Surprise for Supreme Court

So Bush has nominated Harriet Miers, his White House Counsel. I haven't completely made up my mind yet, but I'm going to incline more towards Hugh Hewitt's optimistic outlook on the situation. Sadly most conservatives are blasting the nomination pretty hard, although it's interesting because most of the criticism and outright dismissal comes from a lack of information, as opposed to any significant reason to oppose her nomination. I think it's significant that President Bush has promised to nominate strict constructionists (people who think the constitution means what it says) to the supreme court, and at the moment there is no reason to believe this is not what he has done. There is nothing in the constitution that says a supreme court nominee must be a judge, it's simply the norm.

There are two possibilities I see here, one that the President has made a mistake in nominating a "crony" to the court...although personally I think that's extremely unlikely because George W. Bush is no idiot. After all, he did win two elections and two wars. I don't think he would nominate a "crony" just for that reason, because he must know that if that were the overriding reason, there's virtually no chance that person would be confirmed, with the Democrats scraming at the top of their lungs that he's playing favorites and putting his friends into power, and Republicans screaming that they want a proven conservative (both of which are happening, by the way). No, there must be something else at work here, and I'm willing to reserve judgement until we at least have more information.

The second possibility is that The President is playing a new game entirely. We all saw what happened with the Roberts nomination, going through practically uncontested (sure there was a lot of rhetoric and outright hatred of him, but when it mattered, he was confirmed easily by a super majority vote). This may be another absolute coup by the Bush Administration against the status quo, by the manipulation of the very nature of it's politically correct nature, ie, nomination of a woman, and also someone against whom nobody is prepared to fight.

This nomination reminds me of John Bolton's nomination to the U.N. In a way, what Bush is doing is nominating someone to the top level of an organization, who is previously outside the organization, and not already entrenched in the inherent problems of that organization. Also, as some have suggested, Miers would bring to the Supreme Court a unique perspective that could serve as an equalizing force within The Court and bring knowledge of what really goes on and why certain decisions are made.

Additionally, the fact that Miers is a good friend of Bush may not be a bad thing. Those that scream "Cronyism!" should step back and think for a bit what that means. It means that The President knows her very well, in a way that the other three hundred million of us do not. It is likely that they have had many, MANY conversations about the Court's decisions and judicial policy, since after all, she is among his closest advisors. Those who support our President, step back for a minute and give him the benefit of the doubt, less you become supporters in name only, and when the going gets rough or uncertain, you turn tail and run or jump on the disapointment bandwagon without going through all the possibilities. Yes Michelle, Lawrence, David, that means you.
I'm so sick of self-righeous extremists on both the left AND the right that believe that they, and they alone know what is right for the country, and anything that doesn't exactly match their view of how things should be is a "betrayal" as if anyone owes THEM anything. People like that disgust me to no end.

For the Christian / Conservative perspective, check out this series of posts over at World Mag Blog:

Pro 1
Pro 2
Pro 3
Pro 4
Pro 5
Con 1
Her Pastor's Opinion