Miers to the Supremes

So President Bush is nominating Harriet Miers, his White House counsel, to the Supremes. For those, like SWNID, who haven't a clue about her, here's a recent Washington Post profile (hat tip: RealClearPolitics.com).

This nomination will get Bush hammered for "cronyism." The usual suspects will complain that Miers has no judicial experience or, worse, no judicial record for them to parse and cross-examine. The right is pre-emptively upset, since Miers has no special record in right-to-life causes.

SWNID will offer only this. We have previously referred to Bush as "the loyalest of loyalists." That's the characteristic that leads to nominations like this one.

Some will call that a significant weakness on Bush's part. They'll say that the Supremes should be the nine brightest judges in the land, regardless of personal association. SWNID says that's bunk.

First, how do we determine who the nine smartest are? Administer the LSAT again?

Second, the idea that the smartest is the best in the job is demonstrable nonsense. Any job requires a certain level of ability to be done. Exceeding that level is not necessarily an advantage. Other qualities, like interest in the job or commitment to the outcome, matter more. Having a PhD is no advantage in, say, operating a cash register.

So that means that any notably bright lawyer should be able to manage on the Supremes. Miers appears to be all that.

Which leads us to a second observation. Since Bush presumably had a large set of suitable candidates, we can expect that he narrowed his choice based on his own confidence about the individuals' potential for performance. I imagine him saying, There's Harriet, Bob, Marsha, Bill and Anne. They're all just fine. But I know Harriet well, and she's always simply the best of the best. Plus, she'll represent my administration well on the bench.

What some call cronyism is really just dealing with known quantities. The world is a big place, and people are complicated. Sometimes leaders need to make personnel choices about which they can have confidence. That confidence requires long-term experience with the individual.

Here's a variation on an aphorism from Father of SWNID that sums this up: You have to nominate your friends because your enemies won't work for you.