Friends in high places

Today's appointment from the Oval Office showed Americans again that the best way to get a high government appointment in the George W. Bush Administration is to be a buddy of W. himself. It's been well-known for a while that W. fancies himself a good judge of character and values loyalty highly.

Several current cabinet mambers -- and the vice president, I might add -- started as Bush advisers and ended with a large office and a personal staff themselves. Dick Cheney was contacted in 2000 to be the "old guard" consigliere to assist with vetting potential running mates for Bush, then the governor of Texas. Then, suddenly, Cheney walked out, clasped hands with W. and he was in.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales goes way back to Texas with W, serving as his Texas general counsel, appointed to the Texas Supreme Court and then as White House Counsel during the first term. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, also a Bush Texan, was domestic policy adviser to Bush during his first term. Former Commerce Secretary Don Evans ran the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign. The list goes on.

And now, Bush has nominated his current White House Counsel, Harriet Miers, to the United States Supreme Court. She had previously served as deputy chief of staff and head of the Texas lottery commission and the Texas bar. She had also been entrusted with guiding the search for a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor, after O'Connor announced her retirement in July, and later for William Rehnquist, who died in September.

It's evident Bush values personal loyalty above qualifications. Before I bash the heck out of Meirs' qualifications for the court, let me first acknowledge a few things. First, Miers has a deep experience as a practicing attorney, which is valuable. Second, the court benefits from having justices from a range of backgrounds -- not just sitting judges or law professors; in fact, justices with background in private practice or in public service often have been among the best justices. Third, we need diversity on the high court, which means having women and people of color.

But Harriet Miers falls just a bit short of the kind of person we expect on the Supreme Court. We should aspire to have justices who know the law but also know its limitations, who understand the role of the court in our Constitution, and whose experience gives them a perspective to interpret the highest law of the land. Miers has served a year as White House Counsel -- she has been the chief lawyer for the Executive Branch of our government, and now she will be expected to have partial oversight of that branch. She has been the president's attorney, and she will be expected to now judge cases in which his administration is a party, indeed in which he personally may be a party. She has a thin record -- a short "paper trail" when it comes to writings and legal opinions.

The conservatives are feeling a bit ripped off today, having received a campaign promise of an appointment who would be in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. The far right folks were a bit disappointed in John Roberts, realizing he might not be their standard bearer. And now, they worry that Miers might turn out to be like another appointee who had a short paper trail, David Souter, the appointee of Republican President George H.W. Bush with a thin paper trail who turned out to be one of the court's most reliably liberal members.

So the Democrats have been able to stay mostly quiet on the appointment today, all the while watching the conservatives tear her up and criticize her lack of solid background. But Democratic leader Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada practically drooled all over her because she is a trial lawyer, and so is he.

Meanwhile, Slate has some extensive coverage, including an explanation of how she is no John Roberts and is also no Sandra Day O'Connor. Another essay said her mediocrity would get her confirmed. It says, "The caricature of Miers that is emerging is so pathetic, her inadequacies so exaggerated, her inarticulateness so certain, that by the time she speaks in the committee room, she's almost certain to seem appealing."

I think we could have done better.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.