[Daily Brief]

The Harriet Miers Brief

MSM
This is one of those cases where the mainstream media all have variants of the same story, so there's no reason to go into great length. The following are worthwhile reads and aren't too repetitive: NY Times | AP - Miers time at the Texas lottery | Reuters - Conservatives lukewarm | Village Voice (Laura Rozen) - Conservatives Outraged | MSNBC | AP - Miers on abortion | BBC | Miers' wealth (low, surpringly) |

Around the Blogosphere
Andrew Sullivan has been tracking the pick all day, and he's got a number of interesting tidbits up. His analysis? "Think of her as a very capable indentured servant of the Bush family. She'll do what they want.... I think they've found someone whose personal loyalty to Bush exceeds even Gonzales'" Great. (Later, Sully calls Bush a "deeply arrogant and insecure person" which would have, in earlier days, garned Kos or Atrios one of his silly faux nominations for "shrillness." Ah, what a difference two botched wars, two botched hurricanes, and two elections make.)

At the Corner, the natives are not amused (but they are chatty).

I didn't lead with this, but let's bookmark it as a potential blockbuster: Hurricane Abramoff may blow through the nomination before it's all over with. Buzzflash has the details.

But enough of the ninnies. You care about what the left thinks. Perhaps the most interesting commentary comes from Jeralyn Merritt, at TalkLeft, who actually worked with Miers:

My initial reaction to her nomination: Relief. I served with Ms. Miers on the Martindale Hubbell-Lexis Nexis Legal Advisory Board for a few years.... I didn't get to know her well, but we sat next to each other for several hours at the last meeting she attended and I liked her. We only talked law, not politics, but she won me over - and I was pre-disposed not to like her, that being the year that Bush was running for President and knowing she was his personal lawyer.

Amy Sullivan, on the other hand, thinks the chief problem with Miers isn't her politics, but her qualifications. Kevin Drum, on the other other hand, gives some reasons she ain't so bad. At TAPPED, Ezra Klein (whom I seem to be quoting a lot lately) says the nomination says more about the nominator than the nominee: "For the Bush administration, this is proof of either total weakness or absolute detachment. Miers was either Bush's politically tone-deaf but clearly sincere commitment to cronyism or his fear that an actual battle would end up in a crushing loss." Ouch.

Billmon gets the penultimate word because, after reading through the blogocommentary for the past hour, he takes the words right out of my mouth, saving the need for further analysis from me.

Bottom line: The Demopublicans and the Republicrats are both hugely relieved that nuclear war has been avoided once again. These guys know that ideological zeal and moral clarity are for the rubes -- except in the summer and fall months of years divisible by two. And right now everybody is uncertain enough about what the next such year might bring to favor compromise over showdown. The Demopublicans sense an opportunity, but know deep down in their hearts that they will blow it, while the Republicrats smell danger, but aren't sure how to escape it. So they both want to play it safe. And now Shrub has given them the perfect opportunity to do so. Smart thinking, Karl.

Digby, whose astute analysis explains why Miers' is a nomination we can all hate, gets the last word. Seriously, he's hit it on the head (but I add the emphasis):

It's important to recognize, finally, what Karl Rove and the Bush administration, with the help of the modern Republican apparatus under Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed is all about. They are building a political machine, not a political movement. I find it very amusing that the right wing "intellectuals," from their ivory tower think tanks and millionaire supported sinecures at political magazines, have still failed to recognize that.

And that's today's, special edition SCOTUS briefing...