Harriet Miers: Both Right and Left Confused

I get the following from sources on House Judiciary (which are not involved in confirmation, of course, but which are keenly attentive). Both political right and left are now completely confused on the Harriet Miers debacle. Initially more secular sources on the right tended to oppose the Miers confirmation because of her obvious lack of legal scholarship, fearing that she is ripe for conversion by more persuasive elements on the court with high legalese IQs like Breyer and Stevens and that she would resist being seen as pawns of conservatives with high octane ala Scalia and Thomas (yes, Thomas: don’t fool for the canard that he’s a slow-wit; his jurisprudence is more originalist than Scalia). At the same time, while the left began its séance with Miers thinking it might approve her since the right is under-enthused, now believes she is a dangerous secret weapon who could vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The problem is the conference call peopled by a number of Evangelicals and two judges which reportedly certified that she is a born-again anti-Roe vote. Some circles on the right are repentant for having nixed her while there is a stronger than expected fear on the left that the little lady may in fact be carrying a bomb to detonate Roe in her purse. But that represents only the evangelical right. The neo-conservative right represented by Bill Kristol are still holding that she was picked by liberal Massachusetts Republican Andy Card, the president’s chief of staff during a time when Karl Rove was busy, with his own possible indictment and a bout with kidney stones. Thus the right is fractured. The left is fractured, too, with some Democrats feeling she is not too bad and the remainder worrying that the evangelical conference call may be correct. The battle may be bloodier than at first thought when Harry Reid opined that she is ducky. My own view is that whether or not she would vote to overturn Roe or not, the appointment is perilous because all we have to go on is rumor rather than intellectual insight.