Give Her A Break

Wall Street Journal ^ | 10/15/05 | MELANIE KIRKPATRICK

[harpu]

Many of my friends on the right have signed up for the conservative revolt against Harriet Miers. Count me out -- at least for now.

I don't know enough about President Bush's most recent nominee for the Supreme Court to stand up and shout, "Hooray for Harriet." Her judicial philosophy remains a mystery and the White House's attempts to explain who she is have been ineffective, to say the least.

But I do know enough about Mr. Bush's judicial appointments over the past five years to give three cheers for his record on picking judges. Almost to a man and a woman, they are judicial conservatives who are already shifting the ideological balance of the federal judiciary to the right. Conservatives who have rushed to bash Mr. Bush for his selection of Ms. Miers should brew themselves a cup of chamomile tea and go back and review the roster of Bush judges. They'll sleep better, though it's probably too much to hope that they'll wake up with a more open-minded perspective on Ms. Miers.

Mr. Bush was elected in part on his pledge to remake the federal judiciary, and he's demonstrably followed through on that promise. That includes the appointment of John Roberts as chief justice of the United States, 43 appointees to the appeals courts and nearly 200 judges on the federal district courts. There are 871 judges in the federal judiciary, including 50 current vacancies. By the end of his second term, Mr. Bush will have appointed one-third or more. Ms. Miers has served on the committee that advises the president on judicial picks and, as White House counsel, has been chairman of that committee for the past year.

This reshaping of the judiciary hasn't been easy, and Mr. Bush has had to fight to keep his word.

[Rudder]

...environmental issues are usually the easiest for the leftists to sucker people with.

Yep. Good point.

[Poincare]

Sat PM bump.