WASHINGTON - - George Bush, who promised to be a uniter and not a divider, has unified the left and right in this country with his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

Both sides are dismayed.

Aside from people being unsure of her ideology, the chief complaint seems to be that she is not excellent. She is not distinguished. She is no genius.

But so what? What have the "genius" choices that Bush has made for his administration gotten us besides enormous deficits and a quagmire in Iraq?

Miers is ordinary (a more kind word than mediocre) and I think Bush wanted ordinary.

The Democratic leader of the Senate, Harry Reid (D-Nev.), is considered just ordinary by some, and he likes Miers and recommended her for the job.

Shouldn't ordinary people have a representative on the Supreme Court?

"I picked the best person I could find," Bush said of Miers.

He did not say he picked the best person that America has to offer, or the best legal mind in the nation. No, she merely is the best he could find. (How hard did he look? Well, that is another question.)

I saw an interview on CNN with one of Miers' friends, Rena Pederson, who is an author. When asked about Miers' qualities, Pederson said: "She holds Christmas dinners in her home. And she has a big family!" And when Miers' mother was ill, Miers would fly to Texas on weekends to care for her and then fly back to Washington. Also, Pederson said, Miers played tennis in college and was on her law firm's softball team. She also reads when she can, "a variety of novels and non-fiction."

Is this ordinary or what?

Some sticklers may think holding family dinners, being nice to your mom, playing sports and reading is not enough to be a Supreme Court justice. Even those who have never been accused of greatness themselves, are demanding it from Miers.

U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said of Miers on MSNBC: "Is she qualified by her experience? Is she the most qualified person? Clearly the answer to that is 'no.' There are a lot more people, men, women and minorities, that are more qualified in my opinion by their experience than she is."

So why did Bush pick her? Well, maybe he sees some of himself in her.

Take his reply at a press conference this week to a question about Hurricane Katrina.

"Is there anything that you, yourself, personally, could have done, or would have done differently now?" a reporter asked.

Bush replied in part: "And there was some bureaucracy, some rules that prevented the debris from getting removed right off the bat….Because they didn't want to be moving federally-paid dozers on private property. Imagine cleaning up the debris and a person shows up, and says, where's my valuable china? Or, where's my valuable art? So we had to work through all this."

Is that a terrible answer? No. Just mediocre. Just ordinary. Some presidents might worry about really large issues after a devastating hurricane like whether America is prepared for a truly national disaster.

But George Bush worries about china and Hummel figures.

In a Gallup poll this week, Americans were asked what they thought of Miers being nominated to the Supreme Court.

Some 44 percent think she is an excellent or good choice and 41 percent think she is a fair or poor choice.

Which is a pretty ordinary result.

But is being ordinary so bad? It may be like what Lincoln said of common-looking people: They are the best in the world. That is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
Posted by rsimon at October 05, 2005 02:55 PM

Commentary: