Washington – After a blistering week, the White House is scrambling to control a conservative uprising over the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, with President Bush pitching his choice directly to the public Saturday as his Republican allies plotted strategy to shore up support.
“Harriet Miers will be the type of judge I said I would nominate: a good, conservative judge,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. He added, “When she goes before the Senate, I am confident that all Americans will see what I see every day: Harriet Miers is a woman of intelligence, strength and conviction.”
His remarks came as the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee – who will preside over the Miers confirmation hearings and who has called her “intellectually able” – offered a blunt assessment that was yet another sign that the nomination was in trouble on Capitol Hill.
“She needs more than murder boards,” the chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview, referring to the mock question-and-answer sessions that most nominees use to prepare for their confirmation hearings. “She needs a crash course in constitutional law.”
The conservative uproar over Miers underscores how difficult it has been for Bush to pull his own party together as he faces a variety of problems on other fronts: his administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina; a leak investigation involving his chief political adviser, Karl Rove; the indictment of Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, who was the House majority leader; and, most recently, the decision by a top Justice Department nominee to withdraw amid questions over his ties to a Republican lobbyist accused of fraud.
A week ago, Republicans said they looked forward to a new Supreme Court nominee because it would give them something to rally around. Now, having alienated many of his conservative backers, Bush must go forward on the nomination largely alone.