Beldar Puffs Miers’ Resume at politburo diktat 2.0

Beldar Puffs Miers’ Resume

My friends Don Surber and Beth Cleaver encouraged bloggers to read Beldar’s defense of Miers. Since I am concerned about her qualifications, rather than “Is she conservative enough?” I focused on Beldar’s post: Is Miers one in a million? A reply to Charles Krauthammer

First, I offer my condensed version of Beldar’s version of Miers’ resume. His full version follows.

* counsel to George Bush as governor and President

* president of Texas state bar association

* managing partner of Dallas-based law firm

* courtroom lawyer

* Undocumented: “regularly listed among the top 50 or 100 American lawyers in listings complied by national legal periodicals” (Beldar’s posts are lengthy. Please correct me if I missed his documentation.)

* a law clerk for federal district judge

* a published member and articles editor for law journal at her law school

* a very good student

Now, Beldar’s version, with the purely puffery modifiers in bold type:

* counsel to the President and to the governor of one of the most populous states, along with having competently executed several other high-level White House staff positions;

* president of both the state bar association in the Nation’s second largest state and of one of its most respected and active local bar associations, as well as having led valiant efforts to return a dysfunctional American Bar Association back to its roots of apolitical service to the profession and public;

* long-time managing partner of an extremely well regarded large Dallas-based law firm, which then became a successful 400+ lawyer statewide powerhouse after she oversaw a successful cross-state (”cross-state?” WTF? What if it had been a Montreal law firm? “international, trans-cultural, globalization-ready?”) merger with a Houston-based firm of comparable size and reputation;

* an accomplished courtroom lawyer, praised with words like “very good, cool, deliberate, poised, effective” by the judges before whom she’s appeared, with experience at both the trial and appellate level in both state and federal courts, capable of personally attracting repeat engagements from sophisticated clients like Microsoft and Disney, and regularly listed among the top 50 or 100 American lawyers in listings complied by national legal periodicals (linkee, please?);

* a law clerk for two years for a respected federal district judge, providing further insights into federal trial practice of a sort that no current member of the Court can claim; (Double WTF??? She clerked, so she has unique insight into federal trial practice?)

* a published member of, and then an articles editor for, the top law journal at her law school, noted for its comprehensive coverage of Texas law; and

* a “very thoughtful, very good student” who made “top marks” and could be counted on to give “solid, intelligent answer[s]” to “critical question[s],” according to a professor of hers, nationally recognized as an expert in business law, who 35 years after teaching her pronounced himself filled with “great satisfaction” to see her nominated to the Court. (What???? An old teacher said nice things about her??? “I rest my case.”)

AS Patterico says, “With friends like these …”

You know what I want? I want even Chuck Schumer to describe a SCOTUS nominee as “one of the most brilliant legal minds of the decade.” That’s what I want. None of this “good student” stuff.