A Defense of Miers

Mathew Skully, a former speechwriter for President Bush, writes an interesting defense of Hariet Miers in The New York Times:

My friend David Frum expresses the general complaint when he asks, in his blog, when did Harriet Miers 'ever take a risk on behalf of conservative principle? Can you see any indication of intellectual excellence? Did she ever do anything brave, anything that took backbone?' To translate: When all the big-thinkers were persevering year after year at policy institutes and conferences at the Mayflower Hotel, or risking all for principle in stirring op-ed essays and $20,000 lectures, where was Little Miss Southern Methodist University? If four years observing the woman is any guide, the answer is she was probably doing something useful.

Ouch. I am still not totally convinced in Miers, but I am increasingly disliking the criticisms of her that most are leveling. She seems accomplished enough to be a Supreme Court Judge to me, and while I have some questions about her constitutional philosophy, it seems a hard sell that she won't be 'conservative' enough. The detractors of the Miers nomination seem to me to be mostly mad that they won't get a huge battle in the Senate rather than actual problems with the nomination. Given some of the arguments these people have made about other Judges what they are saying about Miers often seems hypocritical.