Worth repeating. I remember those races well. I still don't understand his support for Specter.
He got the RINO senate he asked for, and now has to deal with it.
I'll be really suprised if Meyers turns out to have any consistant philosophy as it regards interpreting the constitution. She'll end up being another "swing vote" so we will, yet again, have no idea what the court will do on any given case or issue. About the only thing I'm reasonably sure of is that she's thoroughly anti-abortion (which seems to pull a lot of weight with the President). Unfortunately, abortion isn't an issue that really fires me up either way. I would like to know how she feels about property rights and emminent domain. That would tell us more about how she views the constitution than what I've heard so far.
Remember folks, if she's a lousy justice, there will be nothing that can be done about it once she's been confirmed.
I've been trying to maintain optimism using an opposite premise. I think Thomas Sowell makes an excellent point when he notes that "[t]he very fact that Harriet Miers is a member of an evangelical church suggests that she is not dying to be accepted by the beautiful people, and is unlikely to sell out the Constitution of the United States in order to be the toast of Georgetown cocktail parties or praised in the New York Times. Considering some of the turkeys that Republicans have put on the Supreme Court in the past, she could be a big improvement." I am hoping that Ms. Miers' conservatism is an integral part of her philosophy, and is even grounded in her faith. I think that possibility, combined with the fact that she is a judicial outsider, may make her more immune to influence by liberal members of the Court. I hope so, in any event.
In his past writings on the Court, Dr. Sowell has been extremely critical of the exact kind of unpredictability you describe. I think he is among the harshest critics of judicial inconsistency, and if your fear comes to pass, I'm sure we will be reading more columns from him on that topic!