Nominee can't duck the radar
BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Wednesday, October 19, 2005 Nominee can't duck the radar
In a way, you can't blame the Bush administration for turning the conversation to Harriet Miers' religion. What else are they going to talk about? Her qualifications? Those, as we have learned in the weeks since President George W. Bush nominated Miers to the Supreme Court, are a trifle thin. The woman who would become one of the nine most important judges in the land has never been a judge before. Worse, she lacks significant experience in constitutional law. But on the plus side, she is -- big surprise here -- Bush's longtime lawyer and friend. Miers has built a successful career, primarily in corporate law, that has left little paper trail. One might be forgiven for thinking she was meant as a stealth nominee, the idea being that a woman who had never taken a publicly recorded stand offered detractors a smaller target. It's not turning out that way. Bipartisan backlash Predictably, Miers' nomination raised red flags among Democrats. Less predictably, it has also upset Republicans. They fear that in Miers they are not getting what Bush implicitly promised them: a nuclear weapon in the culture wars and a justice who would vote to roll back previous rulings on gay rights, school prayer and abortion. Faced with this uprising among his political base, the president's first response was that his people should trust his judgment. He said last week that Miers was not the type to change and "that 20 years from now she'll be the same person with the same philosophy that she is today." Which was a not-so-coded message that she would not betray the conservative cause like other justices he could name. The comment did not quell the rebellion. Time for the trump card Hence, religion. In a message even less coded than the one before it, the White House, echoed by such religious right stalwarts as James Dobson and Pat Robertson, began to emphasize Miers' evangelical credentials. Bush told reporters Miers' faith was one reason he nominated her. Dobson, president of Focus on the Family, said on his radio program that he had been assured by Bush political guru Karl Rove that Miers was a conservative Christian. And on "The 700 Club," Robertson warned GOP senators of dire consequences if they turn their backs on "a Christian who is a conservative ..." Beg pardon, but wasn't it three months ago that a Democratic senator asked nominee John Roberts a perfectly legitimate question (Have you thought about how you would handle conflicts between your Catholic faith and the law?) only to have conservatives get their knickers in a knot over a supposedly inappropriate injection of religion into the confirmation process? But now it's OK to talk religion? The hypocrisy is suffocating. It is not, sad to say, surprising. For four years plus, this administration has brazenly flouted law, hired cronies, praised incompetence and then dared us to believe the evidence of our lying eyes. This is the same old same old. Still, it's a rare and satisfying treat to see that behavior backfire so loudly. Harriet Miers' bid for the high court has exploded like a novelty store cigar. A stealth nominee she is not. LEONARD PITTS JR. appears most Wednesdays and Fridays in the Free Press. Reach him at the Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami 33132; at 888-251-4407 or at lpitts@herald.com.
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