The right leanings blogs are not happy at all with this pick. Given all the other names floating around I can't blame them - he could have done a lot better.

How?

Um, by naming someone who's been a judge before? Whose main qualification wasn't being Bush's personal lawyer?

The folks at The corner and at RedState suffered virtual fainting spells when the AP started reporting the pick.

AWW: Given how he was betrayed by Senator McCain and the Republicans in the Gang of 14, this is about as good as could be done. He was prohibited, after all, from picking an outspoken conservative.

OJ: Given that you tried to sell the deal on the basis that it cleared the way for elevating JRB, you must be having some second thoughts right about now.

David - your point is that if Bush nominated McConnell, Luttig, Brown, Garza, or some other well qualified nominee the 7 GOP "dealers" would have gone along with the 7 Dem Senators and supported a filibuster? I can't believe that but if true (as you suggest) then yes McCain and Graham did screw Bush on this.

AWW -

No, the 7 Republicans wouldn't have supported a filibuster, but many of the 7 Dems would have.

Rick:

The Court has too many judges--too few politicins. She'll be the only one who's ever actually been elected to an office.

David:

It does. But W picked two people he's personally comfortable with. The next opening will certainly go to Alberto Gonzales.

David:

Roberts is one.

None of those guys are more conservative than Roberts.

Bruce - When the deal was announced the GOP senators said that if the 7 Dems filibustered and the 7 GOP Senators thought they were being unreasonable then the 7 GOP senators would vote for the nuclear option doing away with the filibuster of judicial nominees. This pick indicates that a) the filibuster is alive and well and prevented Bush from picking someone who might be filibustered or b) Bush, feeling low over Katrina/Iraq/oil prices, made a wimpy pick.

OJ - The GOP base is not happy with Bush over spending and and other items and is now not happy with the Miers pick. If Bush picks Gonzalez for the next open seat the GOP base will go ballistic

the president requiring "personal comfort" with the nominee, while not unprecedented, certainly goes against the Constitutional spirit of a lifetime appointment.

Rick:

Why?

The GOP base held together and put up with a lot because Bush never compromised on two issues: taxes and justices.

There will be a restructing of the party after this. Bush is finished. He will spend the rest of his term under as much attack from the right (almost) as from the left.

McCain doesn't have a chance unless he runs as a Democrat. Guiliani, who pro-lifers would have supported, will have a very difficult primary fight. Expect to see many broken glass Republicans sit out 2006 and perhaps 2008. What is the point? Bush could have stopped the usurpation of power by the judiciary in its tracks. He refused to do it.

AWW:

The base is fine--it's the activists at the extremes of the party who are whining. Remember, they were all upset about Roberts too.

too much energy required to answer, having to cut and paste every "t." Figure it out yourself.

David:

Take a piece of paper and write down everything you know about Harriet Miers and then try to figure out why you're hyperventilating.

I have more of a minimalist view of how appointments move the Court than most seem to; Roberts in fact might be the key simply because he seems to have more interpersonal skill than Rehnquist. Five years from now, the real shift on the Court, if any, might be seen as Kennedy and Souter voting with the conservative block led by Roberts more often than they did with Rehnquist.

In that regard, I have no doubt that if Bush picked her, he thinks she is more conservative than O'Connor. Also, since she is 60. if he was wrong, the actuarial tables are in our favor. Aside from that, there iz nothing really positive to say about this selection.

Dan:

She's a woman--she could easily be there 30 years.

Does this dodge of a selection now mean that the Democrats will fear to nominate their most liberal possibilities (i.e., Ginsburg, Breyer) in the future? I doubt it.

I suspect Bush knows what he is doing, but it is a bad place for the nation to be if every selection has to be a stealth nomination.

We know this: Contributions to Al Gore, Lloyd Bentsen and the DNC in 1988.

mc - I had a fainting spell when I read she donated $1000 to Al Gore.

Yes, let's disqualify her because she gave a few bucks almost 20 years ago to some Dems that would today be considered conservative Dems (Gore was pro-life in '88 before he began his spiral left under Clinton).

Could Bush have done better? Yes. But let's criticize her for her potential rulings, not stupid stuff like minimal contributions 20 years 18 years ago.

There are many reasons why she would have contributed to Dems in 1988. Texas had many Dem office holders back then. Many businesses and law firms naturally split their contributions so they have access no matter how the wind blows.

I admit to being surprised. Her age is the biggest drawback. However, if one trusts the President, then I think the benefit of the doubt is called for.

As if one doesn't trust the President as far as one can spit?

And, just so you all are apprised, she ran Bush's I-didn't-miss-a-day-of-Guard-service operation for his 1998 campaign. Noble qualifications. Fixers on the court: worse than LBJ's worst judgment in this regard.

Paul:

Then no nominee would have satisfied one.

Rick:

I know you're just trying to convince these rightwing nuts to like her because you don't, and I appreciate the help, but you're talking nonsense.

AWW - I have three problems with the deal:

1. The moderates blinked when we had a chance to get rid of the filibuster.

2. The moderates explicitly recognized that the filibuster of judicial nominees is appropriate.

3. They used a lousy standard ("exceptional circumstances") and expressly recognized that a Senator couldn't be second guessed about whether exceptional circumstances existed.

OJ's reading of the deal has always been naive. It did not say that, if the Democrats filibustered without what the Republicans considered to be "exceptional circumstances" that the nuclear option would be used. It said the opposite. The nuclear option would not be used no matter what. It did not say or imply that the judges allowed to proceed to a floor votes, including JRB, would not be filibustered if appointed to the Supreme Court. The upshot of the deal always was to limit the president's ability to nominate outspoken conservatives. He could either nominate moderates or (what he hopes are) silent conservatives.

Roberts was a good nomination. But Roberts was a good nomination because Roberts was not outspoken. He has more or less said nothing about politics or judical constroversies since leaving the Reagan administration. He's vouched for by Rehnquist and by the president and that is good enough for me, but that is more a matter of faith then his proven public commitment to conservative ideals.

Miers, too, might be a fine choice. I don't know anything about her but I'm willing to trust the president that far. But if she is a Scalia or a Thomas, then she is a quiet Scalia and a tactful Thomas. She's not JRB, or Michael McConnel or Priscilla Owen. About the only thing I know about her, other than her title, is that the pro-life lobby is uneasy about her. Maybe she is a stealth pick, but I find it hard to believe that this is who W would have nominated if the moderates hadn't caved on the filibuster. Finally, if she is voted down, I won't much care.

I didn't have Miers, but I did note that Bush was unusually loyal to his long time supporters and close friends, a discription that fits Miers to a "T".

Three apposite Miers data points, it seems to me:

1) fixer for TANG scandal

2) fixer for Texas lottery scandal.

3) This q&a on the WH web site, which reveals her brain as a human IBM card punched with admin talking points:

Billy, from Bethel, CT writes:
Hi, I would like to say that Bush is has the right idea about the "No Child Left Behind" program. Now clebrating its second year, for the first time children in the grades 3-8 will be tested with reading and math tests to figure out their abilities to work with such subjects. Great job and keep up the good work. Billy

Harriet Miers
Hi, Billy, and good next question...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20041029.html

Another Bush executive decision that resounds through and through with statesmanship!

oj - I have to agree with David on one point, Bush is finished. He's shown his reaction to intense Democratic oppositionism is appeasement. In Roberts he refused to nominate anyone who had been openly conservative, and in Miers he refused to nominate anyone who had been consistently Republican. Now that the Democrats know they can roll him, they won't give Bush anything; and now that conservatives know Bush is responsive to pressure, we'll have to pressure him from the right, and obstruct his moves left.

He's now playing out the string, much like Clinton was. That's bad for America.

David:

The Bork nomination ended any president's option to nominate someone whose views are openly extreme, even if they're right. We aren't an extreme nation.

jim:

Bill Clinton didn't nominate Larry Tribe.

Rick:

That's what lawyers do.

pj:

Al Gore was more conservative than Bush Sr. at that point.

pj: I'm not sure if you're agreeing with "David" or with me. I certainly don't think that Bush is finished, or even that he'll take much of a political hit for this. If this were a just world, Senator McCain would be finished, but it's not and he's not.

Mr. Perlstein:
J[umpin' Jimminy], new keyboards are less than 10 bucks at Staples or Office Max and you've had almost a week to get one. This "I have no T, yet I must troll" excuse of yours has got to be just about the most pathetic excuse for avoiding an argument since that hoary old chestnut "But my news server went down!" Don't you write for a living? What do you tell your editors? "Sorry about that, Chief, but the T on my keyboard is busted!"
I'm just a stupid old conservative crank who went to a party college and even I can figure out to solve little problems like a broken keyboard.

OJ:

Admittedly, I would be hard to satisfy. I expect Roberts to be to the left of Reinquist. This woman, aside from her apparently fierce loyalty to Bush, we know very little about; and since Bush will leave politics in less than 4 years, while she will likely affect our politics for another 25, trust in Bush seems a little imprudent.

You apparently like her, O, but you'll have to get over a point of disagreement. You've said here you think the President is a "moron," and counted that as a point in his favor. Miers, on the other hand, according to David Frum, called him "the most brilliant man she had ever met."

http://frum.nationalreview.com/archives/09292005.asp#077899

The Bork nomination ended any president's option to nominate someone whose views are openly extreme, even if they're right.

Hello? Ginsburg?

Rick: How can he like her? He doesn't know a thing about her.

Paul:

Ginsburg is a moderate.

Rick:

He is a political genius, as all our moronic presidents have been: Washington, McKinley, Coolidge, FDR, Ike, Reagan, George W. Bush. It's no coincidence that our worst Presidents have been the smart ones: Hoover, Nixon, Clinton.

Paul:

Right, so given that he wasn't going to appoint Tom Tancredo you'd have been upset no matter what. Why try to satisfy the margins?

OJ: There's a difference between outspoken and arrogant. Bork was arrogant and, by the time the hearings were done, had made the Senators feel like dispised ignorami. They weren't going to do him any favors after that. Bork dug his own grave and I've never been one of those people who thinks that he was done some great injustice.

OJ: Yeah, it's a shame that Clinton already nominated her.

David:

There's no such thing as being outspoken but humble. It's mere political theater and it requires arrogance.

Moderate my foot.

David:

96-3

I will give W this. Nominating Miers might bait the Senate Democrats into revisiting Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and our barbaric torture of those nice POW's.

Harry Reid specifically suggested that W consider naming her.

96-3

And your point is?

Harry Reid specifically suggested that W consider naming her.

1. Well, that makes me feel much better.

2. It was darkly amusing last week to watch conservatives laugh at Reid's temerity in daring to tell W not to nominate JRB or Bill Pryor or Priscilla Owens.

David:

I think his point is that an extreme leftist can be confirmed as a "moderate," but a right-winger who reads the Constitution as most Americans did before 1940 cannot, and he's content with that.

WTF?

Paul:

Close. Someone who wants to return the legal system to where it was seventy years ago is extreme by definition, even if we all approve of it.

OJ has reminded of the fourth thing I dislike about Senator McCain's deal:

4. It urged the president to consult with Senators before making a nomination.

This is a brilliant move! The proof that it must be is that at first glance it makes absolutely no sense. And at second glance, and third, and...

Actually, it's more like 85 years.

So conservatism for you is a pure and dreary defense of the status quo?

Paul: Presumably because the actual constitution would throw a monkey wrench into the "Third Way."

b:

She's a woman, pro-life, and the President trusts her.

How do we know that she's pro-life?

Paul:

No. But you don't change the status quo via fanaticism in the United States. You change it by seeming moderate.

Paul:

David calls for all those same things where race is concerned. It's hardly surprising a liberal woman would call for them where gender is concerned. Note that she advocated changing the laws, not simply overriding them from the bench, as indeed she has not voted. She's in the mainstream.

You're not interested in changing the status quo; you're interested in preserving it. I make no bones about my disgust with much of it.

"Seeming moderate" is different than being moderate. We are talking about reality not appearances. When you argue that Ginsburg is a moderate, you make the language of the Left your master.

I heard that before she changed her name it was Souter.

Hugh Hewitt, not surprisingly, has the first sensible take on the pick:

http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2005/10/02-week/index.php

Paul:

So the status quo isn't moderate?

oj: By those standards, why not nominate Karen Hughes? Or Laura? It's hard to see what this accomplishes other than to reinforce old negative stereotypes about the Bush family. Don't expect the several million voters on the right who stayed home in '00 and before but came out in '04 to vote R next time. Did I mention yet that Roy Moore could be the Perot of '08 if he wants?

oj....the base is fine? You haven't read Mark Levin's comment on this have you? He soothed the base over Roberts (who I supported from day one).

From Powerline to National Review the disgust is evident. Don't play a "everyone who opposes her" is hard right game with me. I haven't bothered to look at what they are saying. When Bush has Powerline and Mark Levin on his case, he is in trouble. Rightly so

Turn on TV and listen to Schumer, Reid and Byrd. They are pleased.

Forced sex-integration of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts is not status quo.

Reducing the age of consent for sexual acts to people who are "less than 12 years old" is not status quo.

Drafting our sisters and wives into military service is not status quo.

B - get serious. Perot's base was fiscal conservatives and anti-NAFTA types, both sizable groups. Roy Moore's claim to fame was trying to get the 10 commandments in a courtroom - 1 point against all of the other social conservative stuff Bush has pushed. And by the way Bush isn't running again in '08.

After reading the wails from conservatives here and other places, I am amazed at their total lack of perspective and good sense. 1. What made anyone think that the President was going to get into a drag out fight for this pick? The Oberts pick tipped that hand didn't it? 55 votes just are not enough. The Maine sisters, Specter and Chafee at least are not reliable, that gets you to 51 and the nomination is at risk. Snowe and the other Maine senator will certainly vote for Miers. Which GOPer will vote against her and why? A defeat would hurt the conservative cause much more than Miers will. In any event, sufficent Dems will vote for her. 2. Everyone on the right loves Brown but she is a libertarian. Such people can't be trusted, they lack a moral center. 3. Miers was apparently an excellent lawyer, has legislative and executive experience and has commited no conservative heresy from what I can tell. Yet she is opposed by the right? It shows that BDS can affect the right as well.

From Powerline to National Review the disgust is evident.

Ok, now that's funny.

Bob:

A [nomination] defeat would hurt the conservative cause much more than Miers will.

Bunk. If she is a Souter, or discovers the perks of "growing' in office, than the damage she will inflict will be orders of magnitude greater than a pitiful nomination defeat for Bush.

AWW: I'm at least 95% serious. Roy Moore, running as a "real" social conservative (Bush was not trusted in '00 because of his father, and the Republican nominee in '08 won't be trusted either) along with an anti-illegal immigration platform, would do AT LEAST as well as Perot in every red state, i.e. 15-20%. He's a cinch to be governor of AL if he wants, the only question is how big his ego is...

David C.- I was responding to "David", that's why I quoted him, but I was writing under the mistaken impression that he was you. My apologies.

I have to take Bush's weaknesses with his strengths, and with Bush - a guy who will not evangelize - we can't expect an outspoken conservative, or a public battle over judicial philosophy. But Miers looks to me like another O'Connor, someone who will go with the "mainstream," and I was hoping for Bush to maintain his promise of another Scalia or Thomas. We'll see in 5 years if I'm wrong.

In the meantime, I do believe the expectation that Miers will be squishy will encourage the Dems and discourage conservatives.

And if we get a third vacancy and a Gonzalez nomination, look for the cronyism cries to grow even louder.

Those Conservatives who think they can write off the remaining 3 years of the President's term have learned no more than the Dems about the determination and political savvy of the man.

Souter, Souter, Souter. Its a broken record with some people. The comparison is false. Souter had no relationship with Bush 41. Souter was recommended to him. Miers is very well known to the President. Maybe he has a better idea of her views than the critics do?

If Miers is defeated because of conservative opposition, why would the President nominate someone they like the next time? He would not.

Miers will get 65-70 votes. Conservatives who don't like her can fail to vote for the President in 2008.

This nomination is a surprise, a disappointment, and a political own-goal. It cannot be disputed that this pick is crony-ism at work, the prevention of which the very reason the Senate gets to pass on judicial nominees in the first place (Senate rejection based on judicial philosophy is inappropriate, anti-cronyism is what the Senate is there for). She's barely qualified. This was a missed opportunity to appoint an influential heavyweight like Luttig. He would have been confirmed without a problem.

Years back, Bush called her "a pit bull in size six shoes." That seems to mitigate against her being "squishy".

Why is she "barely qualified"? She is an experienced and apparently good lawyer. She has executive and legislative experience. The "unqualified" is strictly elitism at work. She went to SMU not Harvard or Yale. She didn't work for a Beltway of NY firm.

Judicial experience? Many people starting with John Marshall had no judicial experience. It is good to break the elite school, circuit clerkship, judge mold.

What was Thomas' resume like? Yale yes but afterwards? EEOC and what? Everyone complains about Souter but Bush 41 also appointed Thomas.

I stated out today supporting this nomination on faith but the critics have convince methat I am wrong. It is a good pick on the merits. The right needs to take big dep btreath--they are just disapointed that the President did give them their "nuclear option" fanatsy.

Bob:

Why? When has the Right ever shown common sense?

b:

Laura isn't reliably pro-Life.

Always at war, the right is, seeking any positional advantage. . Governor takes on my "t" excuse. I have a laptop. the t went out Wednesday, I called thursday, I'm getting the new one by fed-ex today. I write, but half the speed. to cut through OJ's bad faith on the Hacker book requires many lines. It was a disgusting performance by our leader.

rds:

How is she less qualified than Rehnquist?

Bob:

Indeed, this pick is best seen as a reaction to the Souter pick.

Paul may be right that a Janice Rogers Brown loss would have been good for the GOP in some way, but it's bad governance to play for a glorious loss.

David:

The base isn't writing on-line at libertarian sites.

David:

Unlike any of your preferences she's actually fought for pro-life positions in public fora.

The most hysterical (in both senses) guy on the NRO Corner is, as usual, Rod Dreher. This is the guy who screamed IN ALL CAPS about the Katrina cleanup, only to find out later that almost everything he was screaming about was false.

Well, now he's saying that everybody he's talked to in Texas says Miers is a strong conservative. That's not surprisng, because she's a long-time member of a fundamentalist church. But that doesn't satisfy Rod because...I don't know, she doesn't wear a "Strong Conservative" t-shirt or something.

You have to laugh when the wingnuts get their knickers in a twist.

Casey:

As funny is the notion that each of just knows that our pet pick would have been "100% conservative!"

I caught a bit of Rush Limbaugh's show and he actually had exactly the right take on this. He asked conservatives who wanted a nominee to go to war for to take a look at Senate Republicans and ask themselves whether that's the army they want to go to war with. (I assume the Rumsfeld echo was deliberate.)

The problem with this nomination was not caused by Bush or by Miers, who might well turn out to be a good solid pick, but by the Senate and, in particular, Senator McCain.

OJ: You're doing a grave disservice to Michael McConnell and the other potential nominees I mentioned.

David:

They're on the bench--which of them has overturned Roe? If you listened to Rush you know that's what folks are requiring.

In fact, McConnell appears write Right and rule Left:

The McConnell who pleases liberals is the one who clerked for the late Justice William Brennan Jr., criticized the Court's 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore, and, before that, questioned whether President Clinton should be impeached.

He opposes the constitutional amendment against flag-burning and is against school prayer in coercive settings. McConnell has fought on and off the bench in favor of non-mainstream religions; he and Justice Antonin Scalia have dueled in print over McConnell's sharp criticism of Employment Division v. Smith, in which Scalia applied drug laws against a sect that used peyote in its ceremonies.

In a case now pending before the Supreme Court, the Bush administration is trying to overturn a 10th Circuit ruling in which McConnell wrote in a concurrence that the government had "utterly failed" to show why a small New Mexico sect should be barred from using hallucinogenic tea for its rituals.

In a criminal law case, McConnell dissented last year in United States v. Abdenbi, a Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure case. He decried the "brazen tactics" of federal law enforcement officers who made a predawn raid on three apartment mates.

On the other hand, McConnell's portfolio bristles with conservative views that might fit better on The Wall Street Journal editorial page. In fact, they sometimes have, as in a 1998 Journal op-ed column calling Roe v. Wade "an embarrassment to those who take constitutional law seriously." He also once criticized a Supreme Court ruling that stripped Bob Jones University of its tax-exempt status because of its racially discriminatory policies, and he argued that the Boy Scouts should not be compelled to keep a scoutmaster who is gay.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1117789517125

Ditto on Dreher. His Katrina posts on NRO were shameful. My 8 year old has far more self control.

RE NRO and Dreher - NRO's coverage of Katrina was pathetic as they latched onto every rumour and went ballistic. And then, after criticisizing the left for using Katrina to bash globabl warming, used Katrina to bash goverment at all levels. I used to be a big fan of NRO but now they come across as the right versions of unrealistic political elites.

Dreher was the worst on Katrina but since he was from LA and had family there I figured he should be cut some slack.

Oh, I'll cut Dreher plenty of slack because he provides comic relief to the Corner. Long before his Katrina hysteria (again in both senses) he was on a priest-scandal kick. Put maybe 34,928 posts about it on the Corner.

Jonah Goldberg even ridiculed his obsession with "perv priests." That sorta snapped Dreher out of it.

He doesn't post much on the Corner any more, but you can always rely on him for some goofiness.

The Cornerite I really don't understand is K-Lo. You'd think she'd be whooping it up about Miers, who tried to get the ABA to rescind their pro-choice stance. Miers' argument for democratizing the ABA's abortion stance is exactly the strongest rationale for overturning Roe. And K-Lo is a pro-lifer to end all pro-lifers.

John Roberts never did anything like that, and K-Lo swooned almost embarrassingly over him. Guess she really wants a man...er, on the court.

I'd actually prefer to see how Miers handled her one term on the Dallas City Council, which has been something of a political clown show for the past 20 years -- not in league with say, the New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco councils, but one where the loopier fringes of the Democratic left have been loud and demanding, despite Dallas' reputation as being a conservative city. See how Miers did in that forum and it may be a window on how she might handle any future political pressure on the high court.

I have had to reverse my position on the grounds that Kos agrees with it:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/3/122516/658

John:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/100405dnnatmiers.bab1b698.html

Casey:

Here's one you'd love--folks claim that Darwinism isn't incompatible with Judeo-Christianity because Derbyshire is a very strong Darwinist.

pj:

C'mon, I'm entertained by your argument that Bush is so weakened politically he's forced to put someone on the Court who's only qualification is that they're a crony.

I really don't get the reaction of either right-wingers or left-wingers to this nomination. Let's face it, this battle is over abortion.

You would think that left-wingers would be OUTRAGED, I TELL YOU, OUTRAGED about Bush nominating somebody who tried to get rid of the ABA's pro-choice position.

Especially because she made the strongest argument against it: that it was an undemocratic assertion of elitist power.

Folks, if that isn't a tipoff on how she'd vote on Roe, what in hades is?

Meanwhile, the right goes ballistic over Miers, after they collapsed in joy over Roberts. And Roberts has never tried to get any organization to rescind a pro-choice stance. He mostly dodged questions related to Roe at his hearing. If anything, he sounded like he would respect the precedent.

Hard to figure, but who said politics was easy to figure?

Casey:

No, they called Roberts a Souter too until they realized he was inevitable:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2123935/

Ahem, if everyone has finished, I do believe I'm the only one that had Harriet.

Excellent! Send your address & I'll send the book:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1318/