A D- for that B+.

Stephen Bainbridge gives Hugh Hewitt a D- for giving Bush a B+ for nominating Harriet Miers. (But what grade to do they give Miers herself?) Bainbridge utters the dreaded name "Carswell."

Here's what Hewitt says to the conservatives who are fretting about Miers:

Wake up people: Do you really think W is going to elevate a friend who doesn't agree with him on the crucial issues of the day just because she's a friend? Bush-haters like Sullivan will smoke that pipe, but no serious analyst of his judicial nominations.

Bush's picks for the Bench have been stellar, and his support for them unwavering. Conservative critics of Miers are disappointed they didn't get Luttig or McConnell, but many of them were also disappointed with Roberts. Meanwhile many folks who actually know the nominee are enthusiastic.

The Miers nomination is turning into a Rorschach test dividing conservatives into the camp that understands governing for the long term and those that are so emotionally fragile or contingent in their allegiance that anything they (1) don't understand or (2) disappoints in any way becomes an occasion for panic and declarations of irreparable injury.

Let's check out Sullivan then:

Just when the conservative coalition was already fracturing - over Iraq, spending, immigration, Katrina - you'd think that Bush would pick a solid base-favorite for SCOTUS. That was my assumption: something to rev up the troops, divide the country into a classic culture-war left-right battle, etc. But I was wrong.... The only reason I can think of for Bush to rattle his base in this fashion is the same reason Clinton decided to push his luck with a blow-job in the Oval Office: "Because I could." He picked Miers because he could. If he wasn't allowed to get his favorite crony, Gonzales, he was going to go one better. This is not to say we shouldn't give the Miers nomination a thorough and fair look. Unlike many of the Cornerites, I'm not sure yet whether she'd make a decent Justice. But, boy, does this pick remind us of who GWB is: about as arrogant a person as anyone who has ever held his office. Now the base knows how the rest of us have felt for close to five years. He had one accountability moment. He doesn't expect another.

Of course, Hewitt is right about Sullivan hating Bush. The Miers nomination doesn't really add much of anything to the reasons people have to hate Bush. It really just seems that Sullivan uses whatever happens to trash Bush. Lots of people do that around here in Madison. I find it tedious.