From an L.A. Times editorial:
Black-box nominees such as Miers and, to a lesser extent, John G. Roberts Jr. are chosen in part because they give senators so little to go on. Roberts had thousands of pages of memos from his years of service in the White House, but most were off-limits to the Judiciary Committee, and those that remained he was able to disavow — or “distinguish,” to use a lawyer’s term. And Miers had such a thin paper trail that decade-old thank-you notes were treated like law review articles. Her withdrawal was prompted by conservative dissatisfaction, not liberal opposition.
Now all is right with the world. Liberal interest groups and Democratic senators are criticizing the president’s choice, and his allies are defending it. The battle lines are drawn, and they are familiar. Of course, this is no assurance that the coming fight will be edifying. But better to debate judicial philosophy and constitutional interpretation than executive privilege or Senate procedure. Even those opposed to Alito’s nomination can be grateful for that.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.