Appointing the "Lottery Lady" to the High Court

Jonathan Fairbank

Mr. Fairbank is Editor-in-Chief of the FAIRBANK REPORT.

Apparently, White House staffers did not read our Senior Editor's piece on 30 September, 2005, in which he advocated the nomination of US Attorney Debra Yang for outgoing Justice O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court. In appointing the "lottery lady" (Harriet Miers) for Senate consideration, Mr. Bush opts for someone who has no judicial experience and little paper trail. By all accounts, Ms. Miers is a likeable middle-of-the-roader, whose professional experience better suits a position at the district court level. In nominating Ms. Miers to the High Court, the President underscores his political weakness amidst the Iraq and Katrina debacles. His much touted "political capital," which he claimed to have earned in the November 2004 general elections, had apparently dissipated. He appears to be too politically wounded to even put up a good fight on behalf of a good conservative Court nominee, let alone to push through major Social Security reforms.