Continuing yesterday’s thread on Harriet Miers, let’s start the morning with the two best pops. First, there’s Ramesh Ponnuru (again):

QUESTIONS FOR MIERS
Prior to this year, in the course of your legal career have you ever been involved in any Supreme Court litigation? Have you ever been consulted about such litigation? Has it ever occurred to anyone to consult you about it?

And then there’s Patterico:

2) To the “trust Bush” crowd: Bush signed an unconstitutional campaign finance reform law. Bush instructed Ted Olson to support affirmative action in an argument to the Supreme Court. Et cetera. So even if we “trust Bush,” we’re trusting him to carry out his own policy preferences, not to pick a judge who will read the Constitution as written.

3) Even if Miers would vote the “right” way, I just don’t have enough confidence in her candlepower, because I haven’t been given any reason to have confidence. The work at the Supreme Court is not easy. It is not a matter of simply picking the result you like and fashioning an opinion around that, and Justices who treat it that way are (in my opinion) the worst disasters of all — even when they sometimes vote “our” way. They make a mess of the law, and we all have to clean up that mess. . . .

5) A telling comment from Beldar (emphasis his):

Whether he’s right or wrong, Dubya clearly is more willing to rely on his own first-hand experience with Harriet Miers than on what others might tell him, or what he might deduce from the writings of, other potential nominees like Luttig or McConnell or Jones. It’s not his style to sit down and read the several dozen collected law review articles of McConnell or the collected judicial opinions of Luttig or Jones, and whoever else whose opinions he values are vouching for those folks, their vouching apparently hasn’t been enough (as it must have been with Roberts) to overcome his preference to go with someone he’s worked with elbow-to-elbow and face-to-face. To Dubya, McConnell and Luttig and Jones and candidates like them are the “unknown quantities.” They’re all more likely to be “potential Souters” from his point of view.

Right — because he’s too stupid and lazy to put in the work to figure out that they would be tremendous Justices. It’s “not his style” to make this decision intelligently.

Then there’s this old Legal Times article, which is full of interesting nuggets. Such as:

One former White House official familiar with both the counsel’s office and Miers is more blunt.

“She failed in Card’s office for two reasons,” the official says. “First, because she can’t make a decision, and second, because she can’t delegate, she can’t let anything go. And having failed for those two reasons, they move her to be the counsel for the president, which requires exactly those two talents.”

Those who have risen to defend the Miers choice have mostly centered their arguments around the notion that Miers will “vote right”–meaning, I suppose, that she’ll understand she’s in over her head and will simply follow Justice Roberts.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I always thought that conservative opposition to what has happened to our courts was based on an objection to liberalism’s fetish for outcome-based legal theory. That’s why conservatives have spent two generations producing heavyweight intellectual lawyers who could challenge the very underpinnings of legal progressivism. The goal–or so I thought–wasn’t simply to get enough votes on the Court to get “our” way on Issue X. It was to put great minds on the Court to challenge the prevailing legal culture.

To accept Miers simply because she votes “our” way is to accept the politicization of courts and to accept the progressive idea that outcomes should determine the course of law.

Bonus Bork Note: I’m not especially troubled by Miers’s list of political contributions–I get that she was a Democrat back before conservative Dems fled the party in the South. (Also, there’s nothing wrong with supporting or having supported Democrats–that shouldn’t be a disqualifier if a person is the best guy or gal for the job.)

But I would point out the irony of the fact that Robert Bork–a serious conservative legal mind–was rejected by Senate Democrats in October of 1987 with Senator Al Gore, among others, voting against.

Four months later, Miers gave Gore $1,000. Nine months after that she gave the DNC $1,000. So a woman who from an intellectual standpoint couldn’t carry Bork’s briefcase and who financially supported the Democrats who destroyed Bork just a few months after that sorry display, is now being sent to the Supreme Court–by a Republican president.

The world is a strange place.

Last night’s Arrested Development was nearly unwatchable. If you need a little AD to get by this morning, go to the pretty excellent imoscar (.com!). Among other funny business, it has prison haiku:

“Jerome”

The damage is done

Should I try to run? No, no.

I have a boyfriend

Warning: Put your computer on mute, because the site has a grating soundtrack.

The last time the Skins were 3-0, they ended up in the Super Bowl. That will not be the case this time around (my personal prediction is a 7-9 season, what with the tougher teams only now on the horizon). Nevertheless, the team deserves credit where credit is due. Mark Brunell 2.0 continues to make progress, especially on critical 3rd downs. Santana Moss, despite his smallness, continues to surprise, as Mike Wise notes in today’s Washington Post. The defense, at least until the end, has held up pretty well. But the real test comes next week. At Denver. The spread: Broncos by 7.

But did anyone notice Gibbs on the sideline praying on bended knee when Nick Novak’s kick was good? The penitent man must kneel before God…

If the Solstice isn’t your cup of tea, maybe this Model A is.

Distraught by a Cowboys loss to previously winless Oakland, Jenny has taken the Blog Crush and locked him away like the Gimp. Oh, the humanity!

Nothing against Jenny–she’s the sassiest gal west of the Colorado and I hear that she’s totally reformed after that weekend with Michael Irvin–but Jenny without Brendon is like Troy Aikman without Emmitt Smith.

The Union might well endure Harriet Miers, but surely we will crumble without our dynamic duo at idontlikeyouinthatway…

Note: This post started at 9:11 a.m., but I’m moving it back up to the top since there have been so many updates.

Because it turns out she wasn’t a head-fake. Confirm Them, a bastion of smart conservatism, is jumping off the bandwagon. (Also here and here.)

David Frum is harsher still:

The Senate would have confirmed Luttig, Alito, or McConnell. It certainly would have confirmed a Senator Mitch McConnell or a Senator Jon Kyle, had the president felt even a little nervous about the ultimate vote.

There was no reason for him to choose anyone but one of these outstanding conservatives. As for the diversity argument, it just seems incredible to imagine that anybody would have criticized this president of all people for his lack of devotion to that doctrine. He has appointed minorities and women to the highest offices in the land, relied on women as his closest advisers, and staffed his administration through and through with Americans of every race, sex, faith, and national origin. He had nothing to apologize for on that score. So the question must be asked, as Admiral Rickover once demanded of Jimmy Carter: Why not the best?

I worked with Harriet Miers. She’s a lovely person: intelligent, honest, capable, loyal, discreet, dedicated … I could pile on the praise all morning. But nobody would describe her as one of the outstanding lawyers in the United States.

And John Hinderaker may be the harshest of all:

I’m sure that she is a capable lawyer and a loyal aide to President Bush. But the bottom line is that he had a number of great candidates to choose from, and instead of picking one of them–Luttig, McConnell, Brown, or a number of others–he nominated someone whose only obvious qualification is her relationship with him.

While Paul Mirengoff adds:

This nominee is a two-fer — she would not have been selected but for her gender, and she would not have been selected but for her status as a Bush crony. So instead of a 50-year old conservative experienced jurist we get a 60-year old with no judicial experience who may or may not be conservative.

Update, 10:50 a.m.: Bill Kristol is disappointed, depressed, and demoralized:

What does this say about the next three years of the Bush administration–leaving aside for a moment the future of the Court? Surely this is a pick from weakness. Is the administration more broadly so weak? What are the prospects for a strong Bush second term? What are the prospects for holding solid GOP majorities in Congress in 2006 if conservatives are demoralized? And what elected officials will step forward to begin to lay the groundwork for conservative leadership after Bush?

Bonus: From Galley Friend G.B.:

It’s Brownie on the Court! If this is what Bush wanted, why not just nominate Karen Hughes and be done with it?

Update, 12:15 p.m.: Ed Morrissey drops anchor:

All that being said, I find this pick mystifying. Miers just turned 60 years old, not exactly ready to retire but potentially giving up at least a decade for the Bush legacy on the Supreme Court. Other women with judicial experience and/or a stronger track record of conservatism could have been found. She didn’t graduate from a top-drawer legal school (SMU), and she didn’t clerk for a highly influential jurist (US District Judge Joe Estes).

Not only does Harriet Miers not look like the best candidate for the job, she doesn’t even look like the best female candidate for the job. If judicial experience is a liability, why not Maureen Mahoney, who is younger, has argued cases at the Supreme Court, and worked within the Deputy Solicitor’s Office after clerking for William Rehnquist? Better yet, why not nominate J. Michael Luttig or Michael McConnell, with their brilliant and scholarly approaches to the law and undeniable qualifications through years of judicial experience? Why not Edith Hollan Jones, if Bush wanted to avoid the confrontation that Janice Rogers Brown would have created?

Miers may make a great stealth candidate, but right now she looks more like a political ploy.

Update, 1:08 p.m.: Patterico writes:

My reaction is pretty much the same as the Clam’s, though I am saving the profanity for friends and family. I don’t know much about this woman, but what I do know does not impress me. Bush could have done much, much better. I am likely to sit this one out and simply watch in appalled disgust.

It’s looking like my days of supporting this President may be over.

P.S. From the L.A. Times story:

“I know her heart. I know her character,” [Bush] said.

Translation: she is a crony.

And Professor Bainbridge:

1. She’s 60. There were lots of highly qualified younger candidates out there who would have sat on the court for decades.
2. She has no judicial experience.
3. She has no public track record of proven conservative judicial values (what happened to Bush’s 2000 promise to appoint people in the old of Scalia and Thomas?). How do we know she won’t be another Souter? or Kennedy?
4. She’s a Bush crony, which is an unfortunate choice for an administration that has been fairly charged with excessive cronyism (anybody remember ex-FEMA head Mike Brown?).
5. Her resume pales in comparison to those of some of the other leading candidates.
6. Why is the leader of a party that supposedly about merit and against affirmative action making an appointment that can only be explained as an affirmative action choice?
7. And if Bush was bound and determined to make an affirmative action choice, why not go with a more experienced and qualified woman like Edith Jones or minority like Emilio Garza?

This appointment reeks of cronyism, which along with prideful arrogance seems to be the besetting sin of the Bush presidency.

And this may be the best day of the year to be reading NRO. No surprise that the best post of the morning is from Ramesh Ponnuru, who’s even funnier than he is smart:

It’s an inspiring testament to the diversity of the president’s cronies. Wearing heels is not an impediment to being a presidential crony in this administration! I can only assume that the president felt that his support was slipping in this important bloc, and he had to do something to shore it up.

Mark Steyn has another fabulous rant:

I found myself behind a car in Vermont, in the US, the other day; it had a one-word bumper sticker with the injunction “COEXIST”. It’s one of those sentiments beloved of Western progressives, one designed principally to flatter their sense of moral superiority. The C was the Islamic crescent, the O was the hippie peace sign, the X was the Star of David and the T was the Christian cross. Very nice, hard to argue with. But the reality is, it’s the first of those symbols that has a problem with coexistence. Take the crescent out of the equation and you wouldn’t need a bumper sticker at all. Indeed, coexistence is what the Islamists are at war with; or, if you prefer, pluralism, the idea that different groups can rub along together within the same general neighbourhood. There are many trouble spots across the world but, as a general rule, even if one gives no more than a cursory glance at the foreign pages, it’s easy to guess at least one of the sides: Muslims v Jews in Palestine, Muslims v Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims v Christians in Nigeria, Muslims v Buddhists in southern Thailand, Muslims v (your team here). Whatever one’s views of the merits on a case by case basis, the ubiquitousness of one team is a fact. . . .

The reality is that there are more Muslim states than a half-century ago, many more Muslims within non-Muslim states, and many more of those Muslims are radicalised and fundamentalist. It’s not hard to understand. All you have to do is take them at their word. As Bassam Tibi, a Muslim professor at Gottingen University in Germany, said in an interesting speech a few months after September 11, “Both sides should acknowledge candidly that although they might use identical terms, these mean different things to each of them. The word peace, for example, implies to a Muslim the extension of the Dar al-Islam — or House of Islam — to the entire world. This is completely different from the Enlightenment concept of eternal peace that dominates Western thought. Only when the entire world is a Dar al-Islam will it be a Dar a-Salam, or House of Peace.”

That’s why they blew up Bali in 2002, and last weekend, and why they’ll keep blowing it up. It’s not about Bush or Blair or Iraq or Palestine. It’s about a world where everything other than Islamism lies inruins.

While all people of good character abhor name dropping, this bit by David Edelstein is so excellent, that it has to be applauded:

A few months ago I got a note from the “Dude” himself, Jeff Dowd, the inspiration for Jeff Bridges’ character in The Big Lebowski and now a director’s rep . . .

Edelstein abides.