Editorial: Miers’ shaky nomination

Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2005 | 11:53 a.m.

A number of prominent conservatives -- commentators, GOP activists and Republican senators -- have been upset by President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Some of these conservatives contend that Miers, who is the White House counsel and a longtime confidante of Bush, doesn't have the intellectual heft of many other qualified potential nominees, such as federal appeals court judges.

Most importantly for social and religious conservatives, because Miers has never been a judge, she doesn't have a lengthy track record on a number of key issues important to them, especially on abortion. In response to these doubts, Bush has said that people should just trust him, that he has appointed someone who will carry out his conservative judicial philosophy.

But Bush's trust-me plea is meeting resistance, mainly because during his presidential campaigns he said that he wouldn't impose a litmus test on his nominees and require that they be willing to overturn Roe v. Wade. Some religious conservatives who are loyal to the administration have stepped in to lend their support to Miers' nomination. But their testimonials actually are doing more to raise doubts, including among moderates and liberals.

Consider the following comments made Sunday by Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, as he appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press": "He picked a person he's known for 15 years, and I believe he picked her because he knows her that well and he knows that she will vote the way he would want her to vote. ... And if someone is disloyal, if someone betrays a trust, in Texas they're right down there with child molesters and ax murderers."

If one is to believe Land, Miers would be nothing more than a stenographer -- with a lifetime appointment to our nation's highest court, deciding some of the most critical and complex issues of our times. Land's remarks also reveal an appalling lack of respect -- if not outright contempt -- for the separation of powers.

Then there are the remarks made by James Dobson, founder of the Focus on the Family organization, which wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. Dobson, on his syndicated radio program last week, said that he has had "conversations with Karl Rove and the White House" about Miers. "When you know some of the things that I know, that I probably shouldn't know, you will understand why I have said, with fear and trepidation, that I believe Harriet Miers will be a good justice." Later, in an interview with Fox News, Dobson said cryptically: "I do know things that I am not prepared to talk about."

Well, whether Dobson wants to talk about them or not, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., says he wants to find out if there were any "backroom deals" between Dobson and the White House. Specter is holding out the possibility that he might ask Dobson to testify before the committee.

All in all, this appointment is raising more questions than there are answers -- and it's easy to see why this nomination is running into trouble.