Word of Caution

A couple of comments from this non-lawyer on President Bush’s now-withdrawn nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court:

Maybe Harriet Miers isn’t a deep thinker who has lived and breathed constitutional law every waking moment for the past thirty years and maybe she got to where she is because of who she knows, but she deserved a chance to make her case. In America we don’t close the door on you because you didn’t go to an Ivy League school or because people assume that you aren’t smart enough or good enough---indeed, you may not be, but you should get a shot.

For years conservatives have chafed under the condescension of the academ-media. If one is conservative, one cannot be intelligent or well educated. Republican presidents, Eisenhower, Reagan, and the Bushes, weren’t smart; any successes they may have had were due to dumb luck. (The exception was Richard Nixon, but of course he was evil.) These same lack-of-bandwidth arguments were used by conservative intellectuals against poor Harriet Miers. A word of caution, ladies and gentlemen: you’re becoming like your enemies.