Intelligent design

A problem shared by Bush and Republicans is betrayal. Read My Lips. David Souter. Iraq ceasefire. Running half-assed against Bill Clinton. (And befriending the huckster 12 years later to boot.)

George W did three things prior to Sept. 11 to give conservatives hope. He fought for the election (and, as a bonus, he won). He announced outsourcing of nearly 1 million government jobs (a subtle point, but an important one, as collectivists can achieve their goals quite nicely by putting everyone to work for the government and into public employee unions.)

And lastly, he nominated, in his first shot, a slate of judicial candidates that showed somebody in the Bush administration was doing some serious thinking: John Roberts. Mike McConnell. Priscilla Owen. Jeff Sutton. Deborah Cook. That, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were others in the class, was plenty of meat for someone wanting to see the Rehnquist Revolution move forward.

Who was that brain? Gonzales? Could it have been Miers? If it was Miers, count me in. (BTW: My big prediction is that the fight over Miers will be entirely about executive privilege, with the Dems saying, let us see her documents. The only interesting question is whether they and the Manhattan Media will be able to pump that up into a real dispute, or whether it will be a slipped-out-of-the-hands balloon, like the Roberts hearings, with the Dems unable to muster opposition)

So far, the two best arguments against Miers are (1) age, in that she won't have a long time on the court (assuming, of course, she turns out to advance conservative views), and (2) she represents ducking a fight rather than winning one.

But here's the thing. Suppose she's a true conservative. Suppose Bush knows that. Should he nominate someone else -- say Rogers Brown -- just to get the fight, even if the person is the same or less conservative than Miers is?

Personally, I can't imagine her being better than Rogers Brown, for age and principle. But, Bush has a history that earns some credibility to offset (partially) the loss of credibility of the party and the father. Bush pulled a similar stunt with Cheney, who turned out to be great. Cheney supports her.

Has Bush betrayed us, either knowingly or by failure when he's taken an unnecessary risk? Or has he made a nomination that will allow the court to move to a better America (For Uncle Cass, that means a court that will reject the New Deal)?

We have 10 to 15 years (plus maybe a little more) to find out.