Not that she needs to; I’ll be shocked if she isn’t confirmed. But Charles Krauthammer makes some good points:

To serve in Congress, or even as president, there is no requirement for scholarship and brilliance. For good reason. It is not needed. It can even be a hindrance, as we learned from our experience with Woodrow Wilson, the most intellectually accomplished president of the 20th century and also the worst.

But constitutional jurisprudence is different. It is, by definition, an exercise of intellect steeped in scholarship. Otherwise it is nothing but raw politics. And is it not the conservative complaint that liberals have abused the courts by having them exercise raw super-legislative power, the most egregious example of which is the court’s most intellectually bankrupt ruling, Roe v. Wade ?

Miers will surely shine in her Judiciary Committee hearings, but that is because expectations have been set so low. If she can give a fairly good facsimile of John Roberts’s testimony, she’ll be considered a surprisingly good witness. But what does she bring to the bench?

This James Thayer piece on Seattle’s failed monorail project (they already have one monorail, some song and dance guy convinced them they needed another) just tickles me.

Bryan Curtis has a great profile of Bill Simmons up at Slate.

Personally, I’ve always thought of Simmons as the Matt Labash of sports writing.

It’s like before plastic surgery and after. Get rid of those wrinkles!

Ann Coulter agrees that SMU matters (a little):

. . . even if you take seriously William F. Buckley’s line about preferring to be governed by the first 200 names in the Boston telephone book than by the Harvard faculty, the Supreme Court is not supposed to govern us. Being a Supreme Court justice ought to be a mind-numbingly tedious job suitable only for super-nerds trained in legal reasoning like John Roberts. Being on the Supreme Court isn’t like winning a “Best Employee of the Month” award. It’s a real job. . . .

To be sure, if we were looking for philosopher-kings, an SMU law grad would probably be preferable to a graduate from an elite law school. But if we’re looking for lawyers with giant brains to memorize obscure legal cases and to compose clearly reasoned opinions about ERISA pre-emption, the doctrine of equivalents in patent law, limitation of liability in admiralty, and supplemental jurisdiction under Section 1367 – I think we want the nerd from an elite law school. Bush may as well appoint his chauffeur head of NASA as put Miers on the Supreme Court.

We all knew that Danielle Crittenden was super smart and a great writer, but who knew she could bring the funny? Here she channels Donald Trump’s thoughts on the Miers nomination. Think Darrell Hammond while reading:

The President has nominated his longtime assistant, Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court. He did not ask for my input on this one, nor did I offer it. But as someone who has done a lot of appointing to very important positions within the Trump Organization, I can see why he made the choice he did.

Anyone who has watched my hit TV show, The Apprentice, knows how much I rely on my own assistant, Carolyn Kepcher. She’s as loyal as a Labrador Retriever. In the cut-throat world of high-finance and billion-dollar deals, that kind of loyalty counts for a lot. I feel the same way about Carolyn as the President does about Harriet. I’m comfortable with her and would trust her with any task I assigned her. If you think of the President of the United States as the CEO of an even more global empire than my own—which isn’t to say mine isn’t big, I’m just using an analogy here—then the Supreme Court is like a board of directors. And Harriet Miers is exactly the reliable, trustworthy sort of person any world-class executive would want on his board. . . .

As for the conservatives who object to Harriet Miers: I’m warning you guys. You’re acting like one of the losing teams in my boardroom. I’ve seen this before. Harriet is the quiet, nothing candidate everyone else ignores until the last two or three rounds of the season. Then suddenly everyone looks at her with surprise and asks themselves, “How did she end up here?”

It’s about loyalty, people. And knowing your boss.

David Frum continues and points us to John Yoo’s Washington Post op-ed. Here’s Frum quoting Yoo, and then moving on:

“[A]ccording to press reports, she did not win a reputation as a forceful conservative on issues such as the administration’s position on stem cell research or affirmative action.”

Yoo is referring here to the case of Grutter v. Bollinger, a challenge to the constitutionality of preferential treatment for minorities in education. Many in the administration wanted to take a strong stand in favor of color-blindness. In the end, the administration faltered and argued that racial preferences are okay, up to a point. It is hard to imagine a more central issue to modern legal conservatives. Where was Miers? On the wrong side.

Inside the White House, Miers was best known, not as a conservative, not as a legal thinker, but as a petty bureaucrat.

When Beldar tells you that he knows people in Texas who know Miers, remember that Frum and other former White House people know her, too. I’m unsure why distant memories from a trial judge who had her in his court should be valued over the observations of people who worked with her very recently.

Here is Frum’s devastating conclusion:

Some NRO readers have challenged me: Why should we trust you when you say that Miers is not qualified rather than trust the president when he says she is?

My answer is: Don’t trust me. Trust your own eyes. The woman is 61 years old, a lawyer for more than three decades. Can you see any instance in this long life and career where Miers ever took a risk on behalf of conservative principle? Can you see any indication of intellectual excellence? Did she ever do anything brave, anything that took backbone? Did anyone before this week ever describe her as oustanding in any way at all?

If the answers to these questions is No, as it is, then you have to ask yourself: Why is a Republican president bypassing so many dozens of superb legal conservatives to choose Harriet Miers for the highest court in the land?

Good question.

From the Tonight Show:

Bush said he looked into her heart and knows she won’t change in the next twenty years. But twenty years ago, she was a Democrat!