Here:

Regarding Mier: the President trusts his own judgment more than he does that of his advisors. Given that they got us into Iraq this may be no bad thing. In any event we have had far less qualified judges on the Supreme Court, and this is one justice among nine. Bush, I suspect, is looking for a known quantity, someone who can be trusted not to "grow" once on the bench. The temptation to "grow in stature" (ie become a flaming liberal) is high: after all, an AJOTSC is at the top of the judicial tree; there's nowhere to go. And you can be made much of, or castigated, by the Washington Post. Every morning you can see something favorable about you, or every morning see yourself denounced as in idiot, static, unmoving, uncaring. All you have to do to get favorable mention every day in the paper that everyone you know reads is to grow...

The Constitution gives the President absolute discretion subject to confirmation by the Senate. Most presidents get their pick. Then there was the Bork case, in which the President didn't get his pick, and the Thomas case in which the nation went insane to the point of calling in people to testify about jokes about pubic hairs, as if the dignity of the office had not been irredeemably compromised by the Bork process and then the Thomas affair.

It is clear to Bush after Feinstein and the hapless toad that no qualifications whatever will prevent his nominees being savaged, so he has decided to choose someone he likes and trusts. Whether you trust his judgment or not -- but if not his, whose?