Demagogue

LiquidList breaks down just how differently qualified Harriet Miers is from the rest of the Supreme Court justices. It's a pretty stark comparison.

Taken from the US Supreme Court website, below are the undergraduate and law schools attended by the current court's members, each with a US News rank in parentheses.

Roberts: Harvard (1), Harvard (2)
Stevens: University of Chicago (15), Northwestern (10)
O’Connor: Stanford (5), Stanford (3)
Scalia: Georgetown (23), Harvard (2)
Kennedy: Stanford (5), Harvard (2)
Souter: Harvard (1), Harvard (2)
Thomas: Holy Cross (32), Yale (1)
Ginsberg: Cornell (13), Harvard (2)
Breyer: Stanford (5), Harvard (2)

Miers: Southern Methodist University (71), Southern Methodist University (52)

I agree that it's nice to have a nominee who didn't go to Harvard. However, it's not difficult to make the case that she's just not qualified to to get a lifetime appointment to the bench of the Supreme Court. Bush might think she's the best-of-the-best, but she just so obvious that she isn't.

Not only is this appointment blatant cronyism, it's just plain lazy. It's as though Bush sat in the Oval Office one day trying to figure out who to nominate and Harriet walked in. He then thought to himself, hey, Harriet's a lawyer! Why don't I ask her if she'd like a job on the Supreme Court? She said yes, end of story.