Waiting for Fitzgerald

[Penske_Account]

Oct. 7, 2005 - ....................Dutiful she is, but Supreme Court material she is not..........Miers put in long hours and was the last person to put paper on the president’s desk, but she wasn’t mulling over constitutional issues.

With his presidency spinning out of control, Bush needed to reach high with this appointment. ........ “He needed to pick someone who is potentially more conservative, but certainly more qualified.” ..............David Frum, a former White House speechwriter, reported on his blog that Miers once told him that Bush was “the most brilliant man she’d ever met.” What will happen when she has a conversation with Justice Antonin Scalia? Will her head explode?

Republican Sen. Sam Brownback is the go-to person for social conservatives. Initially cool to the nomination, Brownback—a staunch opponent of abortion—told reporters that he was still undecided after meeting with Miers on Thursday.......Brownback’s ambivalence reflects how unsettled the nomination remains. Republican senators are getting bombarded with calls,” says a GOP consultant. “For the first time in a long time a real grass-roots movement is happening. This goes beyond the pooh-bahs in Washington, and it’s all about ’06 and not having the base fall asleep or go for a walk.”

Miers was in law school before Roe v Wade was handed down. “There’s been a revolution in constitutional law in the 30 years since her time in law school,” says Karen O’Connor, founder of the Women & Politics Institute at American University. “The [Supreme] Court has evolved in its thinking about abortion law, rights of criminal defendants, telecommunications. She’s going to have to take the equivalent of a bar review course. If that was me,” says O’Connor, who is a lawyer, “I would be physically ill knowing how much I had to learn in a short period of time.”