Katha Pollitt: If Not Miers, Who?

[from the October 31, 2005 issue]

Dear Karl Rove,

I understand you're getting a lot of flak over the nomination of Harriet Miers to that pesky slot on the Supreme Court. Just in case it doesn't work out, I would like to propose another candidate: me. I realize my name might not be on your short list, since this is a new ambition of mine, and I haven't had time to organize a big shmoozy campaign like some people I could mention. It was actually the Miers nomination that gave me the idea--some people thought, Why her?, but I thought, Why not me? To save time in case you have to move quickly, I've prepared a list of reasons I would be the perfect person to refute the kinds of nasty, rude, unfair arguments being made by Ms. Miers's opponents. I think you will see I have all her strengths, and then some!

1. I am a woman and, moreover, have been one for years. I realize that means I will be subjected to a lot of sexist comments: The media will do silly pieces about my cooking and clothes and whether I am really as bad a mother as all that. Your enemies, of course, will say you chose me because of my sex. Here's the perfect double-whammy defense: While Laura Bush suggests that anyone who criticizes me is a creepy misogynist, which happens to be what I think too (perhaps she could also mention that my daughter has no actual criminal record and surely that counts for something), you point out that there are currently around 113 million adult women in the United States. Obviously if you just wanted a woman, you would never have chosen me. You would have chosen one of those other women--a reactionary judge like Edith Jones or Priscilla Owen, or maybe Jennifer Aniston because Brad has been so mean.