Is That Legal?

Great point! By what are you proving? That George W. Bush is not entirely truthful and plays dumb quite frequently? Didn't we know that already.

BUSH: In my interviews with any judge, I never ask their personal opinion on the subject of abortion.

Since Harriet Miers isn’t a judge, how can this statement not be true?

I have a question that is a bit of a tangent, but it does have to do with the Supreme Court. I'm hoping that the big brain conlaw scholars that comment here -- or run the website -- might address it.

Conservatives frequently caution that Supreme Court justices ONLY move left and become more liberal with age once they're on the court. They typically mention O'Connor or Warren as examples. Is this true? That is, are there really no examples of one-time liberal or moderate Supreme Court justices that moved to the right? (I realize that left-right & liberal-conservative don't necessarily lend themselves to constitutional discussions, but I trust people know what I'm asking here.)

For example, didn't Frankfurter become more conservative in his last years? Or was it that the justices that surrounded Frankfurter increasingly became more liberal (making the consistent Frankfurter look conservative)?

I guess I read that exchange differently than some do. The exchange shows only that Bush very carefully denied two small facts and was expressly non-committal on the broader question that was actually asked.

In a deposition, a competent attorney would be all over those answers, and would follow up so as to exhaust/explore the broader possibilities. In sum: I don't see an outright lie so much as I see two answers much narrower than the question posed.

And there could be a legitimate reason for the narrow answer. Suppose the word "abortion" is mentioned in a conversation between them, but neither one of them is discussing his/her personal views or legal views on the topic. Is that a discussion about abortion? Also, given that this is a partisan blood sport, I would be extremely careful how I answered questions like that. Finally, I find it plausible in the post-Bork world that conservatives discuss Roe only very carefully, or that opposition to Roe literally goes without saying.

Since Bush ran on a platform emphasizing the need for the PBA ban, it wouldn't surprise me that there wasn't much conversation about the merits of the bill when it was presented. Do you think there'd be extensive discussions about something like that?

Perhaps the president knows enough about her as a person to know her opinion without asking. That does not seem unreasonable to me. I have several friends with whom I have not specifically discussed the issue, yet I am absolutely certain of their views on the subject.