In the days since President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the highest court in the land, we have learned one thing from many pundits on the Right:  Ms. Miers does not have the resume to fill one of nine seats on the Supreme Court.  As one who sits on a couch in a Red State (watching Fox News with a bucket of popcorn on my lap),  I am astounded that George Wills of the world do not recognize the irony of this selection:  George Bush, it was said, did not have the resume to be President. 

George Bush does have degrees from Harvard and Yale.  In fact, he is the first in the Oval Office to hold an MBA.  But he was a 'C—student,' right?  His detractors said that he avoided military service in Vietnam and oversaw an oil business that went bust.  He used his daddy's name to gain ownership of the Texas Rangers where he committed the game's biggest blunder in the trading of Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.  (By the way, they then traded him to the Cubs).  Hey, he was a drunk till he was forty!  Even then, it was a simpleton's 'come—to—Jesus' experience that set him free from the devil in the bottle; a crutch he still leans on, they complain. 

And what has transpired for this thin resume of a man? He became a two—term President presiding over a recovered and then growing economy; the champion of freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq; and the man responsible for adding to his Party's advantage in a crucial mid—term election, against historical precedent.  Not only that, he has proven to his opponents that he is not to be underestimated precisely because he does not rely on a 'paper record' of accomplishment, but on an—going record of accomplishment.

Harriet Miers is now maligned as a 'light—weight' non—intellectual and a purveyor of nothing much—to—do about anything. Those sound like fightin' words.  As with George Bush, this lady is likely to respond in surprising fashion when the bell rings.  And what a fashion statement it is:  she's got Texas written all over her!

J. James Estrada   10 06 05