Your remark here (and many like it in other spots on these threads) seems to be indicative of a belief that Supreme Court justices only look at the Constitution.
There are volumes of federal laws on which the Supremes are routinely called upon to interpret and opine.
That's not a defense of "elitism" it's just a fact. Look, Miers has the training that is necesary to do the job. A mechanic does not.
The objection to her nomination is not that she is not at all qualified by virtue of a lack of education. It is that this nomination is hard to explain in light of all the other equally qualified by education candidates who also are known quantities when it comes to their constitutional jurisprudence. In short, we are being asked to take a pig in the poke solely on the word of the President. He may have good reasons for this choice (see my post above about political realities) but that is what this comes down to.
If Harriet Miers turns out to be a failure in her testimony, I will withdraw my support.
Right now, I think that she is the one originalist who can squeak through because she doesn't have much of a paper trail. I don't imagine that we will get any votes from democrats. My concern is holding onto the Republican squishes.
I also find it regrettable that this argument has deteriorated into a series of insults about the President and Ms. Miers, as well as between Freeper in these threads.
I am concerned that the pent-up rage at the liberals has been transferred to the President as the most convenient target. Krauthammer himself says that we needed to have a battle over this.
At some point, we do. I don't much like the idea of putting a court nominee in the middle of such a fight, however. I also don't want to see the Senate bogged down in a fight when there are important bills to pass.
It would be helpful if someone set up a series of debates. Our side could field our best debaters, an the democrats could choose an equal number from their side.
PBS could finally make itself useful and air them, and we could spend some money promoting it. Maybe we could make it cool to be conservative, sort of like "Survivor."
Sounds like a flippant idea, but I really would like to see a few liberals cut down to size, but this wasn't a good time to do it.