Titled "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933," Kagan opined that infighting caused the decline of the early socialist movement. She asked why the "greatness" of socialism was not reemerging as a major political force.

"In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness," wrote Kagan, Obama's solicitor general.

"Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation's established parties?" she asked.

In the senior thesis, Kagan, who graduated from Princeton in 1981, addressed infighting in the socialist movement.

"Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP [Socialist Party] exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism in New York to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered.

"The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America," she wrote. "Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one's fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope."

Her thesis was dedicated to her brother "whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas."

But her qualifications for the Supreme Court are non-existent. She is not a brilliant jurist, indeed, has never been a judge. She is not a scholar of the law. Researchers are hard-pressed to dig up an opinion. She has not had a brilliant career in politics, the academy, the corporate world or public forum. Were she not a friend of Bush, and female, she would never have even been considered.

On constitutional matters, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there is no there there. She has neither said nor written anything edifying about constitutional law or politics during more than three decades as a lawyer. Her nomination evokes Sen. Roman Hruska's ill-conceived defense of G. Harrold Carswell: "Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance?"

Miss Miers has taken to an extreme Saint Paul's advice to be all things to all people. Her political loyalties have fluctuated between Democrat presidential aspirants Michael Dukakis and Al Gore to Republican hopeful Phil Gramm and President George W. Bush. Former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie conceded Miss Miers was a Democrat throughout the 1980s. Her unelaborated conversion to Republican ranks smacks more of expediency than conviction.

Miss Miers' Supreme Court credentials are suboptimal, not to make too fine a point: graduation from Southern Methodist University with a major in mathematics contemporaneously with Laura Bush; personal attorney to Mr. Bush; general counsel to Gov.-elect Bush's transition team in 1994; assistant to the president and staff secretary in 2001; deputy chief of staff in 2003; and White House counsel in 2005. Her acclaim by Sen. Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, who has sneered at Justice Clarence Thomas' competence, adds cause for skepticism.

The nominee has been conspicuously silent on every controversial constitutional matter in her generation, including Watergate, the legislative veto, Roe v. Wade, presidential war powers, Iran-Contra, prayer in school; the impeachment of President Clinton; the line-item veto; the death penalty; and campaign finance restrictions. If confirmed, Miss Miers can be expected to exceed the obscurity of Garbriel Duvall, who contributed but two words to constitutional law ("I dissent" in Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)), during 23 years of Supreme Court service.

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Miss Miers' defenders insist she is likely to vote with Justices Scalia and Thomas in decisive cases. But the law pivots not on results but on reasoning, which guides subordinate tribunals, legislatures and executive officials. The power of the court is in explanations, not in ipse dixits. The idea Miss Miers would be intellectually equipped to write for the ages is preposterous, like believing an amateur writer would surpass Shakespeare if awarded a Nobel Prize.

- "You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect,"
"for taking the time to visit in the office and on the plane back - cool!"
"Hopefully Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are 'cool' - as do the rest of us."