Harriet Miers: View from the Left?

Professor Bainbridge cogently sums up why conservatives should fight the Harriet Miers nomination. But why should Democrats oppose the nomination? Virtually everyone on the left must agree that Harriet Miers is far better than what we might have expected after the President promised to nominate candidates in the mold of Justices Scalia and Thomas during the 2004 Campaign. Harry Reid's initial reaction to the nomination was "I like Harriet Miers" Charles Schumer said, "it could have been a lot worse," and while some conservative senators have expressed doubts about the nomination, Barbara Mikulski went out of her way to lend her support to Miers yesterday. And it sure is nice to see conservatives like Sen. Jeff Sessions squirm. But do Democrats actually believe Harriet Miers is qualified, or are they just happy that she's not a complete ideological disaster? Don't members of both parties have a responsibility to insist on some basic level of quality control, regardless of politics?

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that politicans play politics, and that Democrats are eager to support someone who could be the next David Souter. But how can we confirm a nominee who doesn't have anyone credible arguing that she's the best "something" for the job? But can any Democrat who voted against John Roberts vote for Harriet Miers with a straight face? And can any law professor who signed the letter opposing Roberts not be eager to sign a letter opposing Harriet Miers? Note that a letter opposing Harriet Miers could address a real concern -- how utterly unqualified she is -- rather than just criticizing mainstream conservative views, and telling us that John Roberts is bad, rather than showing us.

I'm going to be very interested to see how the left responds to Harriet Miers in the days and weeks ahead. So far all I know about her is that she reads John Grisham novels and one of her favorite justices was Warren Burger. Not so impressive...