Medved & Miers & Me

Today I had the privilege of speaking with radio talk show host Michael Medved about the Harriet Miers nomination. The thrust of my position was that I am not thrilled about her nomination because I see her nomination as an affirmative action selection for the "woman seat" being vacated by Sandra Day O'Connor. If that seat is now going to be the "woman" seat, then Bush better darn sure select the best qualified woman, and I have some serious doubts about Miers being the best qualified of either sex. But I really object to a seat on the court being seen as a set-aside. The Clarence Thomas seat was first held by Thurgood Marshall, so that, of course is the "African-American male" seat, right?

My view is that when the president limits a seat by sex or race or religion or whatever, we may miss the best qualified candidate. I'm for meritocracy on all these selections. I also am saddened to see that to play the Congressional game and actually get onto the court, we have to look at "stealth candidates" and rely on the president's opinion alone. Lately, he hasn't merited that blind allegiance from me. But at least for Roberts, [also a stealth pick in my view], he had a little more of a record which we could examine and upon which we could form our opinion. To play the game, the president lied [come on! he's known her for 10 years and they never talked about Roe v. Wade?] or parsed an answer to the press corps, and she comes off looking like a sycophantic toady.

Curses to you, John McCain and the Gang of 14 for preserving a filibuster and weakening the president's position on this very critical SCOTUS pick!!