WASHINGTON — From the beginning of George W. Bush's presidency, his professional life has been so closely intertwined with Harriet Miers' that some White House insiders jokingly refer to her as the president's "work wife." And she was the lawyer whom Bush trusted to handle some of his most sensitive and important tasks, even before he entered the Oval Office.
Born and raised in Dallas, educated at Southern Methodist University, a star corporate litigator and deeply involved in her evangelical Christian church, Harriet Ellan Miers is a child of Texas, and her roots there seem to run parallel to those of the president who nominated her to the Supreme Court.
As governor of Texas, Bush chose her to take over a financially troubled state lottery commission. When questions arose in the 2000 presidential campaign about favoritism in the Texas Air National Guard, Bush tapped Miers to assess the dimensions of the problem.
After they left Texas for Washington following the 2000 presidential election, Miers assumed such an insider role that in 2001 it was she who handed Bush the crucial "presidential daily briefing" hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.
And this year it was Miers who brought word to the president that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was retiring, it was Miers who interviewed potential successors and told others they were passed over, and Miers who ended up winning the nomination herself.
Bush has called her "a pit bull in size 6 shoes." Presenting her with a legal award, he quipped that "when it comes to a cross-examination, she can fillet better than Mrs. Paul." During visits to the president's ranch near Crawford, Texas, she has been known to grab a chain saw and help clear brush.
Yet for all her skills as a lawyer and trusted aide, Miers is relatively little known outside her native Texas and the gates of the White House. A woman of few words who has been described by friends as personally shy, she has been outspoken only in her zealous defense of the president who has brought her to the pinnacle of a career in the law. Though she has been a highly successful corporate litigator in one of the leading law firms in Texas and done several turns in public service, she seems to have left few clues to her personal philosophy.
That could be a formidable advantage as Miers faces the coming struggle for confirmation as successor to O'Connor. Miers' personal reticence and lack of a detailed public record may make her a difficult target for Democrats to hit.
