WASHINGTON - President Bush nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court on Monday, turning to a lawyer who has never been a judge to replace Sandra Day O'Connor and help reshape the nation's judiciary.
"She has devoted her life to the rule of law and the cause of justice," Bush said as his first Supreme Court pick, Chief Justice John Roberts, took the bench for the first time just a few blocks from the White House.
If confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, Miers, 60, would join Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second woman on the nation's highest court and the third to serve there. Miers was the first woman to serve as president of the Texas State Bar and the Dallas Bar Association.
Senate Republicans said they would press for confirmation by Thanksgiving — a tight timetable by recent standards that allowed less than eight weeks for lawmakers to review her record, hold hearings and vote. Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he intended to talk to Miers later in the day "about how many speeches she's made and about how many articles she's written and about how many cases she's tried and what volume of paper we will have to look at."
The ultimate in cronyism. Bush named her to White House counsel in November of 2004, calling her a "a trusted adviser on whom I have long relied for straightforward advice." She is an extreme loyal ally of Bush. According to Yahoo News:
Whatever her credentials for the high court, Miers' loyalty to Bush — who once called her a pit bull in size 6 shoes — is above question. When he first decided to run for governor in the early 1990s, he hired Miers to comb his background for anything derogatory that opponents might try to use to defeat him.
Miers also introduced Bush to Alberto Gonzales, who served as Bush's counsel in Austin and later in Washington, before being named U.S. attorney general.
During Bush's first term as governor, Gonzales used information turned up by Miers to persuade a local judge to excuse Bush from jury duty, a civic task that would have forced him to disclose his 1976 arrest for drunken driving in Maine. The incident was not divulged until the waning days of Bush's 2000 campaign for the White House.
Federal Election Commission records show Miers contributed $1,000 to Bush when he first ran for the White House in 2000 and $5,000 to the Bush-Cheney Recount Fund in the post-election struggle that finally sealed his victory over Al Gore.
Ironically, she had donated $1,000 to Gore a dozen years earlier, when he first sought the White House.
Of course, it also doesn't hurt Bush to know that Miers has no judicial experience, and thus no paper trail that Senate Democrats can comb through to understand her views on the issues--abortion. And certainly Miers will use the same strategy Roberts used in the confirmation hearings, saying that she cannot express her views on the issues, claiming that these issues may come up on the Supreme Court in the future. What really angers me is the Democratic Party's response to Bush's selection. Consider this:
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid was complimentary, issuing a statement that said he likes Miers and adding "the Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer."
At the same time, he said he looked forward to the "process which will help the American people learn more about Harriet Miers, and help the Senate determine whether she deserves a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court."
Reid had personally recommended that Bush consider Miers for nomination, according to several sources familiar with the president's consultations with individual senators. Of equal importance as the White House maps its confirmation campaign is that the Nevada Democrat had warned Bush that the selection of any of several other contenders could trigger a bruising partisan struggle.
Other Democrats sounded anything but conciliatory. "The president has selected a loyal political ally without a judicial record to sit on the highest court in the land,"said Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif.
Reid recommended Miers for nomination? What the heck does Reid know about this lady? Does absolutelytly know that she'll be a moderate, similar to that of Sandra Day O'Conner? Harry Reid may like Miers, but I'm not sure I do. I've watched enough cronyism going through the White House, FEMA--and just about every federal agency, Congress, and now this cronyism is extending into the Supreme Court. I don't like the idea that Miers is a Texas attorney, who's worked for and contributed to Bush's presidential campaign. I don't like the fact that there's no information regarding her viewpoints. And I certainly don't like what Reid has done to mute the Democratic opposition. I don't want her to sail through the confirmation process as the Democrats did for Roberts. I don't want her to refuse to answer questions regarding her views--if anything, I want the Democrats to filibuster if she refuses to answer questions. For too long, I've watched the Democrats play the "Bush-lite" game and they've been terrible at it. This is not how to beat Bush. The Democrats laid down and died for the Robert's confirmation. And now the Democrats, under Harry Reid, are about to lay down and die for this Miers' confirmation as well. If they continue down this path, they are never going to win either Congress or the Presidency.
It is time now to start fighting back hard and dirty.
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