In case you still had any idea that Harriet Miers is in any way qualified to be a Supreme Court justice, read this article from the L.A. Times. The article describes the reception to Miers’ recent submission to a standard questionnaire, in particular an answer she gave regarding the Equal Protection Clause. Miers claimed that while on the Dallas City Council, “the council had to be sure to comply with the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause.”

One small hitch: the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that proportional representation does not apply to the Equal Protection Clause.

I can imagine right-wingers will try to shrug this off as a minor slip. However, this is not an informal quiz. Even on a regular job resume, an applicant’s failure to correctly describe basic qualities of the position would greatly impress the employer: in something as serious to an individual as a resume, any slip-up is considered significant. If I were to apply for a position at a university as a Writing professor and had a glaring grammatical error in my resume, that alone would likely disqualify me, on the grounds that I should have thoroughly checked that one of all documents. And this is Miers’ application to become a justice on the Supreme Court. If she can’t get even the most basic question right on something as vital as this, how can we possibly see her as qualified?

Legal experts agree; New York University law professor Burt Neuborne said, “If a first-year law student wrote that and submitted it in class, I would send it back and say it was unacceptable.” Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan agreed, saying that “Any halfway competent junior lawyer could have checked the questionnaire and said it cannot go out like that. I find it shocking,” adding that it almost seemed like the White House was setting Miers up.

The White House, however, tried to cover up her mess, saying that Miers’ wording is “amenable to different meanings,” and that her “experience” was more important than her “terminology,” which is Washington weasel-wording at best.

At some point, Bush is going to have to face the fact that Miers is a lost cause, and will only do more damage than good. With indictments likely forthcoming against senior White House officials in the Valerie Plame case in the next few weeks, certainly having Miers self-destruct in front of Congress is the last thing they’ll want to have. Not that I’m complaining, of course, and it’s easy to give advice when Bush is facing a more or less lose-lose proposition, as withdrawing Miers would be damaging as well. But this is a time when in complete honesty I can say that Bush would be better off cutting his losses and naming someone well-qualified and right-of-center.

[Update: One day later, it’s not getting any better.]

But I’d still be happy watching the Bush administration continue its downward spiral. They certainly can’t count on Congressional Republicans much: too many of them are busily setting themselves up contrary to the administration in light of its massive unpopularity right now. Not that that will help them very much, with so many of their own mired in scandal and facing indictments. And many Republicans not even up for re-election are getting tough on Bush: on Monday, Brent Scowcroft, former Bush 41 National Security Advisor, is reportedly going to rip Bush a new one.

But I am withholding my schadenfreude for the moment; when these things result in Republicans losing an election and the power they now hold, then I’ll celebrate.