I'm with you. Bush has installed a long-term chief justice in Roberts (Good Lord willing), and he will outlive Ms. Miers, probably. I like the idea that Ms. Miers can bring to the very insulated court a real-world perspective based on her experience in law and politics, not to mention actual management experience. A common criticism of the court is that it is too isolated from real-world issues and Ms. Miers can cure that defect.
Will she have the fortitude to stand up to liberal justices and peer pressure to conform to the ABA and international legal types? I think she has done so already as a woman in a man's world, as a single woman in a married woman world, as a lawyer and a conservative religious type. If those don't demonstrate intestinal fortitude, I don't know what does.
The problem is that many lawyers go into the field specifically aiming to reach the courts, especially the Supreme Court if possible. They do everything they can to cultivate that rarified atmosphere where eggheads sit around discussing judicial philosophy or legal economics or deconstructing everything they can. They do everything they can to get into the "right" schools, into judicial clerkships with the "right" judges and the "right" law firms who have a track record of placing its members on the high courts. Most couldn't give a lick about the cases they work on except as stepping stones to their eventual glory on the bench. I like that Ms. Miers appears to have sidestepped that path and tried to do the best she could in a variety of fields. I believe she might be a great voice for the "normal" people we all are and love.
Incidentally, the art of legal thinking isn't cultivated only in Ivy League schools. If she could pass a bar, she has the skills needed to be a great justice. Fact is, the Supremes have very little control of the issues presented to them, except on some criminal matters. Everything else is carefully orchestrated by the parties involved and the Supremes also have the right to deny certiorari if they don't wish to address an issue. Ninety percent or more of all appeals to the Supremes aren't accepted. If Ms. Miers has the ability to review the relevant law and the facts as presented in the record, she has the skills to do the job.
I am willing to give her a chance to prove herself. The hearings ought to be great enlightenment for all of us. At least until then, and perhaps after, depending on the questions she faces, I am willing to suspend my judgment.
Here's a novel idea. Let's give a chance to someone who's already proven themselves. Just for the hell of it, is it okay for the party in power to go with the percentage shot instead of the half-court heave?
She did pass the Arkansas bar and the rest is history.