They really don't like her.
"I picked the best person I could find." -- George W. Bush
Snippets of conservative thought on Harriet Miers as Bush's best person:
This appointment reeks of cronyism, which along with prideful arrogance seems to be the besetting sin of the Bush presidency. At this point, I see no reason - none, nada, zilch - for conservatives who care about the courts to lift a finger to support this candidate.
We have 55 Republicans in the Senate, a President who has been promising for years to appoint judges like Scalia and Thomas to the bench, and now, when the stakes are the highest, conservatives are being presented with a woman who is essentially a coin flip: heads we win, tails we lose. That's just not good enough under the circumstances...
Bush capitulated to the diversity-mongers, used a critical Supreme Court seat to reward a crony, and revealed that he lacks the desire to engage the Senate in fierce combat to carry out his now-suspect commitment to remake the court in the image of Scalia and Thomas.
But her qualifications for the Supreme Court are non-existent. She is not a brilliant jurist, indeed, has never been a judge. She is not a scholar of the law. Researchers are hard-pressed to dig up an opinion. She has not had a brilliant career in politics, the academy, the corporate world or public forum. Were she not a friend of Bush, and female, she would never have even been considered. . . What commended her to the White House, in the phrase of the hour, is that she “has no paper trail.” So far as one can see, this is Harriet Miers’ principal qualification for the U.S. Supreme Court.
And an excellent piece from George Will:
Senators beginning what ought to be a protracted and exacting scrutiny of Harriet Miers should be guided by three rules. First, it is not important that she be confirmed. Second, it might be very important that she not be. Third, the presumption -- perhaps rebuttable but certainly in need of rebutting -- should be that her nomination is not a defensible exercise of presidential discretion to which senatorial deference is due.
Harriet Miers Supreme Court Bush Reproductive Rights Politics
cronyism Miers Abortion Bush Betrayal Crony
