I'm still steaming about the Miers nomination. It's one thing to have a nominee whose personal views are obscure when he or she is an incredibly distinguished advocate frequently before the Court (Roberts, Ginsburg) or a freaking JUDGE (Souter, Thomas). But to give us someone we know nothing about who has NO constitutional experience on the recommendation that "she's my good friend"? This is the nation's institution! This is the third branch of our government that is be staffed by only nine people! I am fucking OUTRAGED that we have to go through such a farce of hearings on her.
I agree with the quote above that her nomination is intended by Rove, et. al. to ensure a Republican hegemony for the next generation. While to some extent I can't condemn the effort because if the Democrats were doing that I wouldn't condemn it either, this is just amoral.
Randy Barnett's editorial in the WSJ today reads, in part:
By characterizing this appointment as cronyism, I mean to cast no aspersions on Ms. Miers. I imagine she is an intelligent and able lawyer. To hold down the spot of White House counsel she must be that and more. She must also be personally loyal to the president and an effective bureaucratic infighter, two attributes that are not on the top of the list of qualifications for the Supreme Court.
To be qualified, a Supreme Court justice must have more than credentials; she must have a well-considered "judicial philosophy," by which is meant an internalized view of the Constitution and the role of a justice that will guide her through the constitutional minefield that the Supreme Court must navigate. Nothing in Harriet Miers's professional background called upon her to develop considered views on the extent of congressional powers, the separation of powers, the role of judicial precedent, the importance of states in the federal system, or the need for judges to protect both the enumerated and unenumerated rights retained by the people. It is not enough simply to have private opinions on these complex matters; a prospective justice needs to have wrestled with them in all their complexity before attaining the sort of judgment that decision-making at the Supreme Court level requires, especially in the face of executive or congressional disagreement.