In response to charges that Harriet Miers has razor-thin qualifications for the nation’s highest court, the Bush gang has repeatedly emphasized her role in helping select the president’s other judicial nominees. This is supposed to make the right feel better (Miers deserves some credit for right-wing judges on the federal bench), while also proving to the left that Miers has a substantive background.
There’s always been reason for some skepticism about the boast. Miers has been White House counsel for less than a year, so it’s hard for her to have built up an impressive record of accomplishments. Roll Call complicates the situation further today with a report explaining that Miers hasn’t done nearly as much judge-vetting as her allies have suggested.
Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers led the selection process on only a small number of judicial nominees in her eight months as White House counsel, an area of expertise often touted by her supporters as a key credential in her nomination.
In addition to the nomination of Chief Justice John Roberts, Miers oversaw the selection of a dozen new U.S. District Court nominees and a single circuit court nominee after taking over the lead role in that process in February from her predecessor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, according to statistics from the Senate Judiciary Committee and the White House.
While Roberts’ selection is touted as a major success for the White House, the other nominations on Miers’ watch have all been more or less free from controversy or the need for much heavy lifting from the administration or Senate Republicans.
What, exactly, has Miers done in this regard? Not a whole lot. The vetting process for Bush’s 12 district court nominees during Miers’ tenure was primarily done by the nominees’ home-state senators. And the single circuit court nominee wasn’t controversial, was vetted by Alberto Gonzales, and didn’t require any heavy-lifting from Miers.
In other words, one of the more compelling elements of the White House’s sales pitch for Miers looks pretty bogus.
In fact, to listen to some Miers supporters, her work on judicial nominees is the primary reason she’s qualified for the Supreme Court.
Miers’ work on the judicial nomination process has been frequently advanced by President Bush and other supporters of the nominee to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The Committee for Justice, an interest group with close White House ties, circulated an op-ed Friday in defense of Miers written by former Boston University School of Law dean Ronald Cass, who cited Miers’ role in the selection of conservative jurists as a reason for activists on the right to support her nomination.
“She helped the president select other judges, many of whom were attacked by Democrats for so clearly espousing the very views that conservative critics cry are sacrificed in this nomination,” Cass wrote.
In his press conference the day after the nomination, Bush twice invoked Miers’ role in helping select judges as a sign of her conservative credentials, saying, “she knows the kind of judge I’m looking for.”
Now we find out that Miers, as White House counsel, was not integrally involved with these selections at all.
Realizing that this could become a problem, Karl Rove started augmenting the talking point last week, insisting that Miers, before becoming White House counsel, was part of the ad hoc committee of seven or more staffers who helped pick judicial nominees.
It’s hard to know for sure how accurate this is, but even taken at face value, Rove’s claim isn’t terribly impressive. As Rove tells it, up until recently, Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court was one of at least seven Bush flunkies who helped pick would-be judges. It sounds like Rove is describing just another political aide, not someone qualified for a lifetime position on the nation’s highest court.