With that in mind, here is my thumbnail research.
You might wonder what Think Progress said about Miers. Well, I did:
Harriet Miers, Bush’s next pick for the Supreme Court, is currently White House Counsel and once served as Bush’s personal lawyer. She has never been a judge.
Now what do you suppose they said about Kagan?
Another criticism conservatives are throwing at Kagan is over the fact that she has never been a judge. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that she was "a surprising choice because she lacks judicial experience." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called her "the least qualified [nominee] in terms of judicial experience in 38 years." Of course, during the Bush administration, these same conservatives were saying that having experiences outside of the judicial monastery were a plus. "[R]ight now you have people who've been federal judges, circuit judges most of their lives, or academicians," said Cornyn in 2005. "And what you see is a lack of grounding in reality and common sense that I think would be very beneficial." Kagan would be in good company. Louis Brandeis, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, William Rehnquist, and others all served as justices without lower federal court experience. "Of the 111 justices who have served on the Supreme Court, 41 came in without judicial experience."
Hilarious. Now, not being a judge is not a big deal... and how dare Republicans bring it up when they were suggesting that nominees didn't need to be one years ago. (Neglecting to mention that Harriet Miers nomination was shot down.)
What did HuffPo say about Miers? Well, they hated her so very much, that they compared Sarah Palin to her!
As you all probably remember, in 2005, George W. Bush nominated his White House Counsel, Harriet Miers to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court despite the fact that she had no judicial experience whatsoever and seemed completely wrong for the part in every other way but her gender.
Wow! That's pretty brutal. Oh wait. Uhmmm... Kagan has no judicial experience whatsoever too. I wonder what HuffPo says about that? Let's start with this interesting primer:
For decades, Republicans have been the party of coordinated talking points and overwhelming organization with respect to judicial nominations.
Really? Huh. Well, I'm glad that the left hadn't all talked about how Miers had no judicial experience then.
Back to HuffPo:
As Darling and others sees it, the message discipline will come with time, mainly because the attacks on Kagan -- both for lacking adequate judicial experience and, more specifically, her decision as Dean of Harvard Law to bar military recruiters from the school's campus (in protest of the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy) -- are natural and effective. Whether one group or several drive them is of secondary importance, so long as they are driven.
Okay... so according to HuffPo, the 'attacks' are 'natural and effective'.
Rather then, you know... true.
Here's another HuffPo article that sidesteps the issue as a Republican attack tactic:
It won't be all about Obama. Kagan's resume has particular areas that Republicans view as vulnerable. Her refusal to allow military recruiters on Harvard's campus (in protest of Don't Ask Don't Tell) is one. The dearth of judicial experience is another.
Uh huh. By the way, that article suggests that opposition to Kagan is just because Republicans hate Obama.
A lot of blogs have used the White House talking point about there being 40 Supreme Court justices that have had no bench experience. In case you were wondering, this list gives the complete run down. You'll note that Renquist was the last one nominated without bench experience, and that it was Nixon who did it in 1972, in the same year that he nominated another man without experience to the bench.
You won't find very many Democrats arguing that Obama is being Nixonian in his nomination.
The New York Times said this about Miers at the time:
Ms. Miers, 60, a longtime confidante of the president's, has never been a judge, and therefore lacks a long history of judicial rulings that could reveal ideological tendencies. Her positions on such ideologically charged issues as abortion and affirmative action are unclear.
Interesting. What did they say about Kagan? The Times starts her bio with all of her other credits:
In settling on Ms. Kagan, the president chose a well-regarded 50-year-old lawyer who served as a staff member in all three branches of government and was the first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School. If confirmed, she would be the youngest member and the third woman on the current court, but the first justice in nearly four decades without any prior judicial experience.
That lack of time on the bench may both help and hurt her confirmation prospects, allowing critics to question whether she is truly qualified while denying them a lengthy judicial paper trail filled with ammunition for attacks. As solicitor general, Ms. Kagan has represented the government before the Supreme Court for the past year, but her own views are to a large extent a matter of supposition.
To their credit, they at least mention that she was never a judge... but they say it might 'help' her nomination.
