Last week, in a bid to smooth over right-wing outrage over Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination, the Bush gang invited several leading conservative activists to the White House for what turned out to be tense closed-door meetings. At one point, White House adviser Ed Gillespie suggested that some of the unease about Miers “has a whiff of sexism,” which led to an eruption of complaints from the activists on hand.
So, a week later, what’s the White House’s new message? It’s the same as the old message.
Joining her husband in defense of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, Laura Bush today called her a “role model for young women around the country” and suggested that sexism was a “possible” reason for the heavy criticism of the nomination. […]
The president and Laura Bush commented on Miers during an appearance on NBC’s Today show from Covington, La., where they participated in a home-building project with Habitat for Humanity volunteers. Asked by host Matt Lauer if sexism might be playing a role in the Miers controversy, she said, “It’s possible. I think that’s possible…. I think people are not looking at her accomplishments.”
First, people aren’t looking at Miers’ accomplishments because they’re looking for Miers accomplishments. Second, if the Republican base didn’t like the misogynist label in a private meeting, they’re even less likely to respond well when the First Lady repeats it on the Today show.
What’s more, this news coincides with word that Miers’ law firm contributed $1,000 to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign in 2000. Granted, Miers was almost certainly not responsible for the donation, but that may not matter much. The Republican Study Committee requested Federal Election Commission information on Miers’ contribution history and came up with this little tidbit. For Republicans looking for an excuse to oppose the nomination, this is just another piece to the puzzle.
In fact, at this rate, things are going in reverse for the White House. Some of the support it had already lined up is starting to switch sides.
The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund, for example, was one of only a handful of high-profile right-wingers to at least offer the White House tacit support. Fund didn’t exactly offer a full-throated defense for Miers, but he told his allies that their complaints “should be muted” until confirmation hearings begin.
Yesterday, Fund jumped ship.
[My initial reaction came] before I interviewed more than a dozen of her friends and colleagues along with political players in Texas. I came away convinced that questions about Ms. Miers should be raised now-and loudly-because she has spent her entire life avoiding giving a clear picture of herself. “She is unrevealing to the point that it’s an obsession,” says one of her close colleagues at her law firm.
White House aides who have worked with her for five years report she zealously advocated the president’s views, but never gave any hint of her own. Indeed, when the Dallas Morning News once asked Ms. Miers to finish the sentence, “Behind my back, people say . . .,” she responded, “. . . they can’t figure me out.”
Conservatives shouldn’t care about her personal views on issues if they can convince themselves that she agrees with Chief Justice John Roberts’s view of a judge’s role: that cases should be decided the way an umpire calls balls and strikes, without rooting for either team. But the evidence of Ms. Miers’s views on jurisprudence resemble a beach on which someone has walked without leaving any footprints: no court opinions, no law review articles, and no internal memos that President Bush is going to share with the Senate.
What effect is all of this having on the Hill? At this point, the GOP caucus is divided.
Nearly half of Senate Republicans say they remain unconvinced that Harriet Miers is worthy of being confirmed to the Supreme Court, according to a survey conducted by The Washington Times…. 27 Republican senators — almost half of his party’s members in the chamber — have publicly expressed specific doubts about Miss Miers or said they must withhold any support whatsoever for her nomination until after the hearings.
The latest WH talking point is that Roberts face similar skepticism early on, but conservatives in the media have seen through this, too.
A week ago, I assumed Miers would struggle through the confirmation process but manage to get confirmed. Now, I’d give her 50-50 odds.