What the F...?

Is this normal? I'm the last person you'd call a civic scholar, so can someone tell me if it's terribly common for the president to nominate people to be a Supreme Court Judge who aren't even judges? Or even distinguished lawyers? Does George Bush just pick names from random out of his rolodex, or what? This seems to me to be as bad as Michael Brown the horse guy in charge of FEMA...at least Harriet Miers is in the same general field, I guess.

ADDED: Oh, I guess I should do some googling.

However, nearly a third of the 109 justices in U.S. history were not judges including Chief Justice William Rehnquist whose death led to John Roberts' elevation to the post. The justices now on the court had all been judges.

Still, this seems to be another clear example of Bush cronyism. Miers is definitely slavishly devoted to Bush.

Miers, 60, a longtime political ally of Bush's going back to his days as Texas governor, would be the third woman to serve on the Supreme Court if confirmed by the U.S. Senate. O'Connor was the first and Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been there since 1993.

Miers, a lawyer in Texas, was named by then-Gov. Bush to the state's lottery commission, and came to the White House for Bush's first term. In 2004 she was promoted to White House counsel when her predecessor Alberto Gonzales became attorney general.

So I guess Jon Stewart was right when he said Bush was just being a dick to Alberto Gonzales.