Harriet Miers is a classic Bush nominee: the stealth loyalist. She’s probably better than, say, Janice Rogers Brown, but what she told David Frum is just ridiculous:

In the White House that hero worshipped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. She served Bush well, but she is not the person to lead the court in new directions – or to stand up under the criticism that a conservative justice must expect.

I’m not one of those people who makes sweeping claims about how dumb Bush is — he’s actually quite savvy in a certain limited way — but the most brilliant man she ever met? To me, that suggests she’s a hero worshipper who’s far too deferential to power and authority, and that’s not the person I want to be a swing vote on the Supreme Court. Yikes.

(Frum quote via Matthew Yglesias by way of Josh Marshall)