Martin Meenagh blog

Sarah Palin and Harriet Miers

Inferences are being drawn all the time about John McCain's character from his nomination of Sarah Palin as his running mate. It occurred to me today, as I was teaching, that there is actually quite an overlap with George Bush's nomination of a qualified (but no more than that) Supreme Court candidate. Harriet Miers.

Both Miers and Palin are renegade catholics who turned to evangelism; both attracted support from the conservative base and scorn elsewhere; Miers was accused of being a 'demographic' candidate and a Bush family lawyer, Palin of having been appointed just because she was a woman.

The media and political class came down very hard on Miers, who withdrew her nomination eventually, to be replaced by Justice Alito. Sarah Palin is now semi-detached from the McCain campaign but cannot be removed from the presidential ticket. I wonder--is she a Miers in the making, McCain's Quayle--or a new Nixon?

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