A more apt analogy would be a member of the College of Cardinals who was eligible to be selected as the next pontiff, but who had spent sixty years of his life desperately avoiding comment on any controversial doctrinal issue.
Miers rejected the Fed. Society-and if you want confirmation of this you can just punch up the revelatory pieces published recently in the WSJ by writers like Dan Heninger and John Fund-for either of two reasons:
1. She wanted to avoid being tied to any controversial-read Constitutionalist-judicial philosophy,
or
2. She has no such philosophy to speak of, and merely arrives at her views on an ad hoc, Justice Burger-like basis.
Neither possibility is comforting in the least.
You're on my turf now. Joseph Ratzinger was deemed, by the media and most Catholic commentators and by me, frankly, as too old, at 78, to be elected to the papacy. He was written off prior to the conclave.
Ratzinger was also typed as a stuffy old fuddy-duddy, doctrinally conservative, and ready to roll back Vatican II.
He has proven to be totally opposite of the dire forecasts. He is open, he listens, he is a focused, polished speaker, and has, as his first priority, Jesus' mandate that "they all may be one," that is, the reunion of Christian Churches.
Ratzinger was an inspired choice for pope, and, I believe, Miers is an inspired choice for the Supreme Court.
You calling Ratzinger a crony? That's a stretch.
A more apt analogy would be a member of the College of Cardinals who was eligible to be selected as the next pontiff, but who had spent sixty years of his life desperately avoiding comment on any controversial doctrinal issue.