October
6, 2005
Bush's Unpleasant Surprise
By Robert
Novak
WASHINGTON -- Two questions were asked in conservative
circles Monday when it was learned President Bush had nominated
his lawyer, Harriet Miers, for the Supreme Court. Question No.
1: "Is this what we fought for?" Question No. 2: "What
was he thinking?"
The conservative Republican base had tolerated
George W. Bush's leftward lunges on education spending and prescription
drug subsidies to re-elect him so that he could fill the Supreme
Court with conservatives and send it rightward. But the White
House counsel hardly looked like what they had expected.
Nothing could have more quickly deflated Republican
spirits. The antidote to the Iraq-Katrina malaise was the spectacular
confirmation performance by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.,
and Republicans eagerly awaited Act Two: confirmation of a successor
to social liberal Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. This was one issue
where the wind was at Bush's back, not in his face. But he robbed
his legions of spirit with the Miers nomination.
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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.
Presidential
adviser Karl Rove, recognizing the peril here, was on the phone
Monday morning assuring conservatives of Miers's intrepidity.
The line from the White House was that Miers should not be compared
with Justice David Souter, who was named to the court 15 years
ago by the president's father and immediately turned left. While
Souter was a stranger from New Hampshire to the elder Bush, it
is claimed no president ever has known a court nominee as well
as the younger Bush knows his fellow Texan. Skeptics are assured
she is sound on abortion and other social issues.
Assuming
those assurances are well founded, Miers's qualifications for
the high court are still questioned. Members of Congress describe
Miers as a nice person but hardly a constitutional scholar. Indeed,
she might trip over questions that Roberts handled so deftly.
People who have tried to engage her in serious conversation find
her politely dull.
In singing
Miers's praises, Bush agents contend her every thought is of the
president's best interests, not her own. That may be a desirable
profile for a White House counsel, but it hardly commends a Supreme
Court justice who will be around long after George W. Bush is
gone. By naming his longtime attorney, Bush risks the charge of
cronyism. After the Michael Brown fiasco at FEMA (Federal Emergency
Management Agency), Harriet Miers might seem the last person he
would name to the Supreme Court.
Two weeks
ago, Bush was seriously considering another Texas woman he likes
and knows well. The nomination of Federal Circuit Judge Priscilla
Owen would have been highly regarded in the conservative community.
Owen was confirmed for the appellate bench only after the compromise
forged by the Group of Fourteen, and Republican senators advised
the White House they did not want to fight for her again so soon.
But there is no rule that O'Connor must be replaced by a Texas
woman who is the president's pal. Many well-qualified conservative
men and women were passed over to name Miers.
The question
recurs: "What was he thinking?" Bushologists figure
the president was irked by repetitive demands that he satisfy
the base with his Supreme Court appointments. He also was irked
by the conservative veto of his Texas friend and Miers's predecessor
at the White House, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. So, Bush
showed the critics by naming another close aide lacking Gonzales's
track record to draw the ire of the party's right wing.
Immensely
enjoying himself was Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who
let it be known to colleagues that he recommended Miers to the
president. With Miers at his side, Reid praised her a little for
contributing to Al Gore and a lot for being a "trial lawyer"
-- no encomium in the GOP. With friends like Reid, Harriet Miers
hardly needs enemies.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
