Even Brits Are Suspicious

The Lexington column in the October 15th Economist :

[T]the real question about Mr Bush's appointment of Ms Miers is not whether it is cronyism, but whether he has stepped over the line that separates business-as-usual from offensive favouritism. A definitive answer to that question may not be clear for years. But the early signs are that he has overstepped, and done so in a clumsy way.

The reason for this is simple: a seat on the Supreme Court is a very different thing from even the most elevated job in the White House. The court is the summit of the third branch of government and its justices serve for life rather than just at the president's pleasure. Mr Bush is not the first president to nominate a close friend to the court—FDR nominated Felix Frankfurter, who turned out to be a good choice, and Johnson nominated Abe Fortas, who resigned from the bench under a cloud—but both were defensible in terms of intellect and experience.

There is little evidence that Ms Miers passes this test. Conservatives such as George Will say she would not have made anybody's list of the top 100 conservative lawyers in the country. The implication is that even if she turns out to be a conservative fellow-traveller (which they doubt) she won't have the intellectual weight to shape the court. As for the White House's feeble defence of her qualifications, it brings to mind the infamous justification for Richard Nixon's nominee, Harold Carswell: “Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they?”

Miers Oppositum Est.