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By Carol Platt Liebau Posted in Analysis and Predictions — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Interesting post by Erick below.

Here's a sentence that really jumped out at me: "What is truly aggravating for me is the condescension of some (though definitely not all) who support the nomination at those of us who either object to it or are otherwise unhappy with it. The attitude seems to be that since we have been given what we want, we should be happy. "

And to it I would just say two things: One is that it's quite difficult to pinpoint who will "support the nomination" since so few of us know so little about Ms. Miers at this point. Rather, I would say that the relevant distinction is between those of us who are ready to oppose the nominee and the President now, and those of us who are, at least, willing to wait to find out more about his nominee and to give her a chance to answer some questions.

Second, I think it's very difficult to find any conservative who was not somewhat "unhappy" about the nomination at some time. There are very few who haven't admitted that Ms. Miers wasn't their top choice. And I can only speak for myself here, but my attitude isn't "that since we have been given what we want, we should be happy." Rather, since we don't know that we haven't been given what we want, perhaps we should try to find out more rather than indulging in "shoot from the hip" histrionics, as some commentators have.

Finally, to the extent that there's been "condescension" by anyone, I think it's probably clear that, at a minimum, it's run both ways. If there's anything that's disappointed me, it's the discovery that some conservatives (not all those who oppose Ms. Miers, however) can be as parochially elitist as any of the liberals with whom I went to school.

At both college and law school, there were plenty of lefties who would have simply assumed that a woman who went to a non-top tier law school, spoke with a Southern accent, hadn't taught or sat on the bench (or otherwise displayed "excellence" as some pundits would define it), and became a born-again Christian was per se an intellectual "lesser light" -- presumptively unfit to sit on the nation's highest court.

It's been a surprise and a disappointment to me that many conservatives labor under the same assumptions, without even giving Harriet Miers a chance. And however disappointing President Bush's administration has been in some particulars (campaign finance reform and the rest), his judgment about judges has been excellent.