I don’t read the wildly erratic blogs, but I do read two left wing blogs. Both of them are opposed to Miers. So I guess they don’t agree with Harry Reid.
This sounds more like Miers was an opportunist than a convert. When conservative Democrats ran Texas, she was a conservative Democrat. She gave money to prominent Texas Democrats (Lloyd Bentsen) and to national Democrats who tried to move the party in a more conservative direction (1988-vintage Al Gore). Then, when Republicans came to dominate Texas, she became a Republican. She rose through the ranks of the American Bar Association, and if that meant supporting the ICC and gay adoptions then so be it. When she met George W. Bush she flattered him and latched on and her career prospered.
can’t say I’d ever even heard of Harriet Miers, but given that she’s White House counsel, I’m guessing Bush just wanted someone who agrees with his own dictatorial view of presidential powers in wartime. I suggested a few weeks ago that Bush would never pick Gonzales for this spot, because then both he and Roberts would have to recuse themselves in an upcoming and fairly crucial case on detainee matters, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which would leave the fate of Bush’s “war on terror” powers in the hands of a pseudo-liberal majority. Nuh-uh. Hence Miers. This seems like an awfully bizarre reason to choose Miers—who is otherwise fairly unqualified—but I can’t really see any other. Unless Bush just likes Texans.