Today's Miers Stories

Elisabeth Bumiller in the NYTimes and Peter Baker/Charles Babington in the WaPo have similar stories today, filled with criticism from all sides on the president's use of religion as a selling point for Harriet Miers' nomination. Also, it would appear from both accounts that what James Dobson was "offered" from the White House (among other things) was a surety that Miers is an evangelical Christian, and that the church that she attends is "almost universally pro-life."

Many, and I think rightly so, have begun crying quota over what appears to have been a religious litmus test in the selection of Ms. Miers. Others are noting, again correctly, that when religion was discussed in the context of the Roberts nomination, the Administration freaked out and declared that the nominee's religious views were of no consequence and shouldn't even be discussed. The Administration seems to be working very hard on having it both ways here, and that's not going to work.

Another thread that seems to be emerging is that Miers was not, or would not have been, the president's first choice. Dobson said that he'd been told other candidates had backed out of the selection process, and Scott McClellan confirmed that yesterday, saying that "a couple" of other potential candidates had removed themselves from consideration. So was Miers second choice? Third? Fourth?

I'm growing less and less ambivalent about this nomination (and more and more negative). Miers seems to have been picked almost solely as a religious (we know now) woman (we've known this from the start) in close proximity to the Oval Office who knows Bush well. That said, my initial concern is still valid: if Miers' nomination goes down, who do we get next? I suppose that centrists and others will still have a chance at opposing a rabidly ideological nominee next time if we keep our hands off the Miers sinking and leave that to the conservatives ... maybe that's exactly what we should do.