Bush’s nomination of Miers splits conservatives

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - With his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, President Bush has succeeded in doing what his Democratic antagonists, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid, could not: he has split the conservative movement.

Miers, a Republican, and ex-California Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, seem an odd couple. What connects them is that party loyalists in each case are being asked to defend candidates for whom they feel little or no enthusiasm. Going into battle without passion is demoralizing — and demoralized troops tend to lose elections, as Democrats did in the California recall balloting in 2003.

Emerging from a meeting of conservatives on Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon, Connie Mackey, a lobbyist for the Family Research Council, a leading social conservative group, gloomily called Miers "a blank slate we've been asked to endorse."

The Miers nomination "takes a lot of steam out of the grass roots," she said, adding that "the Democrats are in seventh heaven."

Could the FRC oppose this nomination and work to defeat Miers? "It's not something we're looking to do, but we're leaving all our options open," Mackey said.

The Democrats seem to be winning at the moment here in Washington: The indictments of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the post-Katrina change in sentiment that forced Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to call off a vote on estate tax repeal, and the perception among conservatives that Bush lost his nerve by nominating Miers instead of an impeccably conservative judge such as Michael Luttig to the Supreme Court.

Bush answers the skeptics
When reporters repeatedly asked Bush at his press conference Tuesday morning whether Miers really was the best qualified person for the Supreme Court, Bush insisted that “people are going to be amazed at her strength of character and intellect.”

But that left open the question: If Miers is a classy, top-of-the-line conservative, then why was Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., beaming in contentment at his press conference Monday when he proclaimed that in nominating her, Bush had rebuffed “the very extreme wing of his party”?

Anyone who has recently attended a meeting of the Federalist Society, a group of conservative lawyers and scholars dedicated to a strictly limited reading of the Constitution, can identify judges and lawyers who command respect for having written eloquently about the great constitutional issues of the day (the detainees at Guantanamo, the death penalty, racial preferences in college admissions, etc).

Luttig, who serves on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia, Judge Michael McConnell of the 10^th Circuit and Georgetown University law professor Viet Dinh are top-tier thinkers who spark excitement among Federalist Society members. All have records far more ample than that of Miers.

Former Bush Justice Department official John Yoo said Bush had wasted “a rare opportunity to change the direction of the Supreme Court.”

He reported that “conservative Republicans will remain in mourning that Bush refused to elevate one of the many talented, principled believers in judicial restraint on the lower courts. Miers does not come off Bush's deep bench of conservative appellate judges.”

Weekly Standard editor William Kristol called the nomination “cronyism and capitulation on the part of the president.”

Conservative calls Bush ‘desperate’
Wesley Pruden, editor-in-chief of the conservative Washington Times, mocked Bush Tuesday: “Frightened by a rising tide, he's desperate not to give offense. He reprises the familiar Republican campaign slogan: ‘I'm a conservative, sort of, but I'm not as bad as you think.’”

One conservative who rose to Miers’ defense was evangelical psychologist and radio host James Dobson.

“We know people who have known her for 25 years, and they vouch for her. These are people we know and people who share our philosophy,” Dobson assured Brit Hume of Fox News on Monday night.

“I do know things I’m not prepared to talk about here,” Dobson added cryptically. “Who knows? You don’t know until someone gets on the court whether or not you’ve made a disastrous mistake. We made that mistake with (Justice David) Souter. And maybe this is a mistake. But for now she looks good to us.”

He added, “She is a conservative Christian.” He confirmed that Miers is an evangelical Christian. “I know the church she goes to, and I know the people who go to church with her.”

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