There is more than one piece to the puzzle, Thomas Sowell wrote an interesting article today.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1498234/posts
When it comes to taking on a tough fight with the Senate Democrats over judicial nominations, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist doesn't really have a majority to lead. Before the President nominated anybody, before he even took the oath of office for his second term, Senator Arlen Specter was already warning him not to nominate anyone who would rile up the Senate. Later, Senator John Warner issued a similar warning. It sounded like a familiar Republican strategy of preemptive surrender.
Before we can judge how the President played his hand, we have to consider what kind of hand he had to play. It was a weak hand -- and the weakness was in the Republican Senators. Does this mean that Harriet Miers will not be a good Supreme Court justice if she is confirmed? It is hard to imagine her being worse than Sandra Day O'Connor -- or even as bad.
It is hard to imagine her being worse than Sandra Day O'Connor -- or even as bad. It may be hard-I'll concede that much-but it's not out of the realm of possibility.
Sandra Day O'Connor, despite her failings-and they were manifold-was at the very least somewhat committed to the concept of federalism.
We don't even know that much about Harriet Miers.