SCOTUS Nominations -- Round 2

So, White House Counsel Harriet Miers has been nominated to fill Justice O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court. The early reports tell us that she was the first woman to be a partner in a Texas law firm, first woman to be elected President of the Texas Bar, and W's personal attorney in private (and now public) practice.

And with that, the latest transformation of government is complete -- patronage and ideological rigidity really is the only way left to the top. Miers is the bow on the gift-wrapped "permanent revolution," purchased with funds from folks like TRMPAC in support of the "K Street Project" to drive all dissenting voices out of Washington.

As the Washington Post reports, the last member of the Supreme Court to have no prior judicial experience was the late William Rehnquist. Before that, it was Abe Fortas, widely derided as one of the weaker picks in the modern era to the Court (and a product of LBJ's patronage in his own right).

I'm reminded of a West Wing episode from a few years back, where Glenn Close plays a liberal appellate judge whose nomination is paired with that of a well-known, well-respected conservative. The point was that the Court works best when there are sharp advocates of differing opinions and backgrounds on the Court. The Supreme Court is the guardian and interpreter of the living document we call the Constitution. There are bound to be legitimate discussions on its scope and applicability -- stifling one side of the argument within the Court is a disservice to the nation and to the Constitution. Without sharp intra-Court debates, often disclosed in the form of dissenting opinions, we lose the opportunity to flesh out issues that may be related to the case at hand but not squarely presented (due to the vagaries of appellate law and the overwhelming expense of litigating a case all the way to the top).

If the only way to get a justice confirmed today is to pick someone who hasn't demonstrated the capacity to serve as a judge (litigating is very different), then I'd rather be in an explicit monarchy. Roberts had served as a judge, and it was damn near impossible to say that he was somehow unqualified to express a voice on the court. Miers is a blatantly cynical pick, and I hope that Arlen Specter calls the President's bluff.