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To: Joe Btfsplk who wrote (141723)	10/5/2005 5:11:47 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 794148

>>her nomination is not a defensible exercise of presidential discretion to which senatorial deference is due.<< So which is it? Is the senate supposed to defer to presidential discretion in SC nominations or isn't it? What is the principle here? Or do we wave the principle when it supports the desired outcome and downplay it when it doesn't?

To: Joe Btfsplk who wrote (141723)	10/5/2005 11:05:23 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 794148

This stunning column by George Will that you posted is the talk of the chattering classes on the web. If anything can have an effect on this nomination going though, it will be this column. How much effect will the following have on the Senators? It's utterly brutal and precisely on-point: It is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court's role. Otherwise the sound principle of substantial deference to a president's choice of judicial nominees will dissolve into a rationalization for senatorial abdication of the duty to hold presidents to some standards of seriousness that will prevent them from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends. The wisdom of presumptive opposition to Miers's confirmation flows from the fact that constitutional reasoning is a talent — a skill acquired, as intellectual skills are, by years of practice sustained by intense interest. It is not usually acquired in the normal course of even a fine lawyer's career. The burden is on Miers to demonstrate such talents, and on senators to compel such a demonstration or reject the nomination.