Don't expect the Senate Democrats to put up a fight on Miers. On a blogger conference call last week with Sen. Harry Reid (I wrote about it here), he told us he asked the President to consider Harriet Miers. (Update: Here are his exact comments, thanks to Sam Rosenfeld at Tapped, who also was on the call. Sen. Reid's comments were in response to a question I asked him about his thoughts on who Bush would pick for the next nominee.)

I personally think that I would like to see someone who has not had judicial experience. I think that we need somebody to go on that Court in the mold of the people on the Berger court, people who have not spent their lifetime holed up in some office writing opinions and reading briefs. One of the people that’s being talked about is Harriet Miers, his own lawyer. At the meeting we had with the president last week, we were in the office he has there; I was there, Frist was there, Leahy was there, and Specter was there, plus Andy Card and the vice president. I said, “The vice president got here in a very unusual way. He was chosen by you to find a candidate to be your vice president. You liked the person in charge of finding a candidate better than the people he chose.” I said, “I think that rather than rather than looking at the people your lawyer’s recommending, pick her.” ...

by TChris

Commentary on the president’s decision to elevate his White House Counsel to a Supreme Court seat begins to fill the web. Lyle Denniston argues that Harriet Miers “will have the burden of proving that she is qualified to join the Court and was not chosen on the basis of cronyism. That could pose a serious challenge.” Joel Achenbach explains why Miers is qualified for the job:

1. She's a lawyer.

2. She's tight with Dubya.

3. She works just a few feet from Bush and thus saved him from the hassle of a protracted search.

4. She has never been a judge and thus has no record that might generate problems in a confirmation hearing.

David Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy agrees that Miers is a "well-connected insider" who is likely to favor executive power (at least for this chief executive) over the other branches of government, but also notes that the nomination may be opposed by members of the president's base because Miers lacks the anti-abortion track record they thought they'd been promised. And Prof. Doug Berman laments Miers’ lack of background in criminal law and sentencing issues.