I had always hoped that Supreme Court Justices where choosen in the following manner:

@candidates      = find_all_legal_professionals();
@qualified       = sort_by_qualifications(@candidates);
@partisans       = filter_by_political_necessity(@qualified);
$final_candidate = most_confirmable(@partisans);

The nomination of Harriet Miers appeared to follow this algorithm:

$final_candidate = find_lawyer_in_radius("10 feet");

Without commenting on the actual qualifications of Ms. Miers, I would suggest that the 2nd algorihtm is somewhat less likely to find a quality candidate, much less a confirmable one.

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A very nice essay on the necessity of idle time to our democratic process.

Link to story

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