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I could give a damn about 'poor' writing, if that is the price to pay to have a Clarence Thomas sitting on the court.

Clarence Thomas, who by the way is known for the quality of his writing -- he seldom speaks during oral arguments -- had quite a track record. There is absolutely no indication that this woman is a Clarence Thomas. There are troubling indications that she is very liberal on economic issues and moderately liberal on social issues, but these indications are very thin, because her life has been lived in a circumspect way and her jobs have mostly been out of the public eye (neither good nor bad, this; it's just the set of facts we have).

The supporters of the Miers nomination seem to have two basic arguments, and two only:

The president said, "trust me," and so let's trust him;
She's a member of an evangelical church that has many socially conservative members.

There are also occasional attempts to inflate her resume which adds up to: a better than average lawyer of no known political or philosophical leanings.

Sounds to me like a good candidate for a US District Court, maybe in a stretch Court of Appeals.

I was inclined to trust the President on his nominees -- we owe him, after all, some deference in that. He blew that with me forever with the Julie Myers nomination to head ICE -- a crony's twentysomething niece who has never supervised more than three people. She is the most unqualified person nominated for any senior Federal position since Andrew Young. This tells me that the President's judgment about people is insufficient to support a "trust me" standard.

And Harriet Miers seems to be the most unqualified person nominated since Carswell, if not Fortas. I realise some people are so anti-intellectual that they would welcome a Carswell. (Fortas, in fact, looked more qualified than Miers on paper, but he was a well-known crook). Neither of the gentlemen I name here was confirmed.

You may just be more trusting than I. But you can't expect sell Miers on "trust W" or "she's my religion" grounds. I don't trust W, and she ain't my religion. And for the people making the "mediocre people deserve representation too" argument -- I submit they already have plenty.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F