OF all the mysteries surrounding President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, possibly the biggest is this: How could a man who got it so right with John Roberts get it so wrong with Ms. Miers?
If the lesson of the Roberts confirmation was to pick someone superbly qualified and watch him whiz through his confirmation, why did President Bush almost deliberately flout that wisdom by nominating an inexperienced crony?
But Chief Justice Roberts and Ms. Miers may have more in common than you think. Both their nominations reflect a deep concern about a too-powerful court and the president's troubling new hostility toward the institution. . . .
[J]ustice Roberts and Ms. Miers represent a one-two punch for presidential supremacy: Justice Roberts would turn the Supreme Court into a body of nine constitutional plumbers - tinkerers around the margins with no affirmative place on the national stage. And Ms. Miers is a plumber - a perfectly competent lawyer with no national distinction. Her nomination would be an insult to the court if the court's work still mattered. But President Bush doesn't want it to matter.
Details here from Dahlia Lithwick in the New York Times. (via EBH)