Pushback

Can This Nomination Be Justified?

George Will, who one expects to defend Republican presidents, lashes out today at Bush's choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, suggesting that members of the Senate should start from the assumption that she is not qualified to be confirmed and force her to prove them wrong. And he unloads this humdinger:

He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections.

Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers's nomination resulted from the president's careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers's name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.

Got that? She's not in the top 100 most-qualified people for the position, and there isn't anyone who knows anything who would suggest that she is.

Bush is known for his loyalty to his closest confidants. Didn't anyone around him sense that putting Miers up for this job was the equivalent of hanging her out to dry?