They just don't get it

And neither do I.

So now the Administration is attempting to burnish Harriet Miers's credentials with conservatives by assuring us that she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Setting completely aside both the ethical questionability of providing assurances about how a nominee would vote on a future case and the complete lack of enforceability of such assurances, this shows an astonishing tin ear to real conservative concerns. This looks like the sort of thing a liberal thinks would assuage conservatives, not something a conservative would come up with to reassure another conservative. How could this administration, supposedly chock-full of politically astute schemers, misunderstand conservative concerns so badly?

Of course I want Roe v. Wade overturned. But I don't want it overturned just because I think that abortion is bad. I think that drug abuse is bad, too, but I don't want judges to unilaterally declare them illegal. And I think that government restrictions on who may marry are bad, too, but I don't want judges to toss them out. And I think that contraception is good, but I want Griswold overturned. I want Roe v. Wade overturned because it is bad Constitutional law. There is no basis in the Constitution to overturn state laws restricting abortion, and the Burger court made it up out of whole cloth and Griswold.

I don't want a nominee who will overturn Roe because of personal convictions about abortion. The same judge might well make a bad ruling in a case where her personal convictions do not jive with the Constitution. I want a judge who will overturn Roe because she is principled and she recognizes that the Constitution is mute on abortion, thereby leaving the matter to the states.

Sorry, Mr. President. Assuring me and mine that Harriet Miers will overturn Roe does not reassure us in the slightest. You'll have to do better, if you can, which I doubt.