Brilliant Will

George Will is one of my favorite columnists... and one of the great conservative political minds of this day. He, specifically, is the reason that I can't call myself a 100% liberal: George Will (and Andrew Sullivan) and I agree so often that I simply can't be.

To sum up this column, Mr. Will says:
(1) Ms. Miers has to be one of the great undiscovered minds of the modern era: If you asked the 100 greatest law afficionados to each list 100 potential Supreme Court nominees, Harriet Miers would not be any of the 10,000 listed.
(2) The Supreme Court is the ultimate appointment for geniuses of the law... and congress had better make damn sure that Ms. Miers deserves to be there, and reject her if she isn't.
(3) The Supreme Court is not a place to practice affirmative action, if it means the confirmation of even second-rate genius. A Supreme Court appointment is reward for being the smartest among millions of practicioners of law... not a reward for being female.

Under the rubric of "diversity" -- nowadays, the first refuge of intellectually disreputable impulses -- the president announced, surely without fathoming the implications, his belief in identity politics and its tawdry corollary, the idea of categorical representation. Identity politics holds that one's essential attributes are genetic, biological, ethnic or chromosomal -- that one's nature and understanding are decisively shaped by race, ethnicity or gender. Categorical representation holds that the interests of a group can be understood, empathized with and represented only by a member of that group.

Amen to that.