Miers exit a thorn for beleaguered Bush
WASHINGTON – The withdrawal of Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court on Thursday came a day after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told President Bush during a White House meeting that her confirmation faced steep hurdles.
Frist and other Republican senators amplified their concerns in a series of phone calls Wednesday to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and other aides.
After enduring more than three weeks of criticism and questions about her competence, Miers called Bush at about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday and told him that she had had enough. She made it official 12 hours later in a letter that she handed to Bush in the Oval Office.
Miers told the president that her nomination had become “a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country.”
In a statement, Bush said he accepted her decision “reluctantly,” but his advisers already had cleared a path for her exit after concluding that withdrawal was the best option.
The White House insists that Miers made the decision to withdraw on her own. She will return to her duties as White House counsel.
Bush resumed his search for a new Supreme Court justice under intense pressure to find a conservative to replace his failed nominee, one who can survive the scrutiny of a newly assertive Senate.
Miers’ abrupt withdrawal created new problems for the president even as it ended the controversy over her nomination. With his popularity and political capital at the lowest point of his presidency, Bush faces the near-impossible task of finding a nominee who will please his energized conservative supporters without risking rejection by the Senate or an ugly brawl with Democrats.
Emboldened conservative activists stepped up their campaign for a nominee in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who espouse strict interpretation of the Constitution as they believe it was intended by the founding fathers. Democrats accused Bush of sacrificing Miers to the extreme right of the Republican Party.
The search for a new nominee comes during one of the most difficult weeks of Bush’s presidency. The American death toll in Iraq has topped 2,000, his domestic agenda is stalled, polls put his job-approval rating at a record low, and a special prosecutor is expected to announce Friday whether a federal grand jury has indicted top White House aides in the CIA leak case.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush would announce a new nominee quickly. Retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has said that she will remain on the bench until her replacement wins Senate confirmation.
“Now is the time for the president to make good on his promise to appoint a justice in the mold of Scalia and Thomas,” said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group that opposed Miers. “We need a person with a known judicial philosophy that all conservatives can unite behind. Only then can the administration begin to heal the rift created by the unfortunate Miers debacle.”
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., urged Bush to select an outspoken abortion opponent who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.
“I would argue that the left has had a litmus test all along that a nominee can’t be pro-life. Roe is bad law,” said Brownback, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Democrats urged Bush to find a centrist nominee who can win support from both political parties.
“The president is in a dilemma because the hard right is demanding someone who most of America wouldn’t want,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., another Judiciary Committee member.
Miers said she stepped aside to avoid a fight with the committee over internal documents from her work as White House counsel. White House officials, and many outside legal experts, felt that revealing internal deliberations would violate the principle of attorney-client privilege and make it harder for future White House lawyers to give candid advice to the president.
Although senators from both parties said they needed the White House documents to assess Miers’ competence, Bush vowed to keep Miers’ advice to him secret.
“It’s a red line I’m not willing to cross,” he told reporters Monday. Later that day, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the Judiciary Committee chairman, warned Miers in a letter that he intended to question her about several issues that she handled as White House counsel, including her views on the treatment of suspected terrorists.
The letter alarmed White House aides and signaled that Miers would face a tough time at her confirmation hearings.
“If Arlen Specter was going to start there, we were going to get to the red line pretty quickly,” said one White House official, insisting on anonymity to discuss the politically sensitive issue.
Specter said the document issue should not have been a factor in the withdrawal. He said questions about Miers’ advice to the president would have been “studiously avoided” at her confirmation hearings.
The concern over internal documents offered a face-saving escape from a nomination that was already in deep trouble. Conservatives questioned Miers’ commitment to their cause. Democrats questioned her commitment to abortion rights. Lawmakers in both parties questioned her legal qualifications.
Miers, a former corporate lawyer in Dallas, had relatively little experience in constitutional law and had never served as a judge. Her private meetings with more than two dozen senators in advance of confirmation hearings failed to resolve doubts.
“I don’t know of a single senator, Democrat or Republican, who walked away from their meetings saying she belongs on the Supreme Court,” Schumer said.
Senators of both parties also are displaying a new willingness to stand up to Bush on a variety of questions, such as the Senate’s 90-9 vote Oct. 5 to outlaw torture of detainees, defying the president’s veto threat.
But the strongest opposition to Miers came from conservative activists.
Some leading social conservatives had been lukewarm about Bush’s selection of Chief Justice John Roberts because of ambiguity about his views on abortion, gay rights and other issues. Their discontent turned to open revolt when Bush tapped Miers, whose commitment to conservative causes was even more in question.
Columnists George Will, Charles Krauthammer and other conservative intellectuals added their voices to the opposition because of doubts about Miers’ legal qualifications.
“This was something that was incredibly deeply felt. It is an issue that unites conservatives around the country,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. “There are lots of issues we disagree about, but the one unifying factor in the last several years and continues to this day is the courts.”
Democrats said Miers’ withdrawal highlighted the clout wielded by conservative activists within the Republican Party.
“The radical right wing of the Republican Party drove this woman’s nomination right out of town,” said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who had praised Bush’s choice of Miers. “Apparently, Ms. Miers couldn’t satisfy those who want to pack the Supreme Court with rigid ideology.”
After selecting two Supreme Court nominees within the past three months, Bush has a ready list of names to choose from. He picked Chief Justice John Roberts from among 11 potential nominees and interviewed five finalists.
The short list of contenders included U.S. Appeals Court Judge Edith Clement of New Orleans and Appeals Court Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson III and J. Michael Luttig of Richmond, Va., according to friends and associates. And a lot of speculative buzz focused Thursday on Judge Michael McConnell of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.