Bush Nominates M.L. Carr to U.S. Supeme Court

Well, no, earlier this morning President Bush did not nominate former Boston Celtics player/coach/general manager M.L. Carr to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the United States Supreme Court. Carr, as you might remember, was general manager of the Celtics in the mid-90s, during which time he conducted an "exhaustive" search to a find a new head coach for the team. Over a three-month period, Carr intrepidly traveled the country and interviewed a number of persons (and sometimes multiple interviews of the same person) in his quest to discover the best candidate. And after all that "work," whom did he select to become the new Celtics coach? Himself. It wasn't a great choice, as M.L. Carr the coach led the Celtics to a 48-116 record between 1995 and 1997.

Hopefully White House Counsel--and Chairperson of the White House Search Committee for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement-- Harriet Miers will have greater success as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice than M.L. Carr did as Celtics head coach. The President nominated her this morning to replace Justice O'Connor. As we did with John Roberts, we will research her background and speculate how she might shape the future of sports law. As an initial point of concern, and particularly in the wake of the patronage scandal at FEMA, it should be noted that Miers was Bush's personal lawyer in Texas before he was elected president, and is considered a long-time loyal friend. She has held a number of political posts in the Bush Administration. She has no experience as a judge, and a quick LexisNexis search on my part revealed no law review publications. Obviously, none of those are disqualifying qualities (William Rehnquist, for instance, was not a judge before becoming a Justice), although they appear to amplify the belief that President Bush rewards people more for loyalty than for merit. But to Miers' credit, and apparently to the President's admiration, "Miers is one of the first staff members to arrive at the White House in the morning and among the last to leave." Wow. That seals the deal for me. Forget legal acumen and the ability to effectively shape the future of American law; we need punctuality from our Justices!

Of course, this isn't the first time that a person chosen by Bush to head a search committee "looked in the mirror and found the best person for the job." Haliburton CEO Dick Cheney was entrusted by Bush to lead his Vice Presidental Nominee Search Committee in 2000.

Oh well. At least Bush didn't pick Michael Brown this morning. We hear "Brownie did a heck of a job" as FEMA Director.

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