardly an argument for a bigger Senate role in populating the Supreme Court. And, again, my copy of the Constitution doesn't say anything about the president "forfeiting" any rights or responsibilities because he signs a bill somebody doesn't like - especially a bill whose constitutionality later survives Supreme Court review, as McCain-Feingold unfortunately has done so far.

I noted above that I haven't made my mind up about Harriet Miers. But this much I have decided: In such matters a clear head helps a lot, and to that end I definitely plan on keeping George Will's silliness as far from my thoughts as possible.

UPDATE: A very sensible article.

Posted 3:06 PM by Robert

Where's The Rumor?

It's autumn again! There's a snap in the air. New England trees are beginning preparations for their technicolor displays. Birds are flying south. And, of course, Brad Delong is predicting that Herr Doktorprofessor Paul Von Krugman will win the Nobel Prize in economics this year, just as he did at this time in 2003 and again in 2004 - although he did diversify his bet last year into near-meaninglessness when he formulated it this way:

I think that we should be thinking not in terms of people but of fields, and the Bhagwati-Dixit-Krugman Nobel looks to me like the best bet. (Of course, it seemed to me to be the best bet last year.)

Uh, sure, Brad, whatever you say.

But wait! This year pleas to the Corpulent Oracle of Berkeley to prognostify on Herr Doktorprofessor's Nobel chances are met with only the silence of the tomb!

What's wrong? Not even a heavily diluted prediction? Is Herr Doktorprofessor's name not written in the chicken entrails at all this year? Nothing in the rumor mill to post - nothing at all? What could have changed? Dear me! Dear me!

Given the sometimes hysterically anti-American tenor of some Nobel awards (Jimmy Carter for Peace? Please.) it is not inconceivable that the Nobelists might extend their blessings to Herr Doktorprofessor. The people who award the economics prize are not, of course, the same loons who hand out the Literature and Peace Nobels - but some economics prize picks have been pretty strange in their own right.

There may be another reason Plump Brad isn't plumping for Herr Doktorprofessor this year. Sweden is, after all, a member of the EU, which was rocked this year by the defeat of its purported "constitution" in various referenda, especially in France - largely on fears relating to possible and feared effects of international trade. It’s hard to imagine that this Nobel committee wasn't aware of the fuss. So it seems an appropriate time to repeat some observations I made at the time of that constitutional defeat:

Within the past few weeks the Man Without Qualities has spent a good deal of time in France, where the EU Constitution is in trouble, largely (but not solely, more on that in a subsequent post) on concerns regarding international trade. ... There's lots of argument and discussion going on. Cafes, homes, faculty lounges, commuter trains - you name it - percolate with Constitutional chatter and especially chatter about international trade. And from the airiest and most gaseous academic to the most loquacious cabby, absolutely nobody in France is talking about anything Herr Doktorprofessor Paul Von Krugman ever wrote, thought or believed. How can this be? Herr Doktorprofessor's most important works by far are supposedly his early papers in international trade and competition (as discussed here and here and here). In those early papers Herr Doktorprofessor crafted a new way of viewing international trade - one that supposedly displaced old fashioned David Ricardo's comparative advantage "factors" such as relative costs of production, labor and other inputs with fancier concepts like "home market effect." ... The Constitution's advocates do not speak of "home market effects" or other Krugmania in answer to economic arguments proffered by the Constitution's opponents. Nor do the Constitution's pro-business advocates tremble at the thought that the "comparative advantage" factor considerations (which those advocates count on to increase competition and the profitable flow of investment to Eastern Europe) will be swamped by Herr Doktorprofessor's fancy theories. ... Herr Doktorprofessor Paul Von Krugman could not be less relevant to this very real world debate - and yet this is the kind of debate in which his most important theories are supposed to have paramount significance. One may contrast the insignificance of Herr Doktorprofessor's work on its home turf with the very real and important work of Nobelist Robert Mundell. His work formed the basis of the creation of the Euro and all discussions of the Euro (and most discussion of world currency issues generally) use his thinking and insights in many essential ways every single day. .... And neither [do] the EU ... debates involve a word about Herr Doktorprofessor's "New Geography." It's all about the Old Geography. You know, what's really, geometrically, located close to something else. As in: ... The EU is all about Europe and how Europeans should relate to each other. Yet Herr Doktorprofessor himself wrote about his still-born baby that the field has been given a big boost in particular by plans to unify the European market. Odd, then that nobody in France is talking about "the field" now - at least not in Herr Doktorprofessor's terms or framework. .... As the French and Dutch referenda approach, one might think that Herr Doktorprofessor, at least, would weigh in on the applicability of his work on the economics of international trade. After all, he has a New York Times column at his disposal. The topic is timely, interesting - even fascinating. He, himself, has argued that his work has special relevance to the EU - especially Herr Doktorprofessor's "New Geography", since "the field has been given a big boost in particular by plans to unify the European market." And the need is urgent - since the French supporters of the Constitution are in disarray and throwing in the towel! How can this be when the fate of the Constitution is admitted by all sides to turn in large measure on considerations of international trade - and Herr Doktorprofessor's essential contributions have not even been discussed by anyone at all! But Herr Doktorprofessor is silent! Yes, the fact appears to be that the most important works of Herr Doktorprofessor Paul Von Krugman are so utterly and completely irrelevant to the current international trade discussions pertaining to the EU Constitution that even Herr Doktorprofessor doesn't think they're worth the mention in one of his own columns.Sad, that. Of course, he recently wrote a column on Chinese/US trade and currency matters. That column didn't invoke a word of his own work (even indirectly) on either international trade or currency, either. Perhaps Herr Doktorprofessor has learned in at least this one area the wisdom of Dirty Harry's sage maxim: A man has to know his limitations. ...

The Man Without Qualities is fully aware of the silly talk that circulates about Paul Krugman maybe winning the Nobel Prize someday, and not just from the intellectually flatulent Brad Delong. For example, Greg Mankiw recently said: I was a junior staffer in the Reagan administration. Two members of the senior staff were Krugman and (former Harvard economics professor, Clinton Treasury Secretary and current Harvard president Lawrence) Summers. At that time he was a brilliant economist. I thought he'd win a Nobel prize. I think there's a good chance he still will. His early work on international trade theory deserves it. Perhaps Professor Mania meant what he said and I am wrong. But I think it is more likely that Professor Mania was anointing himself with the balm of reason in the form of a suggestion he believes is highly improbable while elsewhere in this interview absolutely savaging Herr Doktorprofessor as a kind of Jerry Springer manque.

In any event, it would be amusing to see the Nobel Prize committee explaining such an award after what appears at this time to be a looming EU Constitution debacle: "And, most of all, we have given this award to Paul Krugman as the only international economist whose work featured in no significant manner in the discussions or analyses leading up to the recent EU Constitutional catastrophe!"

It would take a lot of top drawer anti-Bush palaver from Herr Doktorprofessor to get the often anti-American Nobel Committee to choke that nugget down. In any event, I take as evidence (but far from proof) that Professor Mankiw was speaking tongue in cheek the fact that he mentions absolutely nothing for which Herr Doktorprofessor's work is or has been used. Such allusions to the use of complimented work are normal in genuine comments of this type. For example, if Professor Mankiw had opined that the work of Nobelist Robert Mundell deserved that Prize, the compliment would naturally and likely have been accompanied with a brief statement along the lines of "His work formed the basis of the creation of the Euro and all discussions of the Euro use his thinking and insights in many essential ways every single day." In addition, Paul Krugman himself seems to consider his own work in currency - not international trade - his strongest.

Time will tell. And not that much time, at that.

A RUMOR: But it's just from the nutty, left-wing Guardian:

Here is a shortlist of economists who are good contenders for this year's prize: Robert Barro, Jagdish Bhagwati, Eugene Fama, Paul Krugman and Paul Romer.

Of course, nutty, left wing people can sometimes be correct, especially when predicting an award of a prize given out by other people who are often nutty, left-wing types.

Krugman over Fama? O, lordy, lordy.

Posted 8:50 AM by Robert

Lapsed What?

Each of the Washington Post and New York Times runs a front page story today detailing how Harriet Miers became a born-again Christian and suggesting how that conversion may be important in understanding her personality and future performance on the Supreme Court. Isn't that nice? Are the two stories really describing the same woman?

Times:

"She decided that she wanted faith to be a bigger part of her life," Justice Hecht, who now serves on the Texas Supreme Court, said in an interview. "One evening she called me to her office and said she was ready to make a commitment" to accept Jesus Christ as her savior and be born again, he said. He walked down the hallway from his office to hers, and there amid the legal briefs and court papers, Ms. Miers and Justice Hecht "prayed and talked," he said. She was baptized not long after that, at the Valley View Christian Church. Ms. Miers, born Roman Catholic, became an evangelical Christian and began identifying more with Republicans than with the Democrats who had long held sway over Texas politics. She joined the missions committee of her church, which is against legalized abortion, and friends and colleagues say she rarely looked back at her past as a Democrat.

Post:

Hecht remembers that when Miers made partner at their law firm, the first woman ever to do so, she began to question what life was all about. He said they would often put their feet up and trade Big Questions: Is there a God? Who is He? What difference does it make? Miers had attended Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches as a girl, and her mother was religious, but Miers told Hecht she wanted a "deeper faith."Hecht believes she may have supported abortion rights at the time, although he said she had not thought about it much. "Well, let's go to my church," Hecht told her. That was Valley View, where Hecht played the organ and taught Sunday school.

Well, at least the two papers agree that Valley View got her in the end. If it is worth while doing a big spread on the supposed significance of a candidate's religious orientation, isn't it worth while getting right what faith she left as well the one she joined?

But I don't think all this poking around in Ms. Miers' religious orientation is such a good thing at this time of her nomination. The United States Constitution expressly prohibits religious tests for federal appointments - a prohibition that some members of the Senate came awfully close to flouting at least in spirit, as it were, during the Roberts confirmation. That Constitutional prohibition hasn't lapsed. Yet the Times and the Post both seem eager to encourage public pressure on the Senate to disregard that Constitutional imperative even more egregiously this time out, especially by suggesting that Ms. Miers should be presumed to share this-or-that tenet of what may generally be believed at Valley View.

But the Constitutional provision is not the whole story by any means. If there is any "zone of privacy" left to one taking high public office, surely that zone encompasses one's religion. Ms. Miers seems a rather private woman, and she has not, to my knowledge, indicated that she wants the media to invade her privacy in this respect. Yet, just as the Times was caught investigating John Roberts' adoption of his two children - an almost inexpressibly contemptible violation of his and their privacy - we now have front page stories about Ms. Miers' religious orientation and trumpeting how significant that orientation is in understanding her suitability for the Supreme Court.

This is not meet. This is not right. This is not just. At least not in my book it isn't.

IT'S GETTING MORE AND MORE COMPLICATED:

Another good reason to stay away from questions concerning someone's religious orientation:

Miss Miers left Valley View three weeks ago, when Mr. Key, 57, was ejected over what he termed "leadership differences." The new Supreme Court nominee is one of about 200 people who followed him to a new congregation of former Valley View members, who are meeting temporarily at a DoubleTree Hotel in north Dallas. The new group has no name yet.

Miss Miers also attends several Episcopal congregations, including her family's parish, the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation in Dallas.

When in Washington, she usually attends the 9 a.m. service across the street from the White House at St. John's Episcopal Church, which Mr. Bush frequently attends. Justice Hecht said he also occasionally accompanies her to services at Christ Episcopal Church in Alexandria.

An Arlington resident, Miss Miers has contributed to the Falls Episcopal Church in nearby Falls Church. She went there at least once in 2001, administrator Bill Deiss said. The Falls Church, a passionately evangelical congregation, is very similar to Valley View.

"Miss Miers has contributed to the Falls Episcopal Church in nearby Falls Church?" How did the Washington Times bring itself to publish this? Is it supposed to be analogous to revealing that she gave money to Democrats?

Yech.

The Episcopal Diocese of Dallas has most recently been in the national news over its recent vote to withhold $512,000 from the national church to protest the election of a gay episcopal bishop and then joining the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes - a network some say is designed to fight for biblical teachings within the national church framework, but which many see as a base for a future Episcopal schism. A Dallas diocese spokesman told The Dallas Morning Morning News. "A majority of our delegates disagree with the policies of the national church."

Dallas area Episcopalians certainly do seem to have their own way. One former Dalls parish - St. Mary the Virgin, originally known as St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church - became part of the Diocese of Ft. Worth when the Dallas Diocese was divided. Then it left the Episcopal Church to join the Roman Catholic Church as a Personal Parish for the Anglican Use, under terms of the Pastoral Provision of 1980. St. Mary's was the first Episcopal Parish to transfer into the Roman Catholic Church, and retained its property in so doing. Most Washington area Episcopalians probably wouldn't think about doing that kind of thing.

So at least all this focus on Ms. Miers religious orientation has demonstrated that she is one of those typical current or former Episcopalian/Presbyterian/Catholic/Evangelical types from the Dallas-Fort Worth or Washington areas who are always leaving or joining or attending churches all the time for one reason or another.

Good thing we cleared that all up. Now we have a clear window into the woman's thinking and will no longer have to peer into her soul as through a glass darkly.

Right?

Posted 9:09 AM by Robert

Harriet, Meet Byron and Robert

There has been some fussing in the media over the fact that Harriet Miers has never been a judge, has spent her career as a corporate attorney and is a personal friend of the President. Does any of that sound familiar?

Think Byron White.

During World War II, Byron White was an officer in naval intelligence, serving most of his duty in the South Pacific. White then formed a friendship with another young officer named John F. Kennedy.

Following the war White returned to Yale Law School. After a successful career as a corporation lawyer, White entered politics in 1960, heading a Kennedy movement that helped the soon-to-be president win Colorado. Kennedy later appointed his "crony" White as deputy attorney general.

White never served on the judiciary. Then, on March 30, 1962, President Kennedy appointed Byron White associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court at age 44. He served for 31 years, retired in March 1993 and in most quarters is thought to have done a very good job.

Or think Robert Jackson.

Robert Jackson never earned a law degree. He was admitted to the bar in 1913 after a brief period of study at Albany law school. In 1934, he was appointed general counsel of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. From 1936 to 1938 he served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the antitrust division. Jackson then became (1938) Solicitor General and, in 1940, U.S. Attorney General. Imagine - a 20th Century Solicitor General and Attorney General of the United States who didn't even have a law degree! Cronyism run amok! Jackson, too, never held judicial office until 1941 - when his crony Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to the Supreme Court - and he didn't even have a law degree! Justice Jackson is widely thought to be one of the best justices who ever occupied that bench.

MORE

Posted 8:17 AM by Robert

Louisiana Democratic Party: Swept Away (By an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August) V

Well, glory be! The New York Times awakes to the most significant political consequence of the recent Gulf hurricanes: The likely sweeping away of the Louisiana Democratic Party. As noted in prior posts (here and here and here and here). This consequence of the hurricanes has, of course, been the most important factor driving all political maneuvering and even the form of aid relief, in the area for the past month. And such population effects profoundly influence many of the considerations Herr Doktorprofessor Paul Von Krugman fussed about in his last column without ever catching on. (Hint to Herr Doktorprofessor: Louisiana Democrats don't want hurricane victims to have rent vouchers or other aid that can be used out of state.) Now the Times is taking notice of it. Isn't that nice? Here's what the old Gray Lady has to say:

BATON ROUGE, La., Oct. 3 - The two recent gulf hurricanes may result in a significant loss of population for Louisiana, and state officials are now virtually certain that Louisiana will lose a Congressional seat ... after the 2010 census. .... A dependable number will have to wait until the 2010 census. The numbers available now, however, are staggering. About 1.5 million people were initially evacuated from the damaged regions, [and] roughly 1 million have applied for hurricane-related federal aid ....

Many politicians are also keeping a close eye on population movement within the state. .... There are now 21 seats in the [Louisiana State] House and Senate that encompass or touch on Orleans Parish, of 144 total seats statewide. But if the population fails to return to the parish in coming years, New Orleans may be confined to just a few seats in each chamber... That could change the state's racial and partisan balance.

If evacuees from the Ninth Ward in New Orleans - a reliable bloc of 30,000 black voters that is traditionally easy to mobilize - choose suburban or rural areas over their urban roots in coming years, it could be a political blow to Democrats, said Roy Fletcher, a political consultant from Shreveport who helped elect former Gov. Mike Foster, a Republican. .... Barry Erwin, president of a Council for a Better Louisiana, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that monitors the activities of state government, said such a change could forever alter the political landscape. ....

Of course, the Times still hasn't figured out that if the current numbers foreshadow the actual Louisiana population in the near future, Democrats are going to have lots of trouble holding onto the seats of Mary Landrieu in 2008 and Kathleen Babineaux Blanco in 2009. But today's Times story is still progress, even if it evidences only semi-consciousness of the matters it concerns.

Posted 7:04 PM by Robert

March Of The Puffins!

March of the Penguins has kicked up a surprising amount of political snow with the New York Times honking and squealing at itself in unison across the supposedly inviolate news/opinion membrane to lament the embrace of this movie by some conservatives for its supposedly family friendly, pro-life messages. Conservatives have pointed out penguin hypocrisy of the left. Battle is joined!

Well, whatever side of this new cold bird war one is on, there is the issue of penguin monogamy. Or, rather, the lack of it - or much of it, anyway. The fact is that after all those unspeakably cute mating rituals and rearing of the young depicted in the movie, most penguin parents go their own separate ways after just one mating season. Emperors are the most unfaithful of all penguins: 78 percent of mating pairs go their separate ways after only one year! After that, its back to the singles bar on whatever ice floe comes by for next year's mate. This is a model for traditional marriage? We need a better bird! The problem is, all those conservatives have been looking in the wrong hemisphere!

Have I got a cold climate bird for social conservatives on the look out for incredibly cute cold water fowl that come with a fine moral message attached: Not penguins - Puffins!

Puffins actually have similar coloring, and most of the cute features, of penguins. But puffins can also fly 48 to 55 mph (77 to 88 km/hr). The puffin beats its wings rapidly to achieve this speed reaching up to 400 beats a minute. The wings can move so fast that they become a blur, giving a flying puffin the appearance of a black and white football. How cute is that?!

Like their antipodal analogs, puffins lay 1 egg per year. But, unlike socially flighty penguins, puffins usually keep the same mate every season and use the same burrow as in previous years! And the male and female share the duties of incubating the egg and rearing the chick.

Puffins, I tell you. Puffins.

Posted 8:13 AM by Robert

Error Times

Don Luskin identifies several express errors included in Gail Collins' A Letter From the Editor: It All Goes on the Permanent Record - which describes a new corrections policy while finally correcting some past errors, including Paul Krugman's notorious phony Florida election numbers.

It's certainly nice to see an obvious error or two corrected, but I am not optimistic that the new policy will be enforced by Ms. Collins because the old policy was not enforced by Ms. Collins. Already Don links to EU Rota, who notes a slew of recent whoppers from Herr Doktorprofessor and Maureen Dowd that have not been corrected.

Ms. Collin's also errs by egregious omission in her misleading description of how the new policy came about. She makes it seem as though each and every one of the Timesfolk involved were always trying to get things right, but there are practical restraints (there are just 700 words in those columns, you understand) and that this new policy is just the latest good faith effort to do that. (We correct all errors, from heart-stoppingly egregious to sublimely insignificant, because we believe that The Times should take its reputation for accuracy seriously. It's also an important discipline. ... blah, blah, blah) Omitted is any reference to the bludgeonings the Times' Public Editor Byron Calame has needed to deliver - including his frank statement that Ms. Collins was not enforcing the old policy. Nor does Ms. Collins include any reference to Don Luskin's efforts, although he is quite clearly the major actor responsible for the chain of events leading to the creation of Ms. Collins' new policy.

So now Ms. Collins is going to oversee A "For the Record" column of errata [that] will run under the editorials whenever it's appropriate. But Ms. Collins herself is very much a part of the problems with the Times editorial page. The reasoning in her "letter" does not augur well for the new policy, even where she corrects gross mistakes. Even when making corrections she displays serious problems in judgment, as with this example:

Although there have been multitudinous references throughout the media to [Joe Allbaugh, the former FEMA director, and his successor Michael Brown] as former college chums or college roommates, they in fact went to different schools. A spokeswoman for Mr. Allbaugh says that while they have been close pals for a long time, they met after graduation. Obviously, if we're debating the serious issue of allegations about cronyism at FEMA, a friend is a friend whether the relationship was born off campus or on.

But nobody would have been shocked to learn that Mr. Allbaugh had hired someone he had known and liked for a long time. John Roberts, for example, is apparently personally known and liked by almost everyone in Washington - and that very quality of the man has been viewed as an asset. Nor was it a bad thing that George Bush is a personal friend of Harriet Miers. Contrary to Ms. Collin's thinking, mere friendship, as such, does not necessarily suggest cronyism. The shocking thing about Mr. Brown's hire was exactly that the he enjoyed a friendship with Mr. Allbaugh said to have been forged under circumstances in which friendships are often forged for reasons quite inconsistent with the jobs these two men were to perform in the federal government.

Some friends are not just friends. The political effect of the media's representing the Brown/Allbaugh friendship as originating in their having been college roommates was hardly more damaging than an allegation that their friendship was rooted in sexual infatuation would have been. Yet, if the friendship had been represented as forged when both men came to know and admire each other while in public service (for example), their friendship would likely have had no political consequence at all in the aftermath of Katrina.

Just who does Ms. Collins think she's kidding?

Posted 2:05 PM by Robert

So What's New With Judith?

There has been lots of chattering about Judith Miller's recent release from jail and her testimony in the Plame non-case among those who care to chatter about such things. And God bless their little chattering hearts and fingers, each and every one.

As the mainstream media and various bloggers describe in excruciating detail (and, as Maguire capably points out, often excruciatingly incorrect detail), none of the explanations proffered by the Times (or, really, anyone else) as to why Ms. Miller ever when to jail in the first place make much sense - still less any explanation as to why she agreed to testify.

The partial exception is the obvious one: Whatever her reasons for going to jail in the first place may have been, 85 days of confinement made her realize those reasons were just as stupid as everyone had been suggesting they were. Such effects on recalcitrant witnesses of time in the pokey is, after all, why courts put witnesses who refuse to testify in jail in the first place: Long incarceration tends to make them agree to testify. If several hundred years of practical experience did not evidence the effectiveness of the technique, courts probably couldn't be bothered using it now. The whole procedure, after all, is pretty expensive, messy and time consuming.

But I would like to note another central element that changed between day 1 and day 85: Everybody, including the Times, pretty much stopped talking much about the Plame non-matter and how the Plame non-matter might affect the president during that period, especially in the weeks towards the end. So perhaps the correct explanation runs something like this:

The entire Plame non-matter has always been a trivial non-issue that has been kept not-quite-alive by dogged efforts of the president's critics in the mainstream media solely as a talking points gimmick. The New York Times has very much been part of that effort - even a leader of it. As part of that effort, the Times purported to adopt and/or endorse the preposterous and hyper-sensitive policies on pseudo-coerced waivers that led to Ms. Miller's incarceration.

But then something odd happened: With its reporter rotting in the special prosecutor's tank, the New York Times and everyone else eventually got completely distracted, lost all interest in the Plame non-matter and began to treat it as the non-matter it always has been. The Times actually mentioned "Plame" on September 3 (an Op-Ed piece by Bob Dole, of all people, pleading for Ms. Miller's release) - and then went to sleep without a single story on this urgent non-matter until September 30, when the paper of record startled itself awake to "report" that what's-her-name would be released from jail and testify. (The Washington Post absent mindedly included a few references to Plame of the "Oh, yeah, also ..." variety in the same period.)

Perhaps, just before the last flickering of institutional memory went out, somebody at the Times - maybe Mr. Bill Keller - woke up to a thought along the lines of:

"Gee, since nobody gives a rat's ass anymore about that Plum affair... (or is it Plume? ... Flame? ... Flambe? ... well, whatever - I'll look it up on Google when I get to the office), maybe there's no point in leaving old what's-her-name, our 1st Amendment heroine (note to self: Google) locked in Fitzgerald's iron mask? Must ask Pinch."

And he did ask Pinch! And Pinch replied - right after being reminded who what's her-name actually was and why the Times had thought it was a good idea to order her (I mean, support her decision) to go to jail rather than testify:

Keller, you're right! I knew there had to be reason why I made you editor! Get that girl out of the klink as soon as you can! Tell them everything's changed! Tell them anything! Tell them that Libby .. or Liddy … or whoever got all non-coerced or something, just like you just said! Better yet, tell them that what's-her-name had to wait for Liddy or whoever to come to her cell and give his release in person - so she could make sure he wasn't crossing his fingers behind his back when he gave it! God, I'm good! Make it happen, Keller - and have my assistant send me in another $50 cigar!

Yes, as New York Times superstar columnist Herr Doktorprofessor Paul Von Krugman says: That's the way it was. It's all true. It's all backed up by one of those technical journals Herr Doktorprofessor sometimes tells us he subscribes to. They did a computer model or something.

Posted 1:51 PM by Robert

Manufacturing: US Growth Industry

In case you needed a reminder on the topic, this is one is from the Economist:

The decline of manufacturing in rich countries is a more complex story than the piles of Chinese-made goods in shops suggest. Manufacturing output continues to expand in most developed countries—in America, by almost 4% a year on average since 1991. Despite the rise in Chinese exports, America is still the world's biggest manufacturer, producing about twice as much, measured by value, as China.