hmmm...it seems to me that Reaganghost doesn't so much have a problem with Miers or the way Bush selects judicial appointments as he does with a bunch of other things.
First, Bush will be history in roughly 1200 days. Within limits, Bush can only approve or disapprove laws passed by Congress. Miers could be around 4-5 times that long deciding whether every law passed for the past 200 hundred years or the next 20-25 that she is around are law. The power of a President while in office is truly awesome, but most Americans have never considered just how powerful a Supreme Court Justice actually is, especially on a closely divided Court. In twenty years they can rewrite a lot of the laws passed since the inception of our Republic.
Yes I have a problem with Bush. Do I have a problem with her? I know that I would not have had a problem with Janice Rogers Brown. And that's the problem.
As for Newt, he made a huge contribution to conservative thought and to our Republic. Newt clearly had some character flaws. In addition, if you have read Newt's books, you would realize that Newt has some judgment flaws as well. After President Reagan was out of office, Newt stated that FDR was the greatest President of the 20th century. If Reagan had never been elected, nothing could have been further from the truth. There are at least two other Presidents that would be in contention for the worst Presidents of the 20th century, but in my own mind, FDR is probably the worst. For a conservative to put FDR ahead of RWR suggests a serious problem of judgment. When you put the character flaw and the judgment flaw together and then add a guy who wants to take over health care using the power of government, you should begin to question whether he is conservative at all or just another two bit politician who wants to exercise power. I for one suspect that Newt rose to his level of incompetence when he became Speaker of the House. That fact that he had a brilliant idea means we would should be alert to listen to what he has to say, but the flaws should be telling us loud and clear to seriously question whether this guy should be trusted with power. My answer is that if there aren't better guys out there, we simply aren't looking far enough.