Interstate commerce

This New York Times story on growing conservative opposition to Harriet Miers concludes with the following nugget:

Ms. Miers faced challenges from Democrats as well. After meeting with her on Tuesday evening, Senator Russell D. Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, expressed frustration that she had declined to discuss any of her White House work. "There is a kind of a hard line coming from the White House on this that is actually to her detriment," Mr. Feingold said.

Ms. Miers "did a decent job" discussing cases about the scope of federal power under the Constitution's commerce clause, he said, but stopped short of disclosing her own views. And he said she had been either unwilling or unable to discuss issues about the Constitution in a time of war, separation of church and state, and potential recusals if matters she had worked on came before the court.

I should be no surprise that a liberal like Russ Feingold (2004 ADA rating: 100) would make a point of asking Miers about interstate commerce. As I posted yesterday, the interstate commerce clause is the key to dreams about big government. The day the Supreme Court starts interpreting it to mean what it actually says is the day the dream dies.