George Will Levels Both Barrels at Miers

George Will

Yesterday, George Will intensified the drumbeat against Miers with “Defending the Indefensible.”

Here’s the bare-knuckled conclusion:

. . .any Republican senator who supinely acquiesces in President Bush’s reckless abuse of presidential discretion — or who does not recognize the Miers nomination as such — can never be considered presidential material. . .

While getting to that conclusion, he made a point that I think is essential to emphasize. Liberals who make this confirmation debate All-About-Roe are being far too simplistic, and seriously misunderstand conservative reasoning:

Thoughtful conservatives’ highest aim is not to achieve this or that particular outcome concerning this or that controversy. Rather, their aim for the Supreme Court is to replace semi-legislative reasoning with genuine constitutional reasoning about the Constitution’s meaning as derived from close consideration of its text and structure. Such conservatives understand that how you get to a result is as important as the result.

Now. While I found Will’s piece to be typically sharp and bracing, others read something else entirely. Over at Big Lizard, Dafyyd thought it was “yawn-inducing” and evidence that Will has entered his “dotage,” arguing that, “This column is a sad chapter in the long twilight denouement of George Will’s career.”

Via John at Powerline, who thinks Dafyyd sends Will’s column to “the trash heap of history.”