October 03, 2005

How short a shortlist?

Bush's nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is one Harriet E. Miers. Never heard of her? That's okay: she's never been a judge. But she is the White House counsel, and the person in charge of finding a nominee! Readers might recall that Dick Cheney was in charge of finding Bush's running mate in 2000.

No-one else has commented on it, so maybe this is just me, but isn't it weird that Roberts was named almost immediately after Day O'Connor announced her resignation, and then re-nominated to replace Chief Justice Rehnquist? It was pretty obviously that Rehnquist was on his way out; if Bush wanted a Chief Justice Roberts, why didn't he just nominate someone else on his list of Supreme nominees? Could it be that Roberts WAS the list? If so, was this due to some strict requirement of the nominees (neither Roberts nor Miers has any real history on the bench that might indicate their ideology), or the same moderate to severe incompetence this administration has shown time and again ("oh, crap, he died. guess we really do need to find somebody to replace him.")?

Weird.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Meier has a great resume! after all she was the head of the texas lotto commission. obviously, she's as overqualified for scotus as brown was for fema. i can't wait.

Unknown said...

I love the pick merely because the right wing loonies hate it. And boy, they really hate it!