$0.02

Movement conservatives have their panties in a bunch over Harriet Miers. So be it--she is apparently not herself a movement conservative. News flash--neither is George W. Bush.

Dubya is of the Christian evangelical strain of the Republican coalition, one that has common cause with the "movement" almost across the board--a regard for the societal norms that by hook or crook raised us from the Hobbesian ooze, a belief in a higher moral order, and an economic liberalism that's really an opposition to statism, especially the post-modern kind which holds man is no more than the sum of his atoms, and his society no more than a set of conventions to be manipulated for maximum utilitarian efficiency.

I may be stretching here to point out that the conservative movement has attracted many Catholics and Jews, whose heroes number Catholics Thomas Aquinas and William F. Buckley, and on the neo-con side the putatatively Jewish (but likely atheist) Leo Strauss. Logicians all of the first order, from religious cultures that highly value such things.

However, to the Luther-inspired evangelical system of values, faith alone saves. The best person for the job is not the one with the best mind, but with the best philosophy, and Jesus is the best philosopher. Therefore, character, that which leads one to his values and then binds him to those values when the going gets tough, is the true measure of a man.

Or woman, in this case. And having worked side-by-side, day-to-day with Harriet Miers for over ten years, this is one decision for Dubya that isn't as hard as it looks. (I never believed he was taken in by Vladimir Putin, just trying to inspire the man's better angels.)

I understand the desire of Ann Coulter, et al., for a brainiac over a "good person," but be careful what you wish for. Intellect and logic are mighty but also give us Friedrich Nietzsche and Peter Singer.

It is character that abides. And if you poke through the accounts of Ms. Miers' life, a rare combinition of humility and assertiveness, there is little doubt that Dubya is convinced she's one of the best persons he's ever known, and his worldview is that the best person for the job is always the best person. (Based on my familiarity with the law industry as a headhunter, I find her qualifications adequate, if not bootstrap-admirable.)


I often have to use the completion-backwards principle to divine the workings of Bush's brain, as I've attempted here, but add in the politics of the matter, that Harry Reid suggested that Miers wouldn't get much of a fight, that the GOP half of the Gang of 14 is wobbly, and that this has not been the best of years to throw around the weight of his slim electoral majority, and the pick makes sense to me, at least from Bush's point of view.

Movement conservatives may rightfully say they didn't vote for Bush to get half-a-loaf Supreme Court candidates. However, many other folks who voted for him too may be getting just what they want, including the President himself.