Byron White? Lewis Powell?
Perhaps not the greatest comparisons for defenders of the Harriet Miers nomination.
White: Top of college class academically, Phi Beta Kappa, Rhodes Scholarship, while excelling in three sports.
Combined Yale Law with playing professional football.
Distinguished military service in World War II.
Top of class at Yale Law, clerked with Supreme Court Justice.
After some years of private law practice, organized Colorado for JFK's presidential campaign in 1960.
As Deputy Attorney General under the Kennedy brothers, actually led 400 federal marshalls into a southern city in order to protect civil rights marchers.
And this was all before he actually served on the Court, and won many accolades while doing so. Here, here, and here.
Powell:
Both undergraduate and law degrees from the fairly modest Washington and Lee, but then a Master's from Harvard. He was known for his distinctive accomplishments while doing military service, and serving as Chair of the Richmond School Board. See here.
Had been President of the American Bar Association--Miers' organization, in a different era, at a higher level. Justice Anthony Kennedy: "Lewis Powell came to the Court with no previous judicial experience, but with a towering reputation as a mar-velous lawyer. He soon demonstrated to the Court and to the nation that the lawyer’s skill soon becomes the judge’s excellence."
For a brief comment on a number of Justices who had not been judges before, see here.
As for Sandra Day O'Connor, I remember the debate about her credentials. She had been a judge, but only at the state level. She had not written at length on any constitutional issue. No one foresaw her long, wild and wooly, "Sandy Says" opinions. But there was real accomplishment in her record--serving the public in a number of capacities, overcoming obstacles. She was a crony--but not of Reagan's, of Goldwater and other country club Republicans from Phoenix. She was probably recommended, or not opposed, by Rehnquist, who knew her from both law school and Phoenix. Above all, perhaps, there was more of an excuse for pushing ahead a somewhat less qualified woman in those days than there is today.
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