But increasingly, as it has become clear that Miers' stated record on social issues is thin, and as the public has clamored for clues to her political leanings, the questions have turned to their relationship. Only then does the loquacious Hecht begin to demur.
"We are good, close friends," he said Friday. "And we have been for all these years. We go to dinner. We go to the movies two or three times a year. We talk. And that's the best way to describe it. We are not dating. We are not seeing each other romantically. Not currently."
Hecht declined to discuss their relationship in much detail, though he said that the public should not conclude, based on their lofty positions, that they stay up all night debating heady legal issues.
"We don't dwell much on the reverse Commerce Clause," Hecht said with a laugh, referring to an arcane debate among some lawyers over the right of Congress to regulate interstate commerce and other activity. "Maybe that says something about our shallowness."
Some of their associates and friends bristle at the suggestion that their romantic life has become a matter of public discussion and, in particular, at the suggestion that Miers might have sacrificed love for her career.
"Why hasn't she ever gotten married? I don't know the answer to that," said Jerry Clements, a woman who worked with Miers at Locke Liddell & Sapp, the law firm where Miers spent most of her career. "If this was a man, no one would ask that question."
But Sharon Baird, a friend of Miers since they both played on the tennis team at Hillcrest High in Dallas, called Miers' life decisions "very European."
Europeans "put a lot of emphasis on love and not so much on marriage," she said. "It's a New Age thing. Much like Oprah. She never married either."
Miers and Hecht became friends in 1975 after she took him out to dinner while he was interviewing for a job with Locke, Purnell, Boren, Laney & Neely, the Dallas firm that, after changes in management and a 1999 merger, became Locke Liddell & Sapp.
They spent a considerable amount of time at the north Dallas trailer home of Key, who was then a young pastor at Hecht's church, Valley View Christian. Key's wife, Kaycia, often made pineapple upside-down cake, sometimes at 1 a.m., after the lawyers had put in another long day in the office.
"They were very friendly -- affectionate, close to each other," Sparks said.
Both have dated other people over the years.
