Robert H. Bork, whose own nomination to the Supreme Court generated the verb “to bork” in American political lexicon, lays the wood to President Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court in this Opinion Journal piece, which includes these gems:

There is, to say the least, a heavy presumption that Ms. Miers, though undoubtedly possessed of many sterling qualities, is not qualified to be on the Supreme Court. It is not just that she has no known experience with constitutional law and no known opinions on judicial philosophy. It is worse than that. As president of the Texas Bar Association, she wrote columns for the association’s journal. David Brooks of the New York Times examined those columns. He reports, with supporting examples, that the quality of her thought and writing demonstrates absolutely no “ability to write clearly and argue incisively.”

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Income tax simplification is a recurring subject on this blog, so I took notice of this NY Times article regarding yesterday’s announcement that President Bush’s tax-overhaul panel had agreed to offer two alternatives to the present tax code — one alternative that essentially streamlines the current income tax and a second, bolder alternative that would replace it with a progressive tax on consumption. Although both proposals would do away with the deduction for state and local taxes, limit the current deduction for home-mortgage interest and tube the unpopular alternative minimum tax, the two plans differ in their approach to taxing business.
Both proposals will be included in the panel’s final November 1 report to the Treasury Department, and the report is expected to be the framework for legislative proposals regarding overhauling the tax code next year. The income tax that the panel approved in principle yesterday is based on the following basic framework:

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