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October 3, 2005

Harriet Miers, White House Counsel, for SCOTUS?

"Longtime Confidante of Bush Has Never Been a Judge," proclaims the New York Times, missing the point.

Come on. Even NPR's Nina Totenberg was quick to point out on air this morning that it is a fairly modern notion that the Justices of the Supreme Court must come from the lower courts. I believe Bush said it would be the 10th time in the last 35 that the nominee had never previously worn judicial robes.

The point is that this looks like cronyism. Bush's conservative base is saying it already (See Malkin, RedState, RightWingNews, etc), so you can imagine what is being said on the left. If it looks like cronyism, and it sounds like cronyism, well, is that smart for an administration that still looks foolish over Michael Brown's resume?

To be fair to the Times, they didn't mean that Ms Miers' lack of judicial experience would hamper her ability to be a successful Justice. They drew attention to her lack of judicial experience because it makes it difficult to provide evidence on how she would rule on those flashy cases that sell papers.

[She] therefore lacks a long history of judicial rulings that could reveal ideological tendencies. Her positions on such ideologically charged issues as abortion and affirmative action are not clear.

Sentiments echoed elsewhere on the left, er, in the media.

Without a judicial record, it's difficult to know whether Miers would dramatically move the court to the right. The lack of a judicial paper trail may also make it more difficult for Democrats to find ground upon which to fight her nomination.

But the fact is that this nominee, though apparently not a popular choice with anyone, is probably going to prove inoffensive enough to get by. I find myself looking over her bio and saying, sadly, "It could have been worse". Will this become the Bush legacy?

Wulf Posted by Wulf on October 3, 2005 at 09:16 AM

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It really doesn't matter who Bush nominated -- the left, the naysayers, and the pundits would all be tossing in their two-cents worth, regardless. However, I would guess that Bush is a tad smarter -- as he's proven time after time -- than what most believe; therefore, his selection has some special merit or political gamemenship that both his critics and supporters are unable to divine at the moment. We'll all get a pretty good idea soon enough. In the meantime, the knee-jerk reactions are less to be taken seriously than they are a source of amusement.

Posted by: SemperFi at October 3, 2005 6:38 PM

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