OK, I shouldn't spend all day e-mailing bloggers on a topic and pretend I'm not blogging. So, briefly:

1) Lawrence Solum has the definitive Harriet Miers blog post.

2) My official slogan for what I think will happen at the hearings: this nomination is "A crony too far." All the slack people cut Bush, pre-Katrina and for non-lifetime appointments, when he appointed people purely because he'd seen into their heart, will be absent in a post-Brown, post-Katrina, Supreme Court context. Personal loyalty to the President may be a relevant qualification for White House counsel but simply is not for Supreme Court justice; and Senators know this. What's more, they actually care, both because they're afraid of going down with Bush's cronyism ship at this point, and because they care deeply and self-importantly about the Senate's vaunted prerogatives. If the Supreme Court is reduced to a Presidential patronage position, then Advise And Consent loses all its advertised majesty.

3) Fill in this sentence, with a straight face. "Harriet Miers is one of the nine [or even ninety] most ________ lawyers in America," or "is one of the best ________ in America." Now try to fill in the blanks with anything that does not involve the words "President Bush" (i.e. "trusted by President Bush," "personally close to President Bush," etc.) Attention GOP operatives: No fair just saying "qualified;" there has to be some operationalization of "qualified" that doesn't involve the words "President Bush." NB: someone cribbed this from me, after I went into his office and said it out loud...