I never really thought I'd get to this point. But will some of my fellow conservatives please shut up.

Most of the pundits of the so called "right" have made much hay about the nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. Will, Coulter , and Limbaugh have all denounced President Bush's nomination as a failure, as smacking of cronyism, and as being a sign that the President is a chump an unwilling to wage a fight with liberals. Some other conservatives are whining about how President Bush "owes" them a blatant card carrying pro-life advocate and one that has a traceable conservative pedigree. Still other are making the shallow argument that she is not qualified because she has never been a judge before.

I'll take the last point first. The commentators who are whining about her "lack of experience" as a judge are typical snobs and most commonly lawyers who believe no one has a right to be in any of the governmental estates unless they have a law degree. They also ignore history. When it comes to past members of the Supreme Court with NO judicial experience, Franklin Roosevelt picked five of them, Washington picked four of them, Lincoln picked three of them, Adams, Truman and Kennedy picked two of them.

The conservative complainers you most need to watch out for are the ones who say that we conservatives are "owed" a conservative activist on the Court because they were responsible for Bush's election . That complaint torpedoes everything we stand for and calls into question the true conservative credibility of all who make the argument. Conservatives have spent years fighting the scourge of so called "activist" judges at the federal level. And now we want an activist judge on the Supreme Court? It's not only hypocritical, it's uncharacteristically lazy. If you're a true pro-life conservative, why are you waiting for an anti-Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court Justice to do your work for you? Why are you depending on an overturning of Roe vs. Wade to end abortions in this country? It's probably true that based on what we know now about human development a decision like Roe would never have been made had it come before a modern day court. But the fact there are many ways to reduce and even end abortions and unwanted pregnancies in this country and if we are waiting for some old coot on the Supreme Court to do it for us we are shirking our duty as pro-life citizens. What's even more puzzling is that some conservatives I know don't think Miers is anti-abortion enough but are among those who think Rudy Guiliani would be a good President--you know, Giuliani, the guy who opposes a ban on partial birth abortion.

And then there are those, both on the Right and Left, who are making the insulting insinuation the President Bush made this decision because he is a coward who couldn't stand up to the likes of Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer in the wake of his so called "weakened" Presidency. First of all, Reid and Schumer couldn't polish the spokes on Bush's bicycle. Are Limbaugh and all the others really serious when they say the one man who had the courage to take on Islamic Fascism around the world is scared of a couple of professional campaigners?

I realize that for some conservative pundits it is fashionable and , in a perverse way, credibility building to attack the President and question him publicly especially on something as easy to hang him out to dry on as this. Afterall, the less we know the more they can invent. They can feign concern about "cronyism". And if they're proven wrong no one will know it for years. Plus, the lefties will love you for your "balance" and you may even get a hit on the "Today" show. But I'm hoping at least before they go to bed at night after their TV appearances that the insta-attackers will consider this: It's possibe that George Bush made this decision because it was the right one to make for the time. It's possible that George Bush made this decision to avoid a fight, not because he's a coward, but because this country has had enough fighting to deal with of over the past few years. It is possible that George Bush made this decision because that's what leaders do--they weigh the impact of their decisions not only 20 years down the line but 24 hours or two weeks down the line. It is possible that George Bush believes Harriet Miers to be the perfect nominee for this time--stealth enough to soothe the liberals, conservative enough to please the rest of us, and, more importantly, an originalist who believes in what the Constiitution is and ever shall and should remain. Some conservatives may not like the fact that we won't have another month or so of bloody battles and culture warring with a cartoon colorful nominee in the middle, , or that we won't be putting various people and ideals and values up against the wall. For the pundits that may have meant job security. For the President of the United States of America--who has seen his share of bloody battles abroad and at home-- it would mean something else entirely. The President has exercised his power in great amounts over the past few years. In some cases it was his choice. In some cases he had to. But the true mark of power is restraint in using it. The true mark of a leader is knowing when to fight, and when not to.