I’m sure this will be much discussed in certain quarters of the web today. Let me just throw in two cents now one small part of his broadside which is aimed in part at me. Hewitt writes:

(Aside: I see many on the web are exercised about Harriet Miers’ support for affirmative action in the private setting of support for resolutions of the Texas Bar urging quotas in hiring at private law firms. It is not a policy with which I would agree either, but it also not a matter of constitutional law, unless under Brentwood the action of the Texas Bar in urging private firms to set strict goals has converted into a state action. Don’t know what Brentwood is? Or the state action doctrine? Not many people do. But those that don’t ought not to be confusing ConLaw with the private decisions of private firms while agruing that this policy makes Miers suspect on Bollinger. Now, if she supported a soft line on the Bollinger cases, that would be a legitimate area of concern, but not the Texas Bar resolutions.)

Me: Piffle. If reports are to be believed Miers argued — along with her old bar association, pro-affirmative action chum and pal, Alberto Gonzales — that the White House shouldn’t oppose racial quotas aggressively. Instead the White House punted by arguing a narrow aspect of the law and lending little to no support to the anti-quota side. In other words, she did in fact take a soft line on the Bollinger case, which Hewitt admits would be a legitimate reason for concern.

(Or at least that is the charge that many with first hand experience have made. And this White House, as far as I know, has not attempted even once to dispute it.)

So let us concede that her views in this area constitute a legitimate concern. In this context, i.e. we are already legitimately concerned, we find out that Miers was an aggressive supporter of quotas on as the head of a state-affiliated agency (the Texas Bar). We find out she used all of the language, set all of the policies and took all of the positions consistent with a conventional establishmentarian, go-along, get-along, country club Republican on racial quotas and affirmative action. But, alas, if we can’t debate the Brentwood decision with Hugh adequately we have no claim to concern about this at all. Why? Because such a policy has nothing to do with “ConLaw.” This strikes me as piffle-squared. How a reasonable person could read the Washington Post story yesterday and then with a straight face say it’s not a disturbing indication of how she’d vote is beyond me. If Miers had been found out to have been a virulent racist in the early nineties, do you think the argument that those views were irrelevant to how she’d vote would hold water?

I might add that as we don’t know jack about what Miers’ view on ConLaw is, we have to go with what we know. And what we know is that Miers agrees with the logic of quotas and affirmative action as a moral good. That’s troubling enough, even if you buy Hewitt’s magical high wall between Miers’ constitutional views and her personal views. But let’s assume Hewitt is right and this has absolutely nothing, one way or the other, to do with constitutional law. Fine. But as a simple matter of morality, we know that Miers is convinced of the pro-quota side.

So now Hugh is telling us not to worry about her private political views, they are meaningless (even as she pushed the White House to go soft on Bollinger). Meanwhile, Miers’ supporters have been arguing for two weeks that Miers is privately opposed to abortion and that should be good enough indication about how she’d vote on Roe. So which is it? Why should we believe Hewitt that Miers will keep her private views to herself (even though she hasn’t in the past) on race, but she’ll take her private views on abortion to the bank?