As some have noticed many digital 1s and 0s have been spent in discussing the Miers nomination. However, since 1s and 0s are relatively cheap I also want to voice my impression of the Miers nomination. Despite Justin’s opposition, I…

Stanley Kurtz (via Volokh) points out that Miers, the woman nominated for the Supreme Court, was involved in creating a lecture series in a woman’s studies department. Furthermore, she did it in the 90’s, after she had left the Democratic Party. This…

Consider white womyn a minority because the government does when handing out Affirmative Action bennies. Title IX?

As to moral vs. judicial conservatism, I think you can count on one hand the number of people who find abortion abhorrent, on the one hand, and find it so insanely wonderful that they magically discover a nonexistent constitutional “right” to it, on the other. It’s one thing to argue, as I would, that there is no enumerated Constitutional power properly authorizing the federal government to regulate drugs (or, for that matter, abortions). It’s quite another to suddenly “discover,” as no court has ever done to date, that every individual has a “constitutional” right to use drugs (or, for that matter, to obtain abortions). Surely you are not arguing that state laws prohibiting drugs are unconstitutional?

Patterico: Why am I not surprised that while The Other Xrlq remains largely silent on the issue, The Other Other Xrlq is anti-anti-anti-Miers?

Jeff Goldstein is not anti-Miers (in one sense, neither am I, since I have not committed to oppose her nomination), and he is not anti-anti-Miers. But he is anti-anti-anti-Miers.

Also, I think you need to distinguish between Miers being morally conservative vs. judicially conservative. No ammount of evidence for the former can count as evidence for the latter. I’m very strongly against drugs, but if I were on the Supreme Court I would rule that it is unconstitutional for Congress to regulate them. My moral and judicial opinions differ and as a judge, I would have to go with my judicial opinion.

Similary, for Miers, no matter how much she may be opposed to abortion, she may very well see a right to unrestrained sex (often euphemistically called a “right to privacy”) in the constitution.

I don’t know what to think of Myers, but I have no clue what there is so much venom being secreted in her direction. Especially, when the problem seems to be …”it’s not McConnell or Luttig.” In any event, I’m basically in the wait and see camp, with pretty much the same frusteration with the anti-Myers crowd. Oh well.

I’m reminded though of that comment you made long ago about us agreeing about a lot, which is probably true, heck both our teams can be referred to as the A’s, (of course, it’s all about Oakland though!)

The unpronounceable xrlq of Damnum Absque Injuria finds that it’s time to stop “being a presumptive opponent of Harriet Miers, and officially move into the camp of presumptively supporting her” at least in part moved by the lousy arg…

Having committed numerous errors in analyzing the case against her, how about taking a look at the case for her?

The errors to which you refer are on the order of typos. All the ones you’ve identified have been corrected above, and none rehabilitate a single word either Frum or Will said. Having misssed the forest for the trees, how about re-reading my corrected post now, and considering how much of substance, if anything, is left of either Frum or Will’s pieces.

As to the case for her, that case has yet to be made to my satisfaction or anyone else’s that I know of. At this stage, I’m not pro-Miers piece, just anti-anti Miers.

Doc, I share Angry’s concerns about conservatives keeping their views to themselves. However, I don’t think it has nearly as much to do with this nomination as he appears to assume. And given Miers’s past activities, I think we have more than a hint that she would not support Roe. Enough of a hint, I might add, that once Harry Reid & Co. are foolish enough to confirm her, they’ll be an a very odd position to argue against confirming anyone else on that basis.

And what about the fact that Bush is arranging things so that we won’t really know whether he kept his campaign promise until he is out of office?

He’s not; he’s got almost a full term ahead of him, which is plenty of time for us to know whether appointing Miers was in line with his promise to appoint Justices who share his judicial philosophy. Depending on when appointment #3 comes around (and the odds are that it will), we’ll probably even know enough in time for that confirmation.

And finally, are you realy still willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt? After his spending? After his refusal to control illegal immigration? After campaign finance reform? After the way he left his other judicial nominees hanging until after the election?

Absolutely. As much as I deplore Bush’s drunken sailor spending, his stance on illegal immigration and his signing of First Amendment “reform,” none of these are remotely related to his track record on judicial appointments, which is quite good. I’m not sure what you mean by “left them hanging,” but I think the issue here is whether or not to trust the selection process itself, i.e., not “will Bush leave Miers hanging?” but “did Bush choose a real conservative?” By all accounts, he did. If conservatism were the only issue, the smart money says Miers is more conservative than Chief Justice Roberts or even Justice Thomas, who described as “uncommonly silly” the same anti-sodomy statute whose repeal Miers had previously opposed.

As I mentioned before, I agree that the affirmative case for Miers, as opposed to cutting out all the silly crap that has been said against her, has yet to be made. Then again, the case to made to me must show not only that she is a judicial conservative, but that she will bring something valuable to the bench beyond that. If all you care about is whether President Bush kept his promise to appoint judicial conservatives to the bench, the Miers nomination comes about as close to a guarantee as it gets.