Pajama Pundits

For my part, I would much rather rely on a firm body of Constitutional scholarship or judicial opinions than church attendance for faith in this candidate. The push by more enthusiastic Miers supporters to consider her religious outlook smacks of a bit of hypocrisy. After all, we argued the exact opposite when it came to John Roberts and William Pryor when they appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for their appointments. We derided Chuck Schumer and his references to "deeply held personal beliefs". Conservatives claimed that using religion as a reason for rejection violated the Constitution and any notion of religious freedom. Does that really change if we base our support on the same grounds?

Der Kommisar was relieved at first, but has changed his mind after seeing George WIll savage Bush over the nomination.

Update: I have thought a lot more about this.I was wrong to accept Miers’ nomination with relief because I thought she might not be a closet Creationist (my narrow concern, my one little hot button). Will woke me up. She is not qualified, or has no ‘qualifying record.’ I might be the greatest potential jurist since Oliver Wendell Holmes, but Bush couldn’t nominate me on that hope.

Protein Wisdom spent most of Monday on one aspect or another of the nomination, closing with a question that many people may be asking right now. As usual, some of the comments were very interesting.

Over at the Conspiracy we find out just how frequently people with no judicial experience make the big bench. It's not always a bad thing.

Iowahawk got a copy of Miers' application form. (d'you get the feeling he's underwhelmed?)

The Llama butchers have a hyperlink that points elsewhere, (*scratching my head*) but had this to say in commenting about a Wizbang post I'll reference immediately after:

My beef with all this is the missed opportunity for a Transformative Appointment to the Court: the party at the national level has one three sucessive national elections for the White House, the Senate, and the House. Now is the opportunity to get our William O. Douglas or Hugo Black on there. People keep saying, "sure, there have been lots of Supremes who haven't been judges before" (like Douglas and for all real purposes Black for that matter), but it's annoying to keep lumping the former Chief into that category. No, Rehnquist hadn't been a judge, but he had clerked at the Supreme Court for Justice Jackson. The whole conservative legal movement has spent the last generation focused on building this network, and to now not use it, well, it's baffling. It's Truman-esque in many ways.

The Wizbang piece. He's going to step back and watch this one a while. In the comments section, however, was a segment from yesterday's press conference in which Bush said:

I'm hopeful she'll get confirmed, and then they'll get to read her opinions. And what I believe, and what I know is important, is that she doesn't change over the course of time. And had I thought she would change, I wouldn't put her on there...

Ohh, correction: Llama Butchers has more than one post on the prospective Justice, this one also opening on George Will skewering the President.

Given the plethora of references to the George Will piece, so I suppose it deserves a place. I don't necessarily disagree with his conclusion, but I sometimes think his glasses are tinted rose.

Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers' 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' name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.

Hugh Hewitt disagrees, but was that before he saw the Will piece? He apparently thinks 'experience' is where you find it.

The Chief Justice's experience did not, however, include GWOT experience, and it is here that Miers has a decisive advantage. Consider that none of the Justices, not even the new Chief, has seen the battlefield in the GWOT from the perspective or with the depth of knowledge as has the soon to be Justice Miers. The Counsel to the President has seen it all, and knows what the President knows, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Joint Chiefs and the Attorney General.

Is Mr. Hewitt trying to say that the Constitution, and interpretation thereof, should somehow be influenced by the GWOT? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

For myself, I am not completely unwilling to 'wait and see' at least how she stands up to confirmation hearings, but, like many other people, I'm disappointed that the President put cronyism above performance. I do not take it as a given that he, or anyone, 'knows' how Miers will decide critical Constitutional matters. Too, there were a number of candidates with equally good conservative credentials, and proven track records of upholding them. Miers, on the other hand, has covered quite a lot of the track in her time.