More Divide and Conquer

ProfessorBainbridge.com says that "Hewitt's Still Wrong."

Hat tip to Mark Shea.

Ms. Miers has barely made the rounds. Conservative bloggers already begin throwing each other under the bus to either support or condemn her nomination. Professor Bainbridge remains unconvinced by radio talk-show host and blogger Hugh Hewitt's defense of Ms. Miers' nomination. He thinks that Rammesh Ponnuru of NRO has it right, still:

...The problem is that people like Hewitt and Kmiec want us to take on faith the proposition that Harriet Miers will "shun legislating from the bench." Yet, neither Hugh nor Kmiec marshall any evidence from Miers' record to support that proposition. Hugh's repeated card - and its the only one he has to play, in my view - is to ask us to trust Bush. So for Hugh, here's why I am unwilling to trust Bush on this one.

1.We are told Miers was surprised and upset that her White House office was staffed by Federalist Society types who loathed her beloved ABA.

2. David Frum, who worked with Miers in the White House, says that "In a White House that hero-worshiped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met." I'm sure even Hugh, who may be Bush's most consistent defender, would be led to wonder just how many men Miers has met. Bush may have many virtues, but being the sharpest knife in the drawer isn;t one of them.

3. Frum also says: "She is not the person to lead the court in new directions." Unfortunately, shunning "legislating from the bench," as Kmiec put it, is precisely the new direction in which this court most needs to be led.

4. Why is the leader of a party that is supposedly against affirmative action making an appointment that can only be explained as an affirmative action choice?

5. You don't take a Saturday Night Special to an artillery duel. The Supreme Court is the big leagues. You don't bring your B team to the World Series. Miers may well be a smart lawyer. But she went to the #52 ranked law school in the country and then headed up a Dallas law firm that one of my colleagues who practiced in Dallas tells me got big but was not in the first rank. And, as Pejman observed, "Crashing through glass ceilings is impressive. But the Supreme Court demands more than that." Call me an intellectual snob if you want, but while I don't insist on Ivy League credentials, I do insist on documented high power thinking.

6. As the WSJ observed today, Miers lack of defined views on the great legal questions of the day is troubling precisely because: "The lesson of other Republican nominees without such fixed views -- Harry Blackmun, Mr. Souter, Anthony Kennedy -- is that they always drift to the left once they get on the Court."

7. Hugh has also failed to grapple with the Journal's observation that Miers' silence on the great issues of the day is troubling precisely because: "The lesson this nomination in particular will send to younger lawyers is to keep your opinions to yourself, don't join the Federalist Society, and, heaven forbid, never write an op-ed piece."

8. Manuel Miranda made a closely related point, which I find quite important: "The nomination of Harriet Miers has not rid us of the repugnant situation that a jurist with a clear and distinguished record will not be nominated for higher service. The nomination did not rid us of the apprehension of stealth nominees."

9. Harry Ried and left-leaning blawgs like TalkLeft like her.

10. Senator John Cornyn, who knows Miers well, has been quoted as saying that "She is obviously not a Scalia or a Thomas." Isn't a Scalia or Thomas precisely what Bush promised us? I'm starting to lose track of the number of promises Bush made to his base and has now broken.

11. She is a long-time Bush crony. After Mike Brown, Julie Myers and Eduardo Aguirre, and ffive of the top 8 FEMA leaders, to mention just a few, I've had my fill of Bush cronies in high positions. And, yes, part of the disappointment is that Bush went with a crony when there are so many other vastly superior candidates out there: "she's going to the Supreme Court while people like Michael Luttig, Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown & Emilio Garza are being left on the sidelines."...

Hard-core loyalists of the President like Mr. Hewitt will accept him at his word. They find fault with those conservatives that refuse to just sit back and accept a "trust me" from this President. Unfortunately for them, they don't find an argument. The President has disappointed many conservatives throughout his administration. They held out hope that he would, at least, nominate a strong originalist to the Supreme Court. Instead, he nominates two stealth candidate. Now, Justice Roberts may turn out to genuinely interprete the constitution and act as a Justice should. He certainly has the track record, given his service to both Presidents Reagan and Bush 41.

Ms. Miers does not. Outside of Texas and the President, what accomplishments favor her selection over eminently qualified jurists and legal scholars such as Priscilla Owens of Michael McConnell? Outside of her connection to the President, in what way has she established herself as a constitutional originalist or a legal conservative? Well, she hasn't.

As to the President's word on the matter, Professor Bainbridge has admirably demonstrated the legitimate doubts that his conservative supporters rightly have. They won't, and shouldn't have to, accept a simple "Trust me" from this President.

The Democrats and their Reasonable allies in the MSM and Pundit-land will look to take advantage of this rift in the President's base. Those conservatives that continue to take him at his word simply delay the accountability that the President and his party owe to those that re-elected him. Either he accounts to them now, or his party will in the future. Does President Bush want that to be his legacy?

His recent policy missteps have begun to close the window that President Reagan's tenure opened. If he doesn't right this ship, conservatives--and Fools along with them, may find themselves without a voice in a society enthralled by the Culture of Death. For the Democrats will offer no hearing to Fools, and if the Republicans do not, they'll lose the support they require to remain a majority.

But if conservatives and Fools stay home when the Republicans count, to whom, then, will they go?

Suddenly, we're all surfing on quicksand!