"Some of us elected him to pick a fight"

Scott of A Knight's Blog has an excellent post discussing some of the reasons why Harriet Miers is not the right choice and why we are not happy with the President for nominating her. It is definitely worth a read.

Here is an excerpt:

Bush didn’t have to pick a stealth candidate. We didn’t elect him to pick a stealth candidate. We didn’t elect him to avoid a fight. In fact, some of us elected him to pick a fight, for the right candidates. He has, to some extent, betrayed that.

Miers has not proven that she’s qualified. Notice I don’t say she’s not qualified, but that she’s not proven that she’s qualified. I have no problem with constitutional lawyers in private practice, a la Rehnquist, serving on the Court. I don’t subscribe to the idea that only judges should be nominated. But appellate law, particularly Constitutional law, is a very complex, specialized and universally important area of law, and not every lawyer has the background, education (practical, not academic), training and experience to do a good job at it. And, practically speaking, the U.S. Supreme Court is almost exclusively a Constitutional Law court.