A large part of the skepticism and disappointment over the President’s choice is that we don’t really know what Harriet Miers thinks and whether she has a developed judicial philosophy. Nor will we know. Indeed, it’s entirely possible that SHE doesn’t know. This is not to disparage the career she has had, which has included some impressive jobs (such as the one she has now). It is simply to say that she does not appear to have had the sorts of jobs that force a lawyer, regularly, to think through to settled positions on complex constitutional (and other) issues – in the face of withering pressure from the best the face the opposing viewpoint has to offer.

This makes consideration of the question of questions, which we debated here at length, more disheartening. I am firmly in what I take to be the camp of Franck, Ponnuru (here – subscription required) and others that suggests wide latitude in questioning a nominee about her views. And while it doesn’t go as far as I would, I also see the logic of the Levin position that “all nominees should be grilled about their judicial philosophy[,]” if not about specific precedents.

But the fact remains that in Judge Roberts we had a scintillating intellect with a robust written record who could readily have explained his positions in a compelling way. His hearings could have blazed a path to a more revealing confirmation process – essential in an age in which the courts legislate with abandon. But the new chief justice generally adopted the Justice Ginsburg “Sorry, I can’t discuss that” position. And that was just peachy as far as a lot of what came out of Bench Memos was concerned. Trust me (that rueful phrase so popular today): all that stuff is all going to be read back to conservatives who are alarmed about this nomination and want to know more about where this nominee is coming from. What we are going to be left with is “trust me.”

We have a nominee who is an unknown quantity. Thanks to the Roberts confirmation process (following on the Ginsburg and Breyer hearings), there is plenty of fresh support for allowing her to confine her revelations to name, rank and serial number. We will know what type of Justice she will be only when she becomes one. We reap what we sow.