What a Day!

OK, so a few comments on the investiture and reception for the new Chief in a few minutes. First, I want to say that the Harriet Miers pick is so delicious, I don't know where to start.

Is she qualified? By historical standards, she is, clearly. That she has never been a judge, some of our best justices have not been judges before nomination. Pick either Rehnquist or Warren. Or White, or Powell, or Frankfurter, or Douglas, or Black, or Melville W. Fuller, or John friggin' Marshall, for goodness sake. That she is not an expert on constitutional law, consider that many, many cases of a non-con law nature come before the Court. That she was chair of the Texas Lottery Commission, this sounds like a pretty major position to me. White House Counsel. President of a 200-lawyer law firm in Dallas. She's no slouch.

Now, I'll say she's no Breyer. Or Roberts. (I met Roberts today, and I have to say, he's a very personable guy. Likeable, indeed.) But unqualified? Surely you jest.

Many conservatives, including David "Axis of Evil" Frum, complain that there are many qualified judges on the conservative bench, and that Bush should have picked one of them. But wasn't the argument during the Roberts hearings that this was Bush's pick to make, because he won the election? Well, Bush won, and he has made his pick. The Frums (and Buchanans, etc.) have to live with that. Just like they said. Boo-hoo.

(But I am sorry that Judge Batchelder didn't get it. 'Cause I know someone would have put in a good word on my clerkship application. I can write 'em anyway you want, Judge.)

Are the Dems happy? I think that they are probably happy that they don't have to argue against a Luttig or Janice Rogers Brown. (Btw, JRB is reportedly a great boss. So if you're, say, a conservative student looking for a clerkship, she might be worth an application.) Are they crazy about Miers? Probably not. But . . . these things are all relative, people.

I also got to talk to Justice Stevens today. (I can be kind of pushy at these events.) Justice Stevens was very friendly, and he warmed up to my story that a former colleague of mine studied American hotel history (that's true), and that I wondered what the justice remembered about the hotel (once the Stevens Hotel, now the Chicago Hilton) his family once owned, but lost in the Depression. Of course, he told a great story about when Charles Lindbergh stayed at the hotel after his transatlantic flight--in 1927, people. Lindy apparently had a suite full of gifts, and he gave the young John Paul Stevens a white dove, which was later named "Lindy" but then escaped. True story.

So I talked to a guy today who . . . talked to Charles Lindbergh.