A Special Guest Blog
Originally I had this idea of having a regular guest blogger chime in once or twice a week, simply because I’ve always been afraid of a blog-stagnation here and feel the need to stir things up, and felt an additional voice would be an easy way to toss in a surprise every so often… I would have gotten around to asking an Aussie, but it never happened.
I did get Dick Cheney to guest blog here once. I never invited him again, as he’s kind of a potty-mouth. At any rate, I now have plowed through the depths of Federalist Bloggers and think that Alexandar Hamilton has something he wants to say. I think he has some good words to say here and there:
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George W Bush, spelling out Harriet Mier’s qualifications: When I came to office as the governor of Texas, the lottery commission needed a leader of unquestioned integrity. I chose Harriet because I knew she would earn the confidence of the people of Texas. The Dallas Morning News said Harriet that insisted on a system that was fair and honest. She delivered results. […]
Harriet Miers has given generously of her time and talent by serving as a leader with more than a dozen community groups and charities, including the Young Women’s Christian Association, Childcare Dallas, Goodwill Industries, Exodus Ministries, Meals on Wheels and the Legal Aid Society. […]
I’ve known Harriet for more than a decade. I know her heart. I know her character. I know that Harriet’s mother is proud of her today. And I know her father would be proud of her, too.
To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.
It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entier branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.
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Alexander Hamilton was co-author of The Federalist Papers and member in good standing of the Federalist Party of George Washington and John Adams. Not to be confused with the deplorable Federalist Society.