Harriet Miers: A missed opportunity?

May 15, 2010 ·

As the nation pays not-so-rapt attention to the confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan, how many of you have been thinking that the Dems actually made a huge mistake coming out against Harriet Miers for the SC? The net result was the seating of Alito, a hard-righter who helped snowball the court's sickening lurch to the looney right. Miers may not have been the brightest bulb in the box, but she might even have had the potential to become something of a liberal – her close ties to Bush, who, as I have indicated [see earlier note], I view as a closet socialist of sorts, gives me the thought that she would, at the very least, have been far more open and less ideological. Miers is not likely in any case to have provided the kind of right-wing intellectual fire-power in her own decisions that would have put her stamp on our constitutional future, and she might have been open to being swayed by others. And Bush certainly learned his lesson; after Alito, he gave us Roberts, who is probably even more dangerous than Alito.

In turn, Dems could have pointed to their agreeableness on Miers as a reason for Republicans to support whoever Obama chose (not that reason has squat to do with any form of Republican behavior these days).

Re: Kagan. She's probably fine, but a bit boring to me. I was hoping he would nominate Barney Frank.

Just a thought.