ConfirmThem

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

It's time for the Bush Administration to start giving conservatives some more information about Harriet Miers. Of course, one political calculus would be that anything making the Miers nomination more palatable to conservatives would "upset" the liberals.

Well, so be it. At this point, the President has bigger problems with his base than he does with the Democrats. Chances are that even if a fair amount of very favorable information (from a conservative perspective) comes out, the Dems aren't going to complain about it -- because they aren't going to want to gamble that the President would choose another nominee more to their liking. And in the meantime, there would be more criteria for assessing the quality of the nomination.

In any case, one of the arguments against Ms. Miers that's just not credible is the "best and brightest" approach. I stand second to no one in my admiration for Justice Thomas -- he is a great justice and a great man. But when he was nominated to the Court, he had served only a short time (about a year) on the D.C. Circuit, before that having served as head of the EEOC, assistant secretary of education, a corporate lawyer and an aide to Senator Jack Danforth. For my part, I think those are stellar credentials, along with his having been an assistant attorney general for the state of Missouri (my home state). But few would have argued at the time that they rendered him the most qualified pick for the Court when distinguished jurists of long standing like D.C. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman were passed over.

The smears about Justice Thomas' credentials were simply another form of liberal opposition to his ideas. He was a fine choice then, and is a magnificent justice now. As I recall, neither George Will nor many of the other conservatives who have heaped disdain on Ms. Miers' intelligence and experience express any reservations about Justice Thomas based on his credentials, and rightly so. Our confidence in him has been well borne out by the quality of his opinions.

The difference? People felt that they "knew" Justice Thomas and the way he approached the law. And here, once again, the fact is that the "underqualified" arguments are nothing more than a smoke-screen for opposition to Ms. Miers because people (this time, conservatives) don't know her -- and, not knowing her, fear that she isn't a strict constructionist. Those concerns are valid ones, and are shared widely within the conservative movement. But those who have opposed Ms. Miers from the get-go owe it to the rest of us to be straightforward about why.

And the President owes it to all of us to give us the information to help make an informed decision.