Miers Miers Pants on Fire

Reason Contributing Editor Carolyn Lochhead has a good roundup of anti-Miers sentiment on the broadly defined Right in the SF Chron:

"Let's put it this way," said Michael Greve, head of the federalism project for the American Enterprise Institute. "I think it is fairly obvious that there were better picks out there."…

"I do not believe that there will be an open rebellion until and unless something goes really wrong," Greve said. "I don't wish for this scenario, but if she gets into trouble, she'll fall fast."

Randy Barnett, a libertarian law professor at Boston University, wrote a scathing piece in the Wall Street Journal blasting Miers' lack of experience in constitutional law and accusing Bush of cronyism.

"Given her lack of experience, does anyone doubt that Ms. Miers's only qualification to be a Supreme Court justice is her close connection to the president?" Barnett asked.

The conservative group Grassfire.org announced it was withholding support. "The 'trust me' phase of Bush's presidency came last November at the polls," said Grassfire.org president Steve Elliott. "Many trusted him then to do the right thing now, and the president responds to our trust by giving us another question mark. It's unacceptable."

Whole thing here.

The Wash Post says the Miers nod is the end of the conservative dream:

If there has been a unifying cause in American conservatism over the past three decades, it has been a passionate desire to change the Supreme Court. When there were arguments over tax cuts and deficits, when libertarians clashed with religious conservatives, when disputes over foreign policy erupted, reshaping the judiciary bound the movement together.

Until Monday, that is. Now conservatives are in a roiling fight with the White House over President Bush's nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to the high court. They fear that the president may have jeopardized their dream of fundamentally shifting the court by nominating someone with no known experience in constitutional issues rather than any one of a number of better-known jurists with unquestioned records.

More here.

Channeling Kent Brockman, I for one salute our new Bush-crony overlords and welcome all attempts to seize my medical marijuana club via eminent domain so that Pfizer can build a useless luxury resort that will play mood music to drown out not only howls of chronic pain patients but the sound of the Constitution being shredded.