Presumptive opposition? Wisdom? Presumptive opposition is antithetical to the advise and consent role specified in the constitution. Madison very plainly stated that if anything there was a presumptive confirmation, and that rejection of the President's appointment would be rare indeed. I think George needs to check his meds. They may be a bit off today.
I'd say Mr. Will has gone over to the dark side in his view of the "advise and consent" clause. While I am not thrilled with the pick, as I read the Constitution and the intent of the advise and consent clause, it is the president's discretion to nominate those whom he believes will serve as justices, and the senate's job to confirm them absent some glaring flaw of character or ability. If Darth Vader-Ginsberg's radical views and historical allegience to the ACLU was insufficient to disqualify her, then all the braying about Roberts, Brown, Estrada, Owens, Pickering, and the other appointees who have seen their nominations stalled or blocked by the dems is completely unjustifiable. And there is certainly nothing to indicate that Miers should be rejected. Will's assertion that "the burden is on Miers to demonstrate such talents, and on senators to compel such a demonstration or reject the nomination" is a concept completely foreign to the Constitution AND to the history of the Senate's role in confirming presidential appointees. (at least up to the point when democrats decided they would only accept judges who will advance their agenda through the courts)
The democrats were obstinate, hateful, and partisan when they began this practice while holding the senate majority in the Reagan and GHW Bush administrations. The fact that a radical leftist loon like Vader-Ginsberg sits on the bench today is proof that the Republicans did not reciprocate when they held the senate majority during clinton's miserable terms. But the extent to which the democrat minority attempts to usurp the President's Constitutional Role and Power to make judicial appointments is a disgraceful and shameful thing to behold. And Will is carrying water for them when he argues that Bush's appointees have the burden of proof to prove they are worthy. NO. The burden of proof that they are unworthy is on the senate, and if the democrats' only beef with a jurist is "we don't know for sure that this judge will implement our agenda that we can't win at the ballot box for us," then sit down, shut up, and take an up or down vote.
The wailing! The gnashing! The rending of garments! If the conservative reaction to Harriet Miers is any indication, George W. Bush has no chance of winning a third term. p> The decision to appoint a relative unknown -- or, given her proximity to the Bush inner circle, an unknown relative -- has caused many on the right to open a vein and let the despair flow out into the warm bath of misery, disappointment and overextended metaphors. Why didn't Bush clone Antonin Scalia in a dish and appoint him? Here, use some stem cells if you have to. Anyone but another David Souter!p> That's the great fear on the right: Souterism. A mild-mannered cipher appointed by a Bush who dons the black robe and promptly starts to eat babies. Souter! How many times have you opened the door at Halloween and seen his face on a child's mask? How many times have you waited in the doctor's office, clammy with dread, waiting for him to slap the X-rays up on the wall and point to a grayish Souter-shaped mass?