Miers stars in big top

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, Oct. 28, 2005 | 7:36 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nothing sends the nation's capital into a tizzy more than a breaking political story, but Harriet Miers' news wasn't what anyone inside the Beltway expected Thursday.

It was supposed to be indictment day in the Valerie Plame leak investigation.

Miers' withdrawal from consideration for a U.S. Supreme Court post sent the town into a frenzy.

Prepared to talk about an indictment that never came, senators -- and the media -- made a dash to figure out what the news meant, what comes next and, more importantly, what to say.

And the city held the type of political circus that only Washington can host.

Lawmakers stood in the hallways outside the Senate chamber before their first vote of the day, airing their views to a gaggle of reporters.

At the Russell Senate Office Building across the street, five networks set up impromptu studios in front of the impressive Doric colonnade outside the building.

Stepping over cables and around TV light stands, senators went from one interview to the next. Their press secretaries and other aides frantically checked BlackBerrys and juggled chirping cell phones, scheduling conference calls and meetings.

Also under the big top, one spotlight shone on Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who had suggested to President Bush that Miers would be a good nominee. And in so doing, he perhaps both gave her a boost among Democratic peers and helped torpedo her nomination among conservatives.

While not endorsing her, the Nevada senator had offered Miers some praise just after the nomination was announced: "I like Harriet Miers."

Thursday on CNN conservative pundit Ann Coulter mused, "What got Bush in trouble was listening to Democrats in the first place."

UNR political science professor Eric Herzik said he didn't think Reid's words did anything to help or hurt her. In the end, it was the GOP's infighting.

"The Republicans were playing their own game," he said.

Indeed. Republicans weren't sure she was conservative enough.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said his meeting with Miers on Tuesday solidified his concern that it was going to be hard to learn much about her judicial philosophy because so much of her "paper trail" couldn't be released because it was privileged White House information.

He said her interpretation of the Constitution could be more conservative than the court's hardliners -- Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

He said he had a gut feeling that she was conservative, but "we don't know, and nobody knows."

"The president feels like she was a strict constructionist," Ensign said. "And he's known her for a long time. But the rest of us, who have to vote, couldn't get the kind of information that he had."

As the news ripped through town, the Thursday morning quarterbacking turned into partisan bickering.

On the Senate floor, Reid, sounding dejected, said, "We know the right wing of the Republican Party drove this nomination right out of town."

He later bashed the "radical right wing," which he said wanted to "pack the Supreme Court with rigid ideologues."

He said in choosing the next nominee, Bush "should not reward the bad behavior of his right-wing base."

The next nominee could be Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who has been rumored to be on the short list of potential nominees.

He and fellow Judiciary Committee member Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., summed up tenor of the day.

Kennedy said the "extreme voices" had been heard on Miers' nomination, and, referenced concerns that there's a conservative "litmus test" for nominees.

"If the president wants a political battle, a political struggle, he can have one," Kennedy said. "I am personally opposed to litmus tests."

Cornyn, however, pointed out that no Republican senator ever came out against her nomination.

But, he noted, "You can pick a fight in this city without trying."

And you can unleash a political tempest on any given day.

Today, by the way, may be indictment day.

Sun reporter Benjamin Grove contributed to this story.

Suzanne Struglinski can be reached at (202) 662-7245 or at suzanne@lasvegassun.com.