A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

It isn't just the blogosphere that is mostly in the dark about Harriet Miers, as this Dan Balz chat transcript makes clear.

Miers is actually the kind of nominee I had expected from President Bush right after Justice O'Connor announced her retirement.  Bush's record of preferring people he knows personally for important positions is so pronounced that Roberts' nomination came as a bit of a surprise to me.  With respect to Miers, I want to be fair and not jump to conclusions; in particular, I don't think her never having been a judge is a strike against her.

One issue, which Balz alludes to in response to one questioner, is liable to loom pretty large as Miers' confirmation hearings approach.  Her most recent experience -- since 2001 -- has all been in the White House, much of it in the Counsel's office.  How many of her papers will the White House want to release to the Senate Judiciary Committee?

The Roberts precedent suggests the answer may be, not very many.  Roberts' papers from his service in the Reagan White House (where he gave policy advice) were made available to the Senate, but those from his time as a Deputy Solicitor General (when he gave legal counsel) were withheld.  The already thin book on Miers may not get much thicker if the White House follows the tradition of treating legal counsel to the government as subject to attorney-client privilege, and this could be a strike against this nominee in the Senate.

It probably won't be with most conservatives, who while lukewarm about Miers now can be expected to rise to her defense the more she is attacked by liberals and the media.  Whether this will be enough to confirm a nominee chosen mostly for her long and loyal service to the sitting President and because she is a woman isn't clear at this point.