It's becoming quite a farce, this latest Bush nomination to the Supreme Court. The religious wingnuts don't like her because they want blood and fear that Miers has too tiny teeth for that, and other conservatives don't like her, either, because she is fairly mediocre and that is not acceptable in women who are nominated for something. It could be that the wingnuts of all types just don't like George Bush anymore, especially as he might not be the second coming of Christ as was rumored, and he also spends money like the biblical prodigal son.
And the Democrats don't like Miers, either, because she is a Bush crony. Poor Harriet, most nobody wants her and the suspicion is that she is not really Harriet Miers at all but a Trojan horse who is hiding something awful: that she is a wingnut or that she isn't, depending on what you want.
It could be hilarious if the nomination wasn't for the Supreme Court of this country and if the outcome didn't matter. But what is hilarious is this sudden turnaround of many of the wingnuts. It was only a week or two ago that they told us how no nominee should answer questions about how they will decide, say, Roe vs. Wade -related cases. Now the very same wingnuts want guarantees that Miers would decide them the way the wingnuts want. It's the way little children argue.
But I do agree with this statement from tomorrow's Washington Post:
Specter and Vermont Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, the committee's ranking Democrat, said they intend to follow up on a comment by Focus on the Family founder and chairman James C. Dobson that, based on conversations with White House adviser Karl Rove, he believes she opposes abortion and would be a good justice.
"This is a lifetime appointment," Specter said. "If there are backroom assurances and there are backroom deals and if there is something which bears upon a precondition as to how a nominee is going to vote, I think that's a matter that ought to be known by the Judiciary Committee and the American people."
If we are going to keep up the pretense that this country still is a democracy, yes, we should be told what is told to the radical clerics of the wingnut party.