Baloney. Bush has done his job with his past picks to the federal courts. He's nominated mostly conservative jurists and his track record in that regard is quite good.
At the very least, Miers deserves her day before the Senate committee. They'll be plenty of time to rip her after she speaks, should she screw up. But unless serious problems are revealed, Miers will be confirmed.
When he's being watched. I don't understand the notion that because a politician does the right thing when his actions can be scrutinized, he can therefore be trusted to do the right thing without supervision. There aren't that many areas in life where you can do that, and politics least of all.
Which is precisely the reason, it is a bad move to wait until the hearing to criticize this nomination.
The hearing is not going to improve her resume, nor will it improve her conservative credentials which are non-existent except for her experience working for GW.
So if Bush nominates Barney the dinosaur, by this logic, we should all fall in line and support the president? This "reasoning" is in fact no reasoning at all.
Why is hard evidence of his otherwise good judgement absent from this pre-eminently important nomination?
Another way to look at it, and one which makes more sense with the actual facts, is that Bush is caving under feminist (some would put it less charitably) pressure.
Harriet Meirs-- withdraw your nomination. Now. Thank you.
One more thing-- what does the fact that Meirs has not withdrawn her nomination by now despite splitting the conservative unity tell you about Meirs the person? Perhaps to Meirs, her nomination is more important than keeping conservatives in office in 2006 and 2008.