What He Said

I've argued the issue before, but Andrew Cline in the American Spectator says it best:

[R]ead conservative columnists, editors, and bloggers, and it becomes immediately clear what the principle objection is: She might or might not be politically conservative, but nobody knows if she is legally conservative.

There is a difference between being politically conservative and being legally conservative. A political conservative might believe in limiting government and maintaining social traditions, but few conservatives would argue that those beliefs qualify one for a seat on the Supreme Court. Unlike liberals, who want the court to be another branch of representative government, conservatives want the court to fulfill its traditional role as an applier -- not interpreter -- of the Constitution. Simply voting for Ronald Reagan does not qualify a person to become one of only nine Americans entrusted with the Constitution's care.

If conservatives thought as liberals do, they would not be so unhappy with the Miers nomination. But conservatives don't want a Supreme Court justice to "represent" them on the courts. They don't conceive of the judiciary that way. The Supreme Court's nine seats are not to be divided up according to political, racial, sexual or any other representative criteria. They are to be given to the nine Americans most capable of protecting the Constitution from political attack. Harriet Miers is not on that list. . .

What conservatives really want is a court made up of America's brightest legal minds. They have a different view than liberals do of what makes a bright legal mind, of course. But legal reasoning -- not political belief -- is the all-important criterion.

The President promised; he didn't deliver. What's wrong with saying so?

More:

Bernard at A Certain Slant of Light:

We're told such things as Harriet Miers is a deeply religious person, very detail-oriented, a bulldog litigator, and a staunch loyalist of the president, but how do these sorts of accolades translate into her being someone in the Scalia-Thomas mold and a strict constructionist/originalist?

(via GOP Bloggers)