Harriet Miers wasn’t a suitable nominee for the the U.S. Supreme Court, and she did the right thing in stepping aside. Miers’ appointment has been an embarrassing episode for President Bush, but her withdrawal leaves him a golden opportunity to reverse course and make a first-class nomination to the high court.
Nothing less will do.
If he tries to twist himself into a pretzel to appease Miers’ opponents, Bush surely will create an unnecessary PR disaster and find himself with a Senate fight on his hands.
Miers’ bid was upended after the president’s evangelical allies picked apart her negligible qualifications and voiced (shouted) a preference for a more activist appointment who would move the balance of the high court to the right. Bush tried to reassure the critics with soothing hints of Miers’ born-again convictions, but it didn’t fly, and Tuesday they started a TV ad campaign against her. Meanwhile, moderates were completely unsettled by her difficulty in making a case for confirmation and the president’s projection of her religion as a supposed qualification for a court appointment. Most Americans preferred the approach to the new chief justice, John Roberts – he’s a Catholic, but the feeling was, so what?
Miers even flunked the Judiciary Committee’s questionnaire – an obvious chance to win over senators inclined to give the president the benefit of the doubt.
With his next pick, Bush should find a candidate who represents the country’s centrist values.
After Sandra Day O’Connor’s resignation, the president was broadly encouraged, even by his wife, to appoint a woman or a minority to the court to uphold its level of modest diversity. Some senators told him a non-traditional pick would be acceptable – smart advice that opened up a deep pool of would-be talent, but unaccountably led him to his White House counsel.
Certainly on the federal bench or elsewhere in the non-traditional pool is someone with an intimate interest in constitutional law and a respect for the Bill of Rights who can pass muster with both sides of the Senate.
With O’Connor’s resignation, the court will be top-heavy with white males. We urge the president to press his search for a qualified candidate with a diverse background. Even though his attorney general raises questions with both liberals (torture) and conservatives (abortion policy), Bush may want to take another look at Alberto Gonzales. Some key evangelical leaders have opposed Gonzales, and they will feel empowered by their victory over Miers, but surely the president can’t give them a veto for her successor. Religion was injected into the Miers debate by Bush himself, and it should be left there. Religion should never factor into the qualifications of a federal judge, for or against.
If the president seeks a candidate to cheer his restive conservative base, he’ll risk losing support from moderate Republicans and Democrats. Given his flagging approval ratings and the threat from Hurricane Fitzgerald, it would be an unwise for Bush to pick an ideological extremist.
The political calculation could benefit Bush and the country by prompting Bush to appoint someone so qualified that all sides of the body politic will respect the nominee’s qualifications and disregard politics, religion and wardrobe.
Learning from the Miers mistake, Bush would do well to draw a deep breath and take his time with this next selection. The cake from Chief Justice Roberts’ swearing-in party wasn’t even stale before he hurried to introduce Miers to the world.
In the meantime, the nation is well-served with Justice O’Connor sitting on the bench for as long as it takes to get it right. Given the split on the court, her position in the middle looks more honorable than ever.
