Harriet Miers....I still don't understand

"I know her heart. She knows exactly the kind of judge I'm looking for," Bush said at a morning news conference, noting that she had helped conduct the search that led to the appointment of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. She will be "exactly" what he is looking for, Bush said several times.

Asked by a reporter if she was "the most qualified" person he could find in the country, he said, "Yes, otherwise I would not have" named her.
---Washington Post---

I knew that George W. Bush was capable of really stupid things but I am surprised that his puppet masters would let him nominate Harriet Miers. She is not only not "the most qualified" person but not qualified at all, and as I said over at Running Scared she is the ultimate stealth nominee. She is so stealth that both the right and the left are concerned. The Volokh Conspiracy has a sampling of reactions from the conservative blogosphere. As much as concern and disappointment I detected embarrassment among the responses. here are a few snippets.

• To merely describe Miers as a terrible pick is to underestimate her sheer awfulness as a selection.



• I was hoping that, because this is Bush's second term, he would thumb his nose at the diversity-mongers and appoint the best candidate. He thumbed his nose all right, but at conservatives.



• Mr. President, you’ve got some explaining to do. And please remember - we’ve been defending you these five years because of this moment.



• This appointment reeks of cronyism, which along with prideful arrogance seems to be the besetting sin of the Bush presidency. At this point, I see no reason - none, nada, zilch - for conservatives who care about the courts to lift a finger to support this candidate.

I think for a time the Democrats should lay low, talk about her lack of qualifications and the blatant cronyism. The damage Bush and the Republicans suffered over Michael Brown makes the Miers nomination even more surprising.

At some point it will be necessary to discuss ideology. Although we don't know very much about Ms Miers we can make some assumptions based on her career as a lawyer and the company she keeps. She is a corporatist, she won't disappoint corporate America. She is anti-choice, as an evangelical Christian she won't disappoint the radical Christians. She should be fought but play up the qualifications and cronyism for all it's worth.