The American Spectator

George Will had championed for the court J. Harvie Wilkinson. He was the judge who let it be known that Bush had questioned him on his exercise schedule. Wilkinson had a careful sensibility and wasn’t an “extremist,” wrote Will, arguing against pure orginalism. So Will’s constitutional jurisprudence is itself a species, albeit it more intelligent than most kinds, of liberal thought. Will’s ideal justice would be neither an originalist nor an outright living-constitution-style activist.Â

Will scores at least one point in his column on Bush’s use of identity politics as a crutch. That can’t be defended. Yesterday Bush at the press conference kept saying that Miers was a female “pioneer” in Texas. So? Does that confer upon her some special insight into the meaning of the Constitution? How can he make the case for justices as apolitical and justify them on representational grounds?