Until the Senate Judiciary Committee and the American people have heard from Harriet Miers, I am reserving judgment on her.

I am astonished at the reaction of a number of prominent conservative commentators to President Bush’s appointment of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On October 4th, the day after Miers was appointed, syndicated columnist George Will threw the first punch at President Bush.   “He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution,” Will wrote, “Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their prepresidential careers, and this president, particularly, is not disposed to such reflections.”

The next day, syndicated columnist Ann Coulter weighed into the discussion.   She opposes Miers because she did not attend an elite university.  Miers graduated from law school at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.  “Bush may as well appoint his chauffeur head of NASA as put Miers on the Supreme Court,” writes Coulter.   

Charles Krauthammer completed the trifecta on October 7th.   In his weekly syndicated column, Krauthammer wrote, “If Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her.”

As much as I enjoy Krauthammer’s observations I think he has missed the mark here.  As have Will and Coulter.  Somehow President Bush does not strike me as a merry prankster.  I believe the President is as deadly serious with the appointment of Miers as he was with the appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice.   

Conservatives pride ourselves on judging an individual on their merits, not on their gender, where they attended university or their associations.  We allow individuals to make their case.  After the evidence has been heard either we accept their argument or we reject it.  Yet I cannot help but believe that many conservatives have in this case covered their ears and closed their eyes in favor of applying tar and feathers.

Will gets the concoction brewing with this little ditty.  “There is no reason to believe that Miers’ nomination resulted from the president’s careful consultation with people capable of such judgments.  If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers’ name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.”

A cute piece of writing.  But the argument does not hold a great deal of weight.  After all, there was a time not so long ago that such a consultation would have resulted in the omission of such individuals as Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas from consideration.   

Will further argues that “it is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court’s role.”  By George, isn’t this the purpose of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings?

It is difficult to know what to make of Coulter’s arguments other than some more cute writing.  In addition to writing that Bush might as well appoint his chauffeur to head up NASA, Coulter also declares that Miers “isn’t qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on The West Wing, let alone be a real one.”  Again cute.  But where does this get us?  Not very far.  Coulter observes, “some jobs are so dirty, you can only send in someone who has the finely honed hatred of liberals acquired at elite universities to do them.   The devil is an abstraction for normal, decent Americans living in the red states.  By contrast, at the top universities, you come face to face with the devil every day, and you learn all his little tropes and tricks.”

So let me get this straight.   In order for a conservative to be appointed to the Supreme Court he or she must attend an elite, liberal institution of higher learning?  Is Coulter telling the President that he cannot appoint graduates of conservative, Christian law schools to the highest court in the land?  I guess Coulter thinks of Miers as just another country lawyer.  

But then why should I take Coulter seriously?  She writes, “(E)ven if you take seriously William F. Buckley’s line about preferring to be governed by the first 200 names in the Boston telephone book than by the Harvard faculty, the Supreme Court is not supposed to govern us.”

The Supreme Court is not supposed to govern us?  Hmmm.  The last time I checked the Supreme Court is part of our judiciary.   The judiciary is one of the three branches of government.  When the Supreme Court renders a decision it is deemed to be the law of the land.  Therefore the Supreme Court has a role in governing us.  Now, if Coulter had meant to write that the Supreme Court is not supposed to legislate, then I would agree.  There is a difference between making law and interpreting it.  But she did not make that distinction.  It’s nice to see that Coulter’s education at Cornell University and the University of Michigan Law School has given her such a strong command of basic civics.  

Coulter might want to share notes with the learned Charles Krauthammer, who acknowledges the Supreme Court to be a branch of government, albeit not a “popular” one.   

Krauthammer makes the strongest case against Miers of the three columnists.  Those who have defended Miers have cited her knowledge of the legality of national security matters.  However, Krauthammer argues that if she has such knowledge she would need to recuse her from cases concerning the use of Presidential power, the detainment and treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.   

Yet there’s not much to that argument either.  Just because there might be a scenario where Miers would need to recuse herself, how does it disqualify her from a seat on the Supreme Court?  Let us consider that in October 2003 Justice Anton Scalia recused himself from hearing the Pledge of Allegiance case brought by atheist Michael Newdow (a.k.a. Newdow v. U.S. Congress).  In January 2003, while attending a Religious Freedom Day rally in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Scalia publicly criticized the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2002 that ruled the phrase “under G-d” violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in June 2004 without Scalia.  Somehow, I don’t recall many conservatives admonishing Scalia for his lack of discretion, let alone questioning his fitness in carrying out his duties.

Why has Harriet Miers caused such a visceral reaction amongst some conservatives?  Is it because some conservatives perceive the Bush Administration to be sinking like the Titanic and want to jump off the ship before it’s too late?  Is it because Bush did not appoint a friend of Will, Coulter or Krauthammer to the bench and now they cry cronyism?  Or is it simply because they don’t know Harriet Miers and are thus afraid of the unknown?

Like many others, I do not know a great deal about Harriet Miers.   But I would like to learn more.  The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings will help this process along.  I don’t understand why Will, Coulter, Krauthammer and other conservatives are so unwilling to keep an open mind about Miers and insist on pinning a scarlet letter upon her?    

At the end of the day, these syndicated columnists may very well be correct in their assessments.  Harriet Miers might be wholly unqualified and unsuitable to be a Justice on the Supreme Court.    If Miers demonstrates a lack of fitness or inclination, I will join other conservatives in opposing the confirmation of her nomination.  But until the Senate Judiciary Committee and the American people have heard from Harriet Miers I am reserving judgment on her and I urge other conservatives to do the same.