She's been in the war...

Hugh Hewitt has some good points about Miers. My first reaction to her was to be, as they say, underwhelmed. BUT...

...The Chief Justice's [Executive Branch] experience did not, however, include GWOT experience, and it is here that Miers has a decisive advantage. Consider that none of the Justices, not even the new Chief, has seen the battlefield in the GWOT from the perspective or with the depth of knowledge as has the soon to be Justice Miers. The Counsel to the President has seen it all, and knows what the President knows, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Joint Chiefs and the Attorney General.

I suspect that the President thinks first and foremost about the GWOT each morning, and that this choice for SCOTUS brings to that bench another Article II inclined justice with the sort of experience that no one inside the Court will have.

If there is another opening, we will get the Attorney General, and for the first time in I don't know how long, there will be a block of Article II enthusiasts within the preserve of Article III. If we get two more, a Justice Luttig or McConnell will rise.

The president is a poker player in a long game. He's decided to take a sure win with a good sized pot. I trust him. So should his supporters....

....The Miers nomination is turning into a Rorschach test dividing conservatives into the camp that understands governing for the long term and those that are so emotionally fragile or contingent in their allegiance that anything they (1)don't understand or (2) disappoints in any way becomes an occasion for panic and declarations of irreparable injury....

This is VERY important. We are at war, and in 4th Generation Warfare, the battlefield is everywhere. In fact the decisive battles are probably the ones we are fighting here in the USA. The soldiers of this war are not just muscular young men with machine guns, they can also be sedentary people manning desks...either defending freedom's wall at the White House, or aiding Osama at the New York Times.

The terrorists can never defeat us in combat, but their supporters here are working tirelessly to advance their cause and undermine our will to fight. When Hugh writes that Miers "has seen the battlefield in the GWOT," it's not just a metaphor. It is literally true.

And it's important to remember that the President has a limited fund of political capital. He can't do everything he would like. Capital saved by a relatively easy fight over Miers is capital available for fighting America's enemies, both at home and abroad...