A quick thought on Miers

There seems to be this growing inference by some conservatives that anyone who expresses doubts about Harriet Miers is being unfair, elitist, petty or ignorant. This name-calling against people who have some legitimate concerns strikes me as unfair, elitist and petty, if not ignorant.

That said, I've reached the conclusion that my call for her defeat by the Senate is premature. I'm still not happy about the choice; as I wrote at Gully's site:

Her connection to the president is not a negative in and of itself, but what causes concern is the potential inability to gauge her judicial abilities and philosophies separate from Bush's word.
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It may turn out that the hearings reveal Miers to be a superbly qualified jurist, but I doubt it. As we saw from Roberts, the hearings are not that valuable because of the Ginsburg Principle, and whatever writings the White House might release to show her philosophies can be dismissed as "doing her job for the administration" when the conclusions are attacked by Democrats.

The president's job is to nominate someone he believes is qualified for the job, but he needs at least 50 Senators to agree, and there's the rub. Senators should not simply vote Yes because the president said so; that kind of mindless zombie-ism is exactly what we accuse Democrats of doing in response to MoveOn, PFAW, etc.

The Senate has every reason to expect it can verify the president's judgment through the nominations process. (Otherwise, there's no point in having the Advise-and-Consent clause at all.) Conservatives (at least this one) who express concern about this nomination are simply asking for the same verification.

But I agree with Gully and a few other bloggers about one thing: Bush has done well with his previous nominations, and that deserves to be taken into account with this nomination.

I still fear the hearings won't reveal enough to appease my concerns about Harriet Miers. I still fear it will be a wasted pick. I still fear no additional nomination opportunities will present themselves to a Republican president with a Republican Senate in the forseeable future. But I have to at least give her (and Bush) the benefit of the doubt until that time.

Taking a deep breath and trying to follow my own advice...