Charles Krauthammer, one of The Washington Post's token conservative columnists, made a good point about Harriet Miers. Conservatives who want to increase the power of the president claim that Harriet Miers, having been part of the White House for four years, has first-hand knowledge of the necessity to increase the president's power. But this, says Krauthammer, is also her flaw:

Perhaps. We have no idea what her role in these decisions was. But to the extent that there was any role, it becomes a liability. For years -- crucial years in the war on terrorism -- she will have to recuse herself from judging the constitutionality of these decisions because she will have been a party to having made them in the first place. The Supreme Court will be left with an absent chair on precisely the laws-of-war issues to which she is supposed to bring so much.

That's right: she's useless to us in matters of expansion of executive authority because she was one of the people who crafted the expansion of executive authority. She'll have to recuse herself in all of these cases regarding presidential authority, and thus the only apparent reason for her nomination is moot, anyway. In other news, Charles Krauthammer has a face like a turtle's.

[Via The Randi Rhodes Show.]