Stick to baseball, George.

I think that George Will's opinion of the Miers nomination is arrogant pontification and shows an ugly contempt for democracy.

[It] is not important that she be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court's tasks.

[George Bush] has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections. . . .

[T]here is no reason to believe that Miers's nomination resulted from the president's careful consultation with people capable of such judgments.

Those italics are mine and represent what I think is wrong with Supreme Court jurisprudence, that it assumes that applying the Constitution is too sophisticated for the common run of citizens and requires "leading lights" and some kind of special abilities and "inclination" to do properly.

This is a load of fish chum.

I do not want a bunch of elites who think they are more sophisticated and talented than the rest of us reviewing laws passed by democratic processes. It practical screams that they are entitled to impose their views on the rest of us when it comes to matters of policy, such as criminal behavior not related to guaranteed rights. When the Constitution says "certain rights . . . retained by the people," it doesn't mean as decided by the "leading lights of American jurisprudence." Some of those leading lights would defer to international jurisprudence or even the Washington, D.C. cocktail circuit in interpreting our Constitution! Remember that more justices have been appointed based on politics than were named after "the president's careful consultation with people capable of such judgments." I doubt that you could get a consensus on who should be on such an Olympian panel. Where does the Constitution mention " consultation with people capable of such judgments"? What kind of intellectual hubris is this?

Well, at last I know what to think of George Will's judgment in the future.