Miers ‘not equipped’ for hard times, thrown under the bus

January 5, 2007

Harriet Miers’ support for the president went well beyond steadfast; it’d be more accurate to describe her deference for Bush as fawning, if not sycophantic.

So, why would the president’s hyper-loyal White House counsel leave her post, at a time when Bush is likely to need a lawyer more than ever? Because the former Supreme Court nominee is reportedly not enough of a “street fighter.”

President Bush accepted the resignation of White House counsel Harriet Miers yesterday as he remakes his legal team to prepare for what aides expect to be a sustained struggle with a new Democratic Congress eager to investigate various aspects of his administration.

Miers, a longtime Bush loyalist whose nomination to the Supreme Court was withdrawn in 2005 as a result of conservative opposition, led an office that will oversee legal clashes that could erupt if Democrats aggressively use their new subpoena power. Bush advisers inside and outside the White House concluded that she is not equipped for such a battle and that the president needs someone who can strongly defend his prerogatives. […]

Republican advisers have been telling the White House to be ready for war, and many cited Miers as the wrong general. “The White House knew they needed to get a tough street fighter — that’s what this is about,” said one such adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve access to the White House.

Never mind all that stuff the White House said yesterday about Miers being tired. Asked why she was leaving, Tony Snow said, “Basically, she has been here six years.”

All of that was … what’s the word … false. She’s gone because the president’s team is nervous.

Indeed, as it turns out, the Bush gang has been trying to get rid of Miers for a while.

Miers, Bush’s personal lawyer in Texas, is popular in the West Wing and is admired for her hard work, loyalty and character. But since taking over last spring, White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten had privately expressed doubt that Miers, 61, was right for the job, current and former officials said.

When news reports at the time suggested that she might leave as part of Bolten’s initial shakeup, Miers talked to Bush and kept her job, the sources said. After Democrats captured Congress in November, the issue was revisited and some Republicans were told before Thanksgiving that someone else would be brought in.

Miers had told colleagues that she planned to stay until the end of the administration, but after several conversations with Bolten in the past week, she agreed it was time to move on.

Bush’s alleged “outreach” notwithstanding, Bolten and others seem to believe they’ll need a cutthroat legal team to deal with a congressional onslaught. An advisor close to the White House told the WaPo that the advice has been straight forward: “You guys better lawyer up, and lawyer up in the right way. You better understand the need and the peril and the urgency. . . . You need somebody as tough as [Clinton aides] Harold Ickes or Bruce Lindsey. Because they’re coming for you.”

You almost get the sense the Bush gang is afraid of a Democratic Congress, don’t you?

You stated my feelings on hearing the news. Time for Bushies to circle the wagon and get tougher legal wagon leaders.

  • So Miers wasn’t dirty enough. They need some Swift Boat Lawyers.

    (I’d throw a little Freud into the mix of Miers’ sychophancy with Bush.)

    Does it seem to anyone that all this changing of the crew is either a shell game or rearrangment time on the Titanic?

  • If the Bush administration feels the need to fortify against the newly empowered Democratic majority, doesn’t it feel like the Federal Government is becoming more like a parliamentary system? With the President acting more and more like the Prime Minister of the governing coalition, and then facing a no-confidence action by the congress?

  • Now, Hopefully, the Democrats will follow through on their part, and actually run all of these investigations (I was not particularly enamored of the fact that they so easily dismissed impeachment talk last year. After all, if even a portion of the things which BushCo. has done bear out, then there are more than adequate grounds for impeachment. I don’t want to see things watered down just because the Dems are afraid of stepping on toes.)

  • Interesting. According to Prezident MonkeyShines, H.M. is a “pit-bull in size six shoes.” (Ever the gallant is our C-in-C, how he must turn the ladies’ heads with his comparisons to savage canines.)

    But I wonder: Would Miers have been able to invoke executive priviledge [sic?] or some other legal question repellent during any hearings if she had stayed on? If so it seems all of these resignations/oustings mean that there are more people who will have to talk when Congress calls on them.

    And am I alone in thinking how fucked up it is that a simple shift in who is filling what seats in Congress is causing such panic and dismay at 1600 Penn. Ave?

    Time for Bushies to circle the wagon[s] and get tougher legal wagon leaders start firing inward.

  • They need some Swift Boat Lawyers–Dale
    I share this thought and I’ve tried to think who they may turn to here is my short list. 1)Ted Olson, 2) Ben Ginsberg, 3) Ed DeGenova, 4) Victoria Tensing. The list is in the order of likelihood.

    The reason I place Olson at the top of the list of candidates for pulling Juniors chestnuts out of the fire is that he helped to get Junior the White House in 2000 with his arguments before SCOTUS, which is where the subpoena battles will ultimately be fought. Olson is both a political hack and an effective lawyer, but the others are just hacks and Junior won’t put up with a hack when it is his tit in the ringer.

  • Republican advisers have been telling the White House to be ready for war, and many cited Miers as the wrong general.

    And the irony meter goes off the scale with this metaphor. “Okay, you screwed up the last war; let’s see if you can get this one right.”

  • For Junior Harriet Mieres[sic] was good enough for SCOTUS, but apparently she isn’t good enough to protect his ass now that the subpoena are about to start flying.

    Rege, that’s because if she was sitting on the SCOTUS, she would be told what to do. Now, however, the Sadmin needs someone to tell them what to do. And clearly, she is not capable of independent thinking.

  • The Answer is Orange – at this time I think only one wagon could be filled with loyal bushlites. And yes, a circular firing squad would be nice to watch.

  • Sorry, Tom Hagan, you’re not a wartime consiglieri.

    Maybe they’ll send her out to Hollywood to deal with some crusty liberal director. Or maybe she’ll take care of Streisand, once and for all.

  • Hmmm… Doesn’t John Bolton need a new place to hang his hat now that his UN stint is done?

  • “For Junior Harriet Mieres[sic] was good enough for SCOTUS, but apparently she isn’t good enough to protect his ass now that the subpoena are about to start flying.”

    I’d tweak that a little to say that he wanted her on the Court in order to protect his ass from outside the WH….ruling against Congress on subpoenas, enlarging privileges, expanding Executive power, etc.

    The one thing that Roberts and Alito had in common was their jurisprudence on the depth and breadth of Executive power. But neither were lackeys or, as rightly described above, syncophants, and both take the law serious enough to avoid inventing a pretext for upholding a predetermined decision.

    Practicing law in Texas myself, the Miers/Bush relationship is somewhat of a running joke, and nearly everyone agrees Miers is not above making rulings and then inventing a pretext. Not because of her being implicitly deceitful, mind you, but out of misguided loyalty infected with the bunker mentality she’s acquired over the past 6 years coupled with her…well…let’s just say she’s not the brightest bulb in the room.

  • When it comes to America, hacks and cronies unfit for service get some of the most critical positions in the country.

    When it comes to his own ass, toss the hacks and cronies out and hire the professionals.

    Odd how the man can run his own defense with such precision and professionalism, but when it comes to a country, the man (I use that term loosely) doesn’t have a care in the world, literally.

  • Lower level capo Joshua Brewster Bolten told consignieri Harriet Ellan Miers that it was the silent road to oblivion or a final visit with Richard Bruce “the Snarl” (aka “Shooter”) Cheney.

  • Gridlock, my comment was intended to be ironic. That is to say that canning Miers now reveals Bush’s or at least those who advise him, true belief in Miers ability. In addition, I agree with your assessment of the motivation behind Meirs nomination to SCOTUS or at least Darren’s tweaking of it.

  • at this time I think only one wagon could be filled with loyal bushlites

    [Bonnie]

    Hee, hee, hee.

    Sorry, sometimes I’m slower than a Prezident who has just hit his head after choking on a pretzle.

  • Rege, if Bush is looking for a bastard (“street fighter”), there are few that are bigger than Gray.

  • If the Chucklehead in Chief is starting to throw his officewives under the bus, how safe are Karen Hughes and Condi Rice these days?

    Now that we’re apparently getting an actual Middle East expert as ambassador to Iraq and Negroponte is going to State, where he at least will have a bit more experience in foreign affairs than the current Secretary, I mean.

  • Gotta Love the supposed BUSH SAVIOR Josh Bolten

    Ever since he took over for Andy Card Bush’s poll numbers have fallen or remained flat…

    Josh’ reverse Midas Touch is a boon for Dems…

    keep up the good work Josh

  • Maybe this is why Harriet is being thrown under the bus… (from the WaPo article):

    …one sign that relations will be bumpy is a decision by House leaders to give Waxman’s committee special authority to force administration officials to sit for depositions, a tool it last had under Republicans in the late 1990s…

    Sweet!!!

  • Am I the only one who thought of Godfather II where after his father dies (Democrats take over), Michael (Bush) decides to take revenge on the other families (the country) and replaces his father’s consigliere (Harriet Miers) because he wasn’t tough/brutal enough. Michael’s quote “No disrespect Tom, but you’re not a war-time consigliere.”

    Michael then brings in Luca Brazi (guy who put the horse head in the bed) as his consigliere. I wonder whose going to be Bush’s Luca Brazi.

  • I forgot who it was (Diullio or Suskind or someone) explaining that there is just a circle of seven around Bush, his genuine political advisors, and they are closed tight and hold grudges. My guesses for some:
    Rove
    Cheney
    Rice
    Rumsfeld (deleted)
    Hughes (marginalized)
    Bolten (earned his button)
    Joe Hagen (?)

    Another may have been Tenet, but he’s gone. Miers was a paper pusher. Look at the revolving door everywhere else. It’s the indispensibles that have done all of this. Rove dodged a bullet and Cheney may be riper than we think.

    I think it is Ron Suskind who argued that this is vertical administration. Everything emanates from Bush and his tight circle. It could be to hide his faults, or his lust for power, or they just think it’s cool making everyone dance.

    I also agree with Lewis Lapham that this crew will crawl over each other to get to the microphone first to stick the shiv in the others. For example, Rove’s multiple conversations with Fitzgerald before Libby’s indictment. “Oh, you mean these e-mails. Hey, all I can do to help, Mr. Fitzgerald.”

    I’m not a prosecutor or a congressman so I don’t know how to nail these guys (Outside/in?, aim high?, carrots/sticks?), but agree on the master list of seven and never get distracted thereafter. Everyone else are expendable small fry…”small potatoes” if we are maintainng our Godfather metaphors. Keep pounding until they start wondering just why they are going down with this clown.

  • decision by House leaders to give Waxman’s committee special authority to force administration officials to sit for depositions, — WaPo article, via Racerx, @26

    Waxman forcing sadmins to “sit for depositions” suddenly resolved itself into a mental image of Waxman, mustache twitching, saying, sternly: “Sit! Sit! Goood boy. Now, Fetch! (this or other document). Bad boy! Very bad boy (smack on the muzzle). Fetch!”

    Sorry. The idea makes me giddy with laughter. Like Racerex says: sweet! 🙂

  • For once the Bush Administration doesn’t want to tolerate incompetence among its staff … and it’s only because their butts are on the line this time. If only they took this attitude about all their appointees.

  • Rege #7 Won’t Bush have to borrow have to borrow some of those Swift Boat lawyers from McCain’s campaign team?

  • Depositions and investigations are so-ooo expensive and time consuming. Here’s a novel approach. We’ll send them all on a cruise.

    Some of the old ‘Nam carriers, I hear, are still at pierside, destined to become deepwater reef emplacements. Transfer Bush and his co-redoubters aboard the old flat-top (for security reasons), haul her out beyond the shelf-line—and “send her to Davey Jones.”

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