A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

I can say truthfully I have no regrets about swearing off comments on the Harriet Miers nomination until her confirmation hearings in the Senate started.  Now that she has asked that her nomination be withdrawn, I consider myself unsworn.

I am not claiming prescience based on a post I wrote here just after the nomination was announced.  Release of documents related to Miers service as White House Counsel was requested by some Senators, but the request was clearly no more than a convenient pretext for her withdrawal.  Given the near-automatic deference shown by Senate Republicans to the White House on just about any subject over the last five-odd years, the cold reception given Miers surely portended disaster if she made it as far as the Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings.

So now President Bush goes back to the drawing board.  I don't have a guess as to who will be nominated in Miers' place; my preference, as before, is for the sharpest knife in the drawer or something close to it.  Michael McConnell is one who would qualify; Richard Posner, though a little too inclined to libertarianism for my taste, would as well.  I suppose a "diversity" pick is still likely, though, and among women and minorities there are many people who would serve ably on the Court.  No more personal lawyers and cronies of the President, though.  I hope.