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...but there is no sign that she has the intellectual depth or sophisticated understanding of the Constitution to seriously challenge the liberal legal mainstream.

What the hell does that mean? All she needs to do is get four votes to side with her and what she says will become law. She doesn't have to challenge the liberal legal mainstream, it will have to challenge her.

This is silly. MOST Supreme Court justices never write memorable decisions, and MOST vote with a majority or minority in which ONE or TWO great legal minds direct the court. Always has been, always will be.

That's why we need a complete moron on the court, someone barely smart enough to breath but still able to sign her X on legal documents. After all, the clerks do all the work.

I've said it before: one Scalia on the Court is a dream; nine would be a nightmare, because then we'd be back to a original intrepretation of the Constitution, and who needs that?

"...but there is no sign that she has the intellectual depth or sophisticated understanding of the Constitution to seriously challenge the liberal legal mainstream."

What the hell does that mean? All she needs to do is get four votes to side with her and what she says will become law. If she writes enough birthday cards with hearts on them, that ought to be sufficient to sway those stodgy Justices to her side.

She doesn't have to challenge the liberal legal mainstream, all she has to do is be a cipher, a pimple on the butt of jurisprudence, and the left will have to challenge her. If you are a woman and a friend of GW, you don't need brains to be a Supreme Court Justice, no it's all about feeling good about someone. That's why I'm having my heart surgery done by my chiropractor, he's so much more friendly than those guys down at the hospital.

What the hell does that mean? All she needs to do is get four votes to side with her and what she says will become law. She doesn't have to challenge the liberal legal mainstream, it will have to challenge her.

Here is the problem with that idea. It's not just the votes that matter - it's the reasoning in the decisions. There are hundreds of district and appellate courts across this country with conservative justices who look for guidance from the Supreme Court on how to best articulate their position so that it stands in the face of numerous appeals on each fine point of the law.

In fact, while many decisions of the Supreme Court may not be memorable, lines and footnotes from those decisions most certainly are. In order to defend what's left of constitutional law, we need to have a justice who understands how to represent the conservative position in the face of years of jurisprudence that goes "the other way." Might Miers be able to do it? Perhaps. But why not go with someone who has already proven themselves?