Bush Nominates Harriet Miers After Imaginary Friend "Bucky" Unwilling to Serve

You have got to be f***ing kidding me. After the Michael Brown fiasco at FEMA and all of Bush's buddies that are warming chairs in high government posts, we get another crony nominated?!? For a lifetime appointment?!? I don't doubt that Ms. Miers is a fine lawyer and a "really nice" person. But was she on anyone else's Top 500 list? Would she be nominated if she weren't the President's pal? Hell no.

Alexander Hamilton summarized it well when discussing the need for "advice and consent" of the Senate in Federalist No. 76 (I can't pretend that I actually knew this, but it was mentioned in an excellent WSJ editorial on the subject this week):

"To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity… He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure."

Look, I don't give a damn what her views or credentials are -- I don't think they're by any means stellar for a nominee to the Supreme Court -- she should not have been nominated. She shouldn't have even been on the list.

Worst. President. Ever.*

*Because...despite occasional lip service, he lacks the spending restraint that I typically like in Republicans, and has about 2,500,000% of the USDA recommended daily allowance of social conservatism and disregard for civil liberties that I disdain in them. Not to mention a total lack of such "wildcard" Presidential traits as judgment, common sense, eloquence, ability to instill a modicum of public confidence in even the slightest decision, etc.