I'm Not Wild About Harriet

What a night! The NHL is back! If the first night is any indication of what to look forward to for this season, I might have to start watching some hockey again. (And the best part of this night is that the Habs won and the Leafs lost!) But I'm going to take a moment out of the great Canadian re-awakening and say a few words about the nomination of Harriet Miers.

I'm not going to sugarcoat this. I see the Miers selection as a bit of a microcosm of what is wrong with the Bush presidency - it's a combination of cronyism and political manipulation. There isn't anybody I have heard or read who could make a case that Miers is the most qualified candidate for such an important position. There have been many other justices who had not had judicial experience, so that isn't the disqualifying factor in my opinion. But consider the following: She has never argued a case before the Supreme Court. She has not had an extensive history of published papers related to constitutional law. She has not practiced law that particularly pertains to the types of cases that the Supreme Court has to decide. This isn't a personal attack on her, but she doesn't seem to have ANY of the credentials one would normally associate with a Supreme Court Justice. All we know about her is that she's a very hard worker, a conservative and someone that Bush values very highly. In other words, if she had the same credentials but had never crossed paths with Bush, there's no way that she would have been considered for the job. If this isn't cronyism, I don't know what is. If Bush thought she had the goods, he could have nominated her for a federal circuit court a long time ago. Or, he could have nominated her before John Roberts for the O'Connor seat. The bottom line is that she was nominated now because Bush wanted to get another conservative on the Court with as little paper trail as possible, thus avoiding a protracted fight at a time when his party is politically vulnerable. In other words, he's trying to pull a fast one.

This appointment has caused more division in conservative opinion than I've seen in a long time. The people who have praised the Miers nomination have done so because they see it as a brilliant political manoeuvre to get another conservative vote on the Court. They seem to forget that there's more to being a Supreme Court justice than just mailing in a pre-determined vote. And, of course, there are plenty of Freeper types who object to the nomination because they fear that Miers will be another stealth appointee, like the much-maligned David Souter. I think it's safe to assume that this won't happen. (I'd be willing to wager that Miers will be a safer conservative vote than Roberts, who seems like a fair-minded chap to me.) But there are a good number of conservative objectors who have an honest take on it, like George Will, David Frum and even Michelle (Internment Camp) Malkin. They recognize the selection for the cronyism it is.

To me, whatever Harriet Miers does on the bench now is irrelevant. Suppose you were a good student who didn't quite have the marks to get into an Ivy League school, but your mother was an old friend of the Dean of Admissions at Harvard, and she could find a spot for you. Let's then suppose that you went on to garner straight A's at Harvard. Would the end result justify your admission, or was it wrong for you to take the place of someone better qualified? Would you feel at all guilty about taking the place of someone who earned their rightful admission? In this case, Miers herself was one of the deans of admissions, so she should have known that she was not the best candidate for the job. Maybe the fact that Miers even accepted this nomination tells us all we need to know about her character.