“The justice system is under scrutiny for its very makeup because of the few minorities who serve in the judiciary. And if we are honest, we cannot deny that things go wrong, they cannot be explained away and changes need to be made. We still have all white juries trying cases which significantly impact the rights of minorities. We undeniably still have a justice system that does not provide justice for all as provided by the Pledge of Allegiance. One justice for the rich, one justice for the poor. One justice sometimes for minorities, one for whites.”

We don’t know what is more troubling about these lines from Harriet Miers’ speech in Dallas a decade ago: that she, a Supreme Court nominee, then appeared to be under the impression that the Pledge of Allegiance is part of our Constitution or some other legally binding utterance.

Or that her remarks read like a rough draft of the “Two America’s” speech Sen. John Edwards used during last year’s Democratic Presidential primary. Miers wasn’t just a trailblazer for women, she was a trailblazer for Democratic populists.