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The White House communication shop appears to be in disarray over the nomination of Harriet Miers to The Supreme Court. Surrogates are out front calling criticism of the president's choice elitist and sexist but without proper foundation to use some legal parlance. Let's see if we can help them out:

Rush Limbaugh's out there on the airwaves today calling his and other conservative criticism the only intellectually honest" position to take which apparently leaves those of us who support the idea that a president who has nominated great conservatives to the Federal Courts and just succeeded in seating the new Chief Justice, John Roberts, is entitled to a fair hearing on his latest nominee from his base of support. But we're not being intellectually honest. Elitist? Pushaw.

Let's address where the sexist comments may come from.

It's no secret that the conservative community's two favorite justices, and the president's by the way, are Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. As a matter of fact, it's these two justices that the "base" is holding up as examples of the kind of jurist they would like to see on the Court. After these two favorites of course, is the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a man nominated to the Court without ever having served on a federal bench.

A quick review on Clarence Thomas' qualifications before he was nominated to the Court:

An aide to then Missouri Attorney General John Danforth, a corporate attorney for Monsanto, a return to the office of John Danforth, now Senator from Missouri as an legislative aide, assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, and head of the EEOC under President Reagan. He was nominated to the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC by President Reagan in 1990 and a year later was nominated by President George H.W. Bush to the Supreme Court upon the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Antonin Scalia -- Yes, a more scholarly justice, Justice Scalia was a graduate and valedictorian of Georgetown University and Harvard Law School where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. He spent a year in Europe on a Harvard fellowship, had a brief stint in commercial law and then took a job teaching law at the University of Virginia. After four years, eager to do government service, he was hired by President Nixon as general counsel for the Office of Telecommunication Policy.

He was nominated to the post of General Counsel at the Justice Department just before Nixon was forced to resign. He stayed in that post under President Gerald Ford and left government service upon the election of Jimmy Carter. He taught at various law schools until tapped by President Reagan to serve on the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC in 1982. Civic duty included a year at the American Bar Association's section on administrative law and the Conference of Section Chairs. In 1986, after four years on the US Court of Appeals, Scalia was nominated to fill Rehnquist's spot when Rehnquist was nominated as Chief Justice.

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