a poke in the eye

GWB has nominated Harriet Miers to fill O'Conner's seat on the Supreme Court. Her bio seems to reveal that she's very bright and very hard working. Unfortunately, all of that work has been as a private sector or government lawyer, with absolutely no judicial history. Consequently, it's impossible to tell what kind of philophical approach she will apply to Constitutional interpretation. In addition to her non-existant paper trail, she has donated money to Al Gore and the DNC during past election cycles. Perhaps she was simply acting in the best interest of her law firm, covering all the bases with her contributions. Perhaps her personal political inclinations aren't consistently conservative. As of right now, we're left with little more than GWB's personal recommendation to go on. I'd like something a little bit more substancial before I support her nomination to the Court.

I wasn't terribly pleased by the selection of Roberts, because I doubt that he is a committed originalist in interpretting the Constitution. He seemed to be more in the mold of a Rehnquist than a Thomas or a Scalia. On the other hand, he did at least seem to be consistently conservative in his political outlook. Miers doesn't yet get this benefit of the doubt since we know neither her approach to constitutional interpretation nor her general political inclinations. I think she's more likely to turn into another O'Conner. If that turns out ot be the case, GWB has thrown away two chances to improve the Supreme Court, and two chances to give the country an opportunity to seriously debate the principles of Constitutional interpretation.

Miers may be better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but not by much.

UPDATE: After implying that Bush is making a mistake here, it's only fair to provide a link to someone who has evidence to the contrary:

• Part 1
  
• Part 2
  
• Part 3
  
• Part 4
  
• Part 5
  

There are two senarios in which this nomination may be a very good move for Bush:

1. Miers has agreed to be a sacrificial lamb--she bears the brunt of attacks by liberal Democrats, her nomination is withdrawn, and a more conservative/better credentialed nominee faces less of a fight because of favorable comparisons to Miers.
   
2. Miers is every bit the conservative originalist that I want to see on the Court, but Democrats think they're going to get another Souter so they let her through without much of a fight.
   

Option 1 seems rather nonsensical. Option 2 seems too good to be true. We'll see, I guess.