I won’t lie. Upon first hearing President Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, I was supremely devastated. However, over the past 4 days I have begun to feel a bit better about the nomination. This is due to the fact that many prominent, solid conservative leaders have readily and wholeheartedly endorsed Ms. Miers for the Court. Here is the running list:

1) Dr. James Dobson (need I say more)

2) David N. O’Steen - Executive Director, National Right to Life Committee

3) Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel - American Center for Law and Justice (he was very instrumental in the selection of Judge John Roberts)

4) Roberta Combs - Christian Coalition of America

5) Dr. Richard Land - For Faith and Family
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Now, with that said, I am still weary of Ms. Miers’ ascendance to the Supreme Court. Conservatives have been told on three separate occasions, “don’t worry, he’s conservative.” And in each situation conservatives have lost badly. I am referring to the nominations of Justice Stevens, Kennedy and Souter. Conservatives were reassured on each occasion that the respective judges were unimpeachable originalists. We were told to just “trust us.”

Given the failures of the past, we have a right and a duty to be cautiously concerned with Harriet Miers. Any politically astute observer will recognize that the rhetoric surrounding Ms. Miers and her unknown judicial philosophy is eerily reminiscent to that of Stevens, Kennedy and Souter. We seem to be going down the same precarious road again.

I trust President Bush, especially on judicial nominees, but he could have delivered an immensely more solid and reliable candidate. In the process of trying to appease the Democrats, Bush demoralized the conservative grassroots - the very heart of the Republican Party.

We conservatives should not have to tolerate such an unnecessary risk on this “stealth candidate.” We voted for Bush precisely because we did not want to gamble our liberties and the lives of unborn children on moderate judges. Indeed, the issues and values at stake are far too important to be invested in the whims of Ms. Miers - a woman who has no apparent judicial convictions or record and a largely mysterious political ideology. In short, we just don’t know, and this is unacceptable.

The real test will be in this upcoming Court term or the next, when Justice Miers will most definitely hand down a ruling on an abortion related issue. If Miers votes the right way, all is forgiven and President Bush’s decision will be vindicated. If not, the Republican Party will have been irreparably damaged, and we’ll pay dearly for it in ‘06 and ‘08.

Newt Gingrich inadvertently proves why we can’t have Miers:

Conservatives should feel confident with the selection of Harriet Miers to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court for a simple reason: George W. Bush selected her.

Come on Newt. I know you meant this in a good way, but it had the opposite effect. The whole argument for supporting Miers is that we should “just trust our President”, nice try but no dice.

Much has been made in the press about conservative unhappiness with the White House on issues such as spending and immigration and most recently with the selection of Ms. Miers. However, while these tensions are not insignificant, the president has stayed remarkably true to conservative principles on every major decision he has made since winning the Republican primary.

What!? Newt, Bush has not stayed “remarkably true to conservative principles on every major decision”. The deficit is not conservative, the Medicare bill was not conservative, the highway bill was not conservative, in fact President Bush has governed much like his father did.

Read the whole thing, just don’t laugh too hard.

From the Washington Post:

When in 1962 Edward Moore Kennedy ran for his brother’s seat in the Senate, his opponent famously said that if Kennedy’s name had been Edward Moore, his candidacy would have been a joke. 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.

Ouch. It gets harsher though.

There are 1,084,504 lawyers in the United States. What distinguishes Harriet Miers from any of them, other than her connection with the president? To have selected her, when conservative jurisprudence has J. Harvie Wilkinson, Michael Luttig, Michael McConnell and at least a dozen others on a bench deeper than that of the New York Yankees, is scandalous.

Bush is standing firm behind his nominee though, the man has never made a tactical retreat in his life.

This quote from Krauthammer sums up my every concern:

By choosing a nominee suggested by Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and well known only to himself, the president has ducked a fight on the most important domestic question dividing liberals from conservatives: the principles by which one should read and interpret the Constitution. For a presidency marked by a courageous willingness to think and do big things, this nomination is a sorry retreat into smallness.