So President Bush has nominated his Whitehouse counsel, Harriet Ellan Miers, for associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. She is no legal scholar, having never published a law book article. She has no judicial experience whatever. She went to a second or third-tier law school. Her law firm in Dallas has paid some stiff fines over some shady deals in the past, but George likes her and a checkered past would not bother him.

The hard-right wingers are not happy. They know as little about her as the liberals or anybody else.

Here's my take, for what it's worth. One doesn't get to the top of a large law firm by being nice. Big law firms are usually back-stabbing, every man for himself, dog eat dog kind of places that employ large numbers of very intelligent and ambitious people trained in the art of legal combat. Lawyers are continually leaving the firm and attempting to take with them as many of the firm's clients as they can persuade. Few sane people would undergo that kind of life if they really knew the kind of toll it would take on them over the years. As a sole practitioner for nearly all my legal career, I've watched from a distance what it does to lawyers and their families and it's not pretty.

Back to Miers; my guess is that she is hard as nails and loyal as convenience allows. That means that when she dons the robes she will become very jealous of the independence of the judiciary and its freedom from political influence. A lifetime job bestows more independence than just about anything else.

As to what kind of justice she will be? That is anybody's guess. Will she be confirmed by the Senate? Almost certainly. She will charm the Senate Judiciary committee like Scarlett charmed Rhett. She has made her way in a world dominated almost completely by men and done extremely well. She is a match for any senator.

She's a Leo. As a matter of fact, we were born the same day, which disturbed me a bit when I looked up her bio on Wikipedia.

It looks to be an interesting fall.