First, my take: Initially, I guess the the word was disappointed. I have the same opinion about Miers as I had about Roberts, and I have a total brain-swirling delirium from agreeing with the Dems on the Judiciary Committee about this, but I think the American people have some reasonable expectation to know where a SCOTUS nominee comes down on key judicial issues. Roberts may well do well, but he’s a gamble. Miers may well do well, but she’s a gamble. I guess what is so disappointing is that so many of us worked so hard to get Bush elected BECAUSE he would have the opportunity to select as many as 3-4 Supreme Court picks AND he assured us they would be in the vein of Scalia and Thomas. It would have been hard to get any more Scalia-like than Scalia for Chief, but we are given a man, though a protege [I know that needs accent marks on the Es, but I don't know how] of Rehnquist, is an unknown quantity as far as issues that define conservatism or originalism. And now we are given the same. We all know that the Bushes are loyal to a fault and reward those who are loyal to them. That’s one thing when he is awarding loyalty with something of his own. This time, he is giving a life-time seat on the Supreme Court as a party favor for being his pal. Michelle Malkin gets it right when she points out:

It’s not just that Miers has zero judicial experience. It’s that she’s so transparently a crony/"diversity" pick while so many other vastly more qualified and impressive candidates went to waste.

And that’s where I am. When is a president again going to be in the position of appointing legal minds like Luttig, McConnell, Alito? Just seems we have a great opportunity wasted. Mr. Bush, a lot of us fought to get you elected. We would have fought for a Supreme Court pick who impressed us.

***

David Frum’s Diary on National Review Online says:

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 there is no reason at all to believe either that she is a legal conservative or – and more importantly – that she has the spine and steel necessary to resist the pressures that constantly bend the American legal system toward the left.

I am not saying that she is not a legal conservative. I am not saying that she is not steely. I am saying only that there is no good reason to believe either of these things. Not even her closest associates on the job have no good reason to believe either of these things. In other words, we are being asked by this president to take this appointment purely on trust, without any independent reason to support it. And that is not a request conservatives can safely grant.

There have just been too many instances of seeming conservatives being sent to the high court, only to succumb to the prevailing vapors up there: O’Connor, Kennedy, Souter. Given that record, it is simply reckless for any conservative president, especially one backed by a 55-seat Senate majority, to take a hazard on anything other than a known quantity.

But here is what we do know: the pressures on a Supreme Court justice to shift leftward are intense. There is the negative pressure of the vicious, hostile press that legal conservatives must endure. And there are the sweet little inducements – the flattery, the invitations to conferences in Austria and Italy, the lectureships at Yale and Harvard – that come to judges who soften and crumble. Harriet Miers is a taut, nervous, anxious personality. It is impossible to me to imagine that she can endure the anger and abuse – or resist the blandishments – that transformed, say, Anthony Kennedy into the judge he is today.

Nor is it safe for the president’s conservative supporters to defer to the president’s judgment and say, "Well, he must know best." The record shows I fear that the president’s judgment has always been at its worst on personnel matters.

And Drudge‘s headline right now is:

BUSH COURT PICK GAVE MONEY TO CLINTON, GORE! [Tyson says: Drudge goofed. He has dropped that headline, and put this: "Harriet Miers gave cash contribution to the Democratic National Committee in 1988 and Gore campaign — while Bush dad was running for president!…" I’m sure he will continue to investigate, so check his site for updates about her contributions.  

This could be an interesting week.

Most of the crazies at the Democratic Underground will oppose anyone Bush appoints. However, once in a while, there is a sane one who states a bit of truth:

On a note connecting to this issue she was once a Democrat and was in charge of finding a replacement for O’Connor. Is it possible that she did the Democats a favor by appointing herself knowing that she would not be as conservative as some other Bush nominees? That way she could take the roll of O’Connor and keep some of the things that would have been voted down if someone else had been chosen. Once she is on the court she cannot be kicked off. It is possible that she will be a real moderate or will be at least a little liberal.

That, my friends, is a bit scary.

Bill Kristol, at the Weekly Standard, says:

I’M DISAPPOINTED, depressed and demoralized.

I’m disappointed because I expected President Bush to nominate someone with a visible and distinguished constitutionalist track record–someone like Maura Corrigan, Alice Batchelder, Edith Jones, Priscilla Owen, or Janice Rogers Brown–to say nothing of Michael Luttig, Michael McConnell, or Samuel Alito. Harriet Miers has an impressive record as a corporate attorney and Bush administration official. She has no constitutionalist credentials that I know of.

I’m depressed. Roberts for O’Connor was an unambiguous improvement. Roberts for Rehnquist was an appropriate replacement. But moving Roberts over to the Rehnquist seat meant everything rode on this nomination–and that the president had to be ready to fight on constitutional grounds for a strong nominee. Apparently, he wasn’t. It is very hard to avoid the conclusion that President Bush flinched from a fight on constitutional philosophy. Miers is undoubtedly a decent and competent person. But her selection will unavoidably be judged as reflecting a combination of cronyism and capitulation on the part of the president.

I’m 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?

 

William Kristol is editor of The

Weekly Standard.