Everyone who reads this blog on any sort of regular basis knows that I am a deeply conservative, Republican who tends more towards support for rather than opposition towards the President. I'm listed in the conservative blog section on dMoz; heck, I edit it.
That said...(and I know this is not exactly a first...)
I oppose the nomination of Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court. She has no judicial experience, the nomination smells bad re: how close she's been to Bush on a personal level, we have no indication at ALL of her politics, I've seen everything from support of the ICC to rumors she's a lesbian to claims she gave money to the DNC, Gore '88, and Lloyd Bentsen.
Bush has become tone-deaf to his base; Republicans got elected in 2004, especially in South Dakota, because people want to see decent court nominees. Harriet Miers is not one of them. I'd have no qualms about seeing her nominated to a District Court judgeship; for the Supreme Court, I sincerely believe you need either judicial experience or a paper trial in academia as long as my arm.
I'm with the editors on RedState on this one.
Immediately, this nomination needs to be withdrawn, and Miers needs to be replaced with someone like an Alito, a Luttig, an Owen, or for the love of God, someone who's put on black robes as something other than a Halloween costume.
I want, as do a fair majority of my fellow conservatives, conservative judges with histories on the bench of being fair, impartial, and textualist. Roberts was tolerable; he clearly had a strong intellectual record, he's served on the Circuit Court in D.C., he was a clerk for Rehnquist, argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court, etc.
She's got nothing.
I call on the Senators of both parties to promptly give an up-or-down vote on this nominee, and to perform your constitutional duty to advise this President to nominate decent judges.
He's not a fiscal conservative. He's endorsed Chafee and Specter over more conservative opponents, opponents who would far more reliably support him in the Senate. And finally, he's nominated a god-awful candidate for the O'Connor seat.
Wake up, Mr. President. Wake up.
