Bye, Harriet--And I Want My Wallet Back

The big problem with the Bush administration--aside from the counterproductive wars, the hostility to the poor, the contempt for the environment, the inevitable cronyism, the...

Oh, all right. One minor but still annoying problem with the Bush administration is that I never get to really enjoy anything that goes right because it seems to do so by accident. Or worse.

Case in point: Harriet Miers withdraws from Supreme Court consideration. Great. She wasn't qualified. No real judicial experience, no significant stature in some sort of related field.

But.

It seems pretty clear that Miers's nomination swirled southward not because she would've made a lousy justice but instead because she wouldn't have made the right kind of lousy justice. With Turd Blossom distracted and off his game, there wasn't anybody in the Bush administration to convince the evangelical wing of the Republican party that Miers was the kind of strict constructionist who would construct an article of the Constitution prohibiting gay marriage and abortion and then strictly enforce it. Just like Jesus would.

Democrats--or moderate Republicans--were never going to fight to keep Miers's nomination alive. But I bet some of them were tempted. It's like dating a compulsive, thieving liar and having a bunch of friends tell you to dump her because she dresses badly. You're tempted to keep her around for a while just to prove that you'd never dump somebody over the clothes she wears. Never mind that you can't ever find your wallet.

Plus, you're not picking your date--this is arranged dating. So if the idiot who picks your dates gave you a compulsive, thieving liar this time, you have to worry who you'll get if you dump the liar.