No O’Connor

The first take on Harriet Miers is that President Bush’s counsel and longtime crony is, uh, lightly qualified for the Supreme Court. Slate’s Emily Bazelon does a good job of explaining precisely why Miers fails to measure up.

Bazelon’s comparison is with the woman Miers hopes to replace, Sandra Day O’Connor, who was also seen as possessing a thin résumé when she was appointed by Ronald Reagan. The difference was that O’Connor was actually quite accomplished in arenas that normally escape the notice of Washington insiders. But not Miers.

In Salon, Michael Scherer has a useful roundup of liberal and conservative reaction to the Miers appointment, which can be summarized as befuddled and angry, respectively.

Finally, everyone’s talking about why Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, is wild about Miers. Rick Klein reports in the Boston Globe:

KLEIN: Reid, a frequent Bush critic who voted against Roberts, had asked the president to consider Miers. Reid appeared alongside Miers at the Capitol to tout her qualifications. “I have to say without any qualification that I’m very happy that we have someone like her,” said Reid, Democrat of Nevada.

But has anyone pointed out that Reid, despite being a partisan Democrat, is also a longstanding opponent of abortion rights? Not the Globe, not the New York Times, not the Washington Post and not the Wall Street Journal. A puzzling omission, given that it may explain Reid’s supposedly puzzling positive reaction.