Interesting scathing attack on Bush by George Will about the Harriet Miers nomination.

Will seems to be saying, in a nutshell, that there is no reason to trust Bush on this one because he is incapable of the kind of deep thought required to have picked a good candidate, and he has already shown himself not a good guardian of the Constitution anyway, and Miers has no background that is worthy of automatic respect and deference.

Fascinating. I haven’t seen Will go after W. yet. Will went after the father, but I think this is his first scathing attack on the son.

Can This Nomination Be Justified?
Senators beginning what ought to be a protracted and exacting scrutiny of Harriet Miers should be guided by three rules. First, it is not important that she be confirmed. Second, it might be very important that she not be. Third, the presumption — perhaps rebuttable but certainly in need of rebutting — should be that her nomination is not a defensible exercise of presidential discretion to which senatorial deference is due.

It is not important that she be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court’s tasks. The president’s “argument” for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons.

He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections.

Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers’s nomination resulted from the president’s careful consultation with people capable of such judgments.

. . .