GOP.O.'d

GOP.O.'d, but why?

A couple thoughts on Miers and the GOP. Rather, questions/confusions. Strangely,it has been Republican senators most vocally critical of Bush's second Supreme Court nomination. For instance, this from the Times today:

"Everybody is hoping that something will happen on Miers, either that the president would withdraw her or she would realize she is not up to it and pull out while she has some dignity intact," a lawyer to a Republican committee member said.

"Realize she's not up to it..." This is what I do not get. The going criticism of Miers seems to be that she is unable to meet the intellectual demands of Constitutional interpretation required of a Justice. One of the first conservative critics of the pick, George Will, made exactly that point a few columns back.

George Will is not a lawyer- he is a highly educated journalist that knows alot about politics and baseball. How his lack of a legal education benefits his passing judgement on the Constitutional interpretative abilities of one with a legal education is a deep mystery to this writer.

Let me offer a small secret: Constitutional interpretation and application is not hard. It is as difficult as forming an opinion on the meaning of a phrase. The difficulty is intellectually defending one's decisions in the face of seeming inconsistency. Even that, though, need not be too difficult: a'la pragmatism and the noble practice of case-by-case decision making. (read, for example, Bush v. Gore)

Really, anyone can engage in Constitutional discussion. Neigh, everyone should so engage; the Constitution being what is American civic participation. This mumbo jumbo about Miers 'not being up' for the job cannot be about Constitutional law. Nor can it be about lacking a thorough knowledge of case law. Clerks, Briefs, and Hornbooks are the calculators of the judicial profession. There is no need to maintain a memory of case law...especially when there exist fallible and stubborn memories in the heads of these nine.

So what is 'not up for it' about?

My hunch: BS. She is not approved of because her lacking track record fails to assure that she will be an activist jurist in overturning mid-20th century precedent despised by the conservative movement. She is, in other words, not assuredly up for the cause.