A good op-ed today (via Jeremy) about the nomination of Harriet Miers.
Even a star quarterback with years of high school and college football under his belt takes years of experience and hard knocks to develop the knowledge and instincts needed to survive in the NFL. The Supreme Court is the big league of the legal profession, and Ms. Miers has never even played the judicial equivalent of high school ball, much less won a Heisman Trophy.
Ms. Miers would be well qualified for a seat on a court of appeals, where she could develop a grasp of all these important issues. She would then have to decide what role text and original meaning should play in constitutional interpretation in the context of close cases and very difficult decisions. The Supreme Court is no place to confront these issues for the very first time.
I mean, you would think that after the FEMA debacle he might want to pick someone highly qualified. Roberts was a start. With this one, I'm just speechless.
More food for thought: Bush once described Miers as a "pittbull in size six shoes". (Let's look beyond the thinly veiled sexism here for a moment...). I don't know about you, but when I think "pitbull", I think stubborn, tenacious and loyal. While this probably makes for a great defense attorney, these aren't the characteristics I would typically look for in a Supreme Court Justice. (I would much prefer objective and well-reasoned!)
Half-cocked adds:
Definitely one of the most bizarre nominations I've ever seen especially only weeks after another crony appointee botched the federal relief effort after Katrina and then blatantly committed perjury in front of the partisan congressional hearings last week. One of the big differences between the Clinton Administration and the current one is that Clinton's crony appointees wound up in the dark recesses of the Commerce Dept. or HUD where they couldn't do a whole lot of damage. Bush's wind up on the front lines.
Jeremy also posted some great commentary yesterday. Choice quote:
She ran the Texas Lottery Commission, which sounds a lot like the Arabian Horse Show, or whatever it is that Michael Brown ran. Was Michael Brown's demonstrated incompetence not enough to prove that maybe, just maybe, the President's friends are not the best people to be in top positions in this country?
My theory? Roberts was the ultimate nominee, so anyone who gets nominated next is going to pale in comparison. So W purposefully puts out an unqualified candidate that he probably doesn't expect Senate approval on. If she does manage to get confirmed, great. If not, at least his next nominee is compared to Miers and not Roberts.
Or maybe Bill Maher is right... he just doesn't know anyone else. Can't you just picture him sitting there on the couch, trying not to choke on a pretzel while coming up with a second nominee? "Hey, Harriet's a lawyer! Can't she do it? She even has a brother named Jeb!"
More (serious?) discussion is available through SCOTUSBlog's roundup.