I don't recall any outrage when Byron White and William Rehnquist were nominated to the Supreme Court, even though neither of them had judicial experience, both had spent most of their legal careers in general practice law firms, and both were appointed because of their political connections as opposed to their legal scholarship.
Aside from that, if Miers had something like the following in her resume, I suspect most Republicans would be supporting her - instead what we have is a political cipher which is exactly what 30 years of Supreme Court politics has taught conservatives to distrust.
Following advice given to him by Justice Felix Frankfurter, Rehnquist began his participation in the Republican Party. He became a Republican Party official and achieved prominence in the Phoenix area as a strong opponent of liberal initiatives such as school integration. Rehnquist campaigned for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater during the 1964 elections. During that time, he befriended Richard Kleindienst, another attorney from Phoenix. When Richard Nixon rose to the presidency a few years later, he appointed Kleindienst deputy attorney general of his administration. Kleindienst sought Rehnquist for the position of deputy attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. When Justice John Marshall Harlan retired in 1971, the Nixon administration chose Rehnquist as Harlan's replacement.