Miers Speaks

An interview with White House counsel and former SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Friday. Miers stated that she has no regrets about accepting the president's nomination and defended her credentials to serve on the Court.

Reading the article, I was reminded of how unfortunate the whole course of that nomination was. There was never any doubt about the fact that Miers was a good person, and many of the personal attacks put forward in opposition to her nomination were scurrilous at best. Indeed, in a different era, with a court that had a different philosophical view of its power, Miers might have been a perfectly acceptable justice. Alas for everyone, we do not live in that era. Justice O'Conner's seat needed to be filled by someone with the rare skills needed to compete argumentatively with Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, and Stevens, and to help move the Court toward positions that are more consistent with its inherent role in our republic. Alito has those rare skills; Miers didn't. That was not a moral shortcoming on her part, but neither was it a fact that could have been ignored.

(Link via How Appealing)