A good pick politically, if not philosophically...

From what I read on Harriet Miers, I'm not really impressed. Protein Wisdom has a good summary of blog reactions and some reasons for conservatives to be concerned. Orin Kerr at Volokh has a good essay on why he would prefer someone with a stronger judicial philosophy.

While I tend to agree with this, I can also understand why Bush picked her - and not just because of the "crony" aspect. She (like Roberts) is unlikely to get pounded by the left. It would be wonderful for Bush to nominate a small government, limited power, strict constructionist type to the Supreme Court, but such a candidate is unlikely to get confirmed.

Robert Bork is the reason for this. The Borking of, well, Bork, has pretty much demonstrated that any candidate with a strong conservative judical philosphy that has been expressed in writing will have his or her writings be taken out of context and used against them.

That is why Bush nominated Roberts (whose most controversial decision involved a girl eating a french fry on the Metro) and Miers (who has never been a judge and thus has no decisions to be scoured) and no academic writings to be critiqued. The fact that she's a woman, replacing a women, probably doesn't hurt.

While I would love to see a strong originalist/strict constructionist nominated, I also know that the People for the American Way, the ACLU, and every other lefty group out there would launch a huge Borking campaign and he or she would never get nominated.

Mier may not be the best choice, but she's one who actually has a shot getting through. I'm not sure if we gain anything by nominating someone who gets shot down, and then having to nominate someone like Miers anyway - especially since another Borking is sure to make Bush and Republicans in general look like evil racists who eat babies by taking stuff out of context.