Ezra shares my puzzlement over the Harriet Miers documents :

I’ve been puzzling over exactly what it is in Harriet Miers’ e-mails that gives me the heebie-jeebies. The answer, close as I can come, is that they’re not just sycophantic, but childish. It’s one thing to advance your buddy, it’s another thing to promote the Court Jester. I’m not gonna jump on her for liberal use of the word cool, but “Hopefully Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are ‘cool’ – as do the rest of us” is a bit bizarre. And then, after a visit to her office, she says, thanks “for taking the time to visit in the office and on the plane back – cool!” This stuff sounds like it came from the archives of the Make A Wish foundation.

Though Ezra uses the word “childish” to describe the Miers quotes, I think it’s something else. Take, for example, the opening line from the NY Times story :

“You are the best governor ever – deserving of great respect,” Harriet E. Miers wrote to George W. Bush days after his 51st birthday in July 1997.

The problem here isn’t Miers’ maturity but the fact that her syntax is at times idiosyncratic to the point of being foreign. It’s almost as if the Harriet Miers emails were translated from Japanese. Are these direct quotes we’re getting or just subtitles?