THEN: "Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance?"
--Senator Roman Hruskra on Nixon Supreme Court nominee Harrold Carswell

NOW: "If great intellectual powerhouse is a qualification to be a member of the court and represent the American people and the wishes of the American people and to interpret the Constitution, then I think we have a court so skewed on the intellectual side that we may not be getting representation of America as a whole."
--Senator Dan Coats on Bush Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers

Members of the court "represent the American people," "their wishes" AND "interpret the Constitution"? Good thing the American people (whoever they are) never have wishes that are contrary to the Constitution. Otherwise, their "representatives" (I knew I voted for those guys) would be in a real bind.

Wow, he must have done the people of Indiana proud.

From today's Los Angelos Times:

Before President Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court, his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, called influential Christian leader James C. Dobson to assure him that Miers was a conservative evangelical Christian, Dobson said in remarks scheduled for broadcast today on his national radio show.

In that conversation, which has been the subject of feverish speculation, Rove also told Dobson that one reason the president was passing over better-known conservatives was that many on the White House short list had asked not to be considered, Dobson said, according to an advance transcript of the broadcast provided by his organization, Focus on the Family.

Dobson said that the White House had decided to nominate a woman, which reduced the size of the list, and that several women on it had then bowed out.

"What Karl told me is that some of those individuals took themselves off that list and they would not allow their names to be considered, because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter that they didn't want to subject themselves or the members of their families to it," Dobson said, according to the transcript.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-miers12oct12,0,654560.story?coll=la-tot-promo&track=morenews

Make that "Los Angeles."

I saw this story Ralph and one very obvious problem occurs. Why did that list only include women? I know Laura Bush said he should nominate a woman, but if Bush had cared a whit about getting a serious constitutionalist (I am tired of calling such jurists "conservatives") then he would never have hamstrung himself in order to bow at the altar of "diversity" as his primary consideration. But, in fact, Bush and the Rove Republicans do worship at the altar of that false god (making them indistinguishable in that regard from liberals).

Also, the article of course only says "many" purportedly good women nominees took themselves out of consideration. That certainly doesn't tell us that Bush could NOT have still found a woman who was qualified and would be capable of reading the Constitution honestly. It only says that SOME such women bowed out.

Brain and Ralph: I don't believe Rove's claim. Besides: It is an incredibly sexist claim. "We needed to nominate a woman, and THIS is the best we can find..." What? Also implied is that a women are more likely interested in avoiding a trial and protecting her "family" etc than in becoming a SC justice. Whatever. How many able women jurists, no less conservative than this lady and more qulified, are in the US court system? And Laura Bush says the critics are sexist... Bush is simply not a serious person. He values 'loyalty' (read: reciprocal backscratching arrangements) and Evangelical and Texas identity politics over THE MOST IMPORTANT DECISION OF HIS PRESIDENCY.