"Miers hardly seems the true believer the Republican base was anticipating when the president's agents spread the word last week that his choice would please conservatives. In 1988, she was contributing to Al Gore's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. She is listed as chairman of a 1998 American Bar Association committee that recommended legalization of gay adoptions and establishment of an International Criminal Court." -- Robert Novak
"But Miers' 1988 investment in the DNC cannot be chalked up as a youthful indiscretion. She was an aspiring, 43-year-old Democratic politician who would soon be elected to the Dallas City Council. In her one term there, she definitely did not embrace fiscal conservatism, voting to endorse a 7 percent increase in property taxes." -- Terence Jeffrey
"Miers was one of 10 Dallas council members to unanimously approve a 1989 agenda item that revised minimum height, weight and vision requirements for Dallas firefighters to facilitate “promotion of certain ranks in the Fire Department,” particularly women. The agenda item’s title: “Implementation of Fire Department Affirmative Action Plan." -- The Dallas Morning News
"Q. . . . . In your capacity as an at-large member do you think being involved in such organizations might assist you in having a perspective that – bring a perspective to your job that you don’t have?
A. I attend meetings designed to give me that input. However, I have tried to avoid memberships in organization s that were politically charged with one viewpoint or the other. For example, I wouldn’t belong to the Federalist Society any more than – I just feel like it’s better to not be involved in organizations that seem to color your view one way or the other for people who are examining you. I did join the Progressive Voters League here in Dallas during the campaign as part of the campaign.
Q. Are you active in the PVL now, do you intend to be?
A. No, I am not.
Q. Do you think the NAACP and Black Chamber of Commerce are in the category of organizations you were talking about?
A. No, I don’t..." -- Miers' Testimony in 1989
"We spent about 1,200 hours together and had in excess of 6,000 agenda items, and I never knew where Harriet was going to be on any of those items until she cast her vote. I wouldn't consider her a liberal, a moderate or a conservative, and I can't honestly think of any cause she championed." -- A Dallas council colleague, Jim Buerger
"I formally debated her on (redistricting)," recalls Tom Pauken, a former chairman of the Texas Republican Party. "She was a liberal then (1989). I don't know about today, but in the last week all the liberals who've been on the council have been singing her praises." -- John Fund
"Inside the White House, Miers was best known, not as a conservative, not as a legal thinker, but as a petty bureaucrat." -- David Frum
"On May 17, 2000, while Harriet Miers was managing the law firm of Locke Liddell from the firm's Dallas office, she contributed $415 to the law firm's political action committee. Federal Election Commission reports show that two days later, Locke Liddell's PAC contributed $1,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate Campaign Committee." -- Jerome Corsi
"Miers is very reticent to ever discuss her own views and liberal on issues other than abortion." -- Bruce Packard, a former partner at Ms. Miers' law firm
Cronyism
"I'm also concerned about the appearance -- and very probably the reality -- of cronyism. There are some jobs which ought not to go to someone chiefly because they are a pal of the president." -- From Miers supporter Jack Kelly
"As the quote from Hamilton suggests, the core purpose of Senate confirmation of presidential nominees is to screen out the appointment of "cronies," which Merriam-Webster defines as "a close friend especially of long standing." Cronyism is bad not only because it leads to less qualified judges, but also because we want a judiciary with independence from the executive branch. A longtime friend of the president who has served as his close personal and political adviser and confidante, no matter how fine a lawyer, can hardly be expected to be sufficiently independent--especially during the remaining term of her former boss." -- Randy E. Barnett
"The real reason her nomination sticks in the craw is the brass-and-leather whiff of the Praetorian Guard house. The ancient Praetorian Guard was an elite military unit that guarded Rome’s emperors and sometimes murdered them. The modern Praetorian Guard is the penumbra of family and cronies that, under the American imperial Presidency, is accorded unseemly attention and respect. Some Presidents look to it for actual officeholders. Bill Clinton put his wife in charge of health-care policy. John Kennedy put his brother in charge of the Justice Department. Mr. Bush seems to find the Praetorian Guard especially seductive. There were the Texas League Texans he sent to FEMA—Joe Allbaugh, Michael Brown. There was the way his running mate emerged from a search committee headed by—Dick Cheney. Look no further! Harriet Miers emerged in the same way, helping to vet judicial nominees. At least she tapped John Roberts before herself; gentlemen first. This is an elitism far more restrictive than anything Ms. Miers’ critics are charged with. Beltway/Ivy League elitism embraces anyone who works in the federal government, or who graduated from one of seven old colleges. The President’s elitism embraces anyone who works down the hall. He looked out over what Tom Wolfe calls “this wild bizarre unpredictable hog-stomping Baroque country of ours” and whom did he see? The woman sitting next to him." -- Richard Brookhiser
"It no longer matters whether she's the second coming of John Marshall; the cronyism charge has stuck, bec. [sic] it's so obviously true." -- Michael Greve, a legal scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in an email leaked to Newsweek
Qualifications
"If great intellectual powerhouse is a qualification to be a member of the court and represent the American people and the wishes of the American people and to interpret the Constitution, then I think we have a court so skewed on the intellectual side that we may not be getting representation of America as a whole." -- Dan Coats in defense of Miers
"Some of the nation's best and most famous Justices came to the bench with no judicial background.... But almost all of those prior success stories brought with them to the High Court a level of proven excellence in public life or private practice, or in the world of academe, that Miers does not possess. Compared to these would-be predecessors, Miers is a clear-cut lightweight. She has neither a one-in-a-million mind nor a once-in-a-lifetime resume. There is a Harriet Miers (or two or five or 10) in every state in the union, including Colorado." -- Lawyer & legal analyst Andrew Cohen
"It is not important that she be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court's tasks. The president's ``argument'' for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons. He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their prepresidential careers, and this president, particularly, is not disposed to such reflections. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers' nomination resulted from the president's careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers' name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists." -- George Will
"To say that Miers is unqualified is not to say that she is without qualifications as a lawyer. Rather, the question is whether a lawyer must have an outstanding background to justify one of nine seats on the highest court. Miers spent decades in the law without making a substantive contribution to the development of it. Indeed, in addition to her friendship with the president, Miers' lack of a record to review (and criticize) is viewed as one of her greatest strengths: a type of no-qualification qualification." -- Jonathan Turley
"In claiming Miers is the most qualified person he knows to fill the seat of Sandra Day O’Connor, President Bush tells us more about himself than her. If she is truly that qualified, why did he hide this extraordinary talent in the paper-shuffling job of White House staff secretary? Why was she not named White House Counsel instead of Gonzales? Why was she not nominated to the U.S. Appellate Court for the District of Columbia to give her judicial experience? If she is that good, why did Bush pass her over for John Roberts?" -- Pat Buchanan
"There are a lot more people - men, women and minorities - that are more qualified, in my opinion, by their experience than she is. Right now, I'm not satisfied with what I know. I'm not comfortable with the nomination, so we'll just have to work through the process." -- Senator Trent Lott
"(Miers) needs a crash course in constitutional law.” -- Senator Arlen Specter
Recusals?
"This, say her advocates: We are now at war and therefore the great issue of our time is the Article II powers of the president to wage war. For four years, Miers has been immersed in war-and-peace decisions and therefore will have a deep familiarity with the tough constitutional issues regarding detention, prisoner treatment and war powers. Perhaps. We have no idea what her role in these decisions was. But to the extent that there was any role, it becomes a liability. For years -- crucial years in the war on terror -- she will have to recuse herself from judging the constitutionality of these decisions because she will have been a party to having made them in the first place. The Supreme Court will be left with an absent chair on precisely the laws-of-war issues on which she is supposed to bring so much." -- Charles Krauthammer
"The third point stressed by the RNC Chairman (Ken Mehlman) was the War on Terror. While conceding that Miss Miers may have to recuse herself from a few cases, he said this was a short-term problem and the GWOT is a generational affair." -- Mark Coffey talks about a conference call with Mehlman
To Know Her Is Not Neccessarily To Love Her
"Reactions to her from her former colleagues were mixed. Craig McDaniel, a liberal council member, praises her ability to get along with diverse groups of people and tells the Dallas Voice, a gay newspaper, "This is as good as we would ever get out of a Republican administration." Jerry Bartos, a conservative council colleague, rated her effectiveness at "zero" and called her "the consummate loner." -- John Fund
"When my brother told me the end of last week that there was a strong likelihood of a Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court, I started laughing. I didn’t think he was serious. Sadly enough, he was right." -- Presidential writer Ned Ryun, who had a run in with Miers over Bush's 2001 Christmas message
"I worked with Harriet Miers. She's a lovely person: intelligent, honest, capable, loyal, discreet, dedicated ... I could pile on the praise all morning. But there is no reason at all to believe either that she is a legal conservative or--and more importantly--that she has the spine and steel necessary to resist the pressures that constantly bend the American legal system toward the left. This is a chance that may never occur again: a decisive vacancy on the court, a conservative president, a 55-seat Republican majority, a large bench of brilliant and superbly credentialed conservative jurists ... and what has been done with the opportunity?
I am not saying that Harriet Miers is not a legal conservative. I am not saying that she is not steely. I am saying only that there is no good reason to believe either of these things. Not even her closest associates on the job have good reason to believe either of these things. In other words, we are being asked by this president to take this appointment purely on trust, without any independent reason to support it. And that is not a request conservatives can safely grant." -- David Frum
Damned With Faint Praise
"She is obviously not a Scalia or a Thomas." -- From Miers supporter John Cornyn
"As I wrote last night, Judges Luttig and McConnell are the most qualified nominees out there, but I think from the start that the president must have decided that this seat would be given to a woman, and it is very hard to argue that she is not the most qualified woman to be on the SCOTUS for the simple reason that she has been in the White House for many years." -- From Miers supporter Hugh Hewitt
"At his news conference today, President Bush said Harriet Miers was the most qualified person in the country to be on the Supreme Court. This statement is so obviously and breathtakingly at odds with reality that it makes it hard for people to "trust us," as Vice President Cheney urged Rush Limbaugh's audience yesterday." -- From Miers supporter Jack Kelly
"When you put that with all the other information that I have been able to gather - and you'll have to trust me on this one - when you know some of the things that I know, that I probably shouldn't know, that take me in this direction, you will understand why I have said, with fear and trepidation, why I have said why I believe that Harriet Miers will be a good justice." -- From Miers supporter James Dobson
"Whether she’ll move the court to the right I don’t know." -- From Miers supporter Nathan Hecht
Some Prominent Conservatives On Miers
"I think (the Miers nomination is) a disaster on every level." -- Robert Bork
"If Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her." -- Charles Krauthammer
"I'm disappointed, depressed and demoralized." -- William Kristol's reaction to the Harriet Miers nomination
"However nice, helpful, prompt and tidy she is, Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on "The West Wing," let alone to be a real one." -- Ann Coulter
"It is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court's role. Otherwise the sound principle of substantial deference to a president's choice of judicial nominees will dissolve into a rationalization for senatorial abdication of the duty to hold presidents to some standards of seriousness that will prevent them from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends." -- George Will
"(H)er qualifications for the Supreme Court are non-existent. She is not a brilliant jurist, indeed, has never been a judge. She is not a scholar of the law. Researchers are hard-pressed to dig up an opinion. She has not had a brilliant career in politics, the academy, the corporate world or public forum. Were she not a friend of Bush, and female, she would never have even been considered." -- Pat Buchanan
"President Bush struck a blow for diversity on the Supreme Court by picking White House counsel Harriet Miers as his latest nominee. Bush thus made a strong statement that the court has room for highly distinguished justices and not-so-distinguished justices, for nominees who have made their reputations in the wider legal world and for nominees people have hardly heard of, for world-class lawyers and for lawyers he happens to know and like." -- Rich Lowry
"The reaction of many conservatives today will be that the president has made possibly the most unqualified choice since Abe Fortas, who had been the president's lawyer. The nomination of a nominee with no judicial record is a significant failure for the advisers that the White House gathered around it." -- Manuel Miranda
"It's not just that Miers has zero judicial experience. It's that she's so transparently a crony/"diversity" pick while so many other vastly more qualified and impressive candidates went to waste. If this is President Bush's bright idea to buck up his sagging popularity--among conservatives as well as the nation at large--one wonders whom he would have picked in rosier times. Shudder." -- Michelle Malkin
"But, in truth, we already know what's going on here, and that the president, despite a magnificent farm team from which to choose a solid nominee, chose otherwise. Miers was chosen for two reasons and two reasons alone: 1. she's a she; 2. she's a long-time Bush friend. Otherwise, there's nothing to distinguish her from thousands of other lawyers." -- Mark Levin
