Harriet E Miers

Re "Cronyism as a core value," Opinion, Oct. 7 Thank you, Jonathon Chait, for pointing out the dangers of cronyism in presidential appointments. The framers of the Constitution gave the Senate the power to confirm or reject nominees to guard against the court being packed with under-qualified presidential favorites. Harriet E. Miers' main qualification for the Supreme Court seems to be her admiration for President Bush. Surely the American people deserve better. LAUREL GORD Venice

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, offered an unusual defense Sunday of Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers, saying Miers' critics had put together "one of the toughest lynch mobs" he had ever seen. "What you've had here on Harriet Miers is not a rush to judgment. It's a stampede to judgment," Specter said on the ABC News program "This Week." Miers was being attacked by "one of the toughest lynch mobs ever assembled in Washington, D.C.

President Bush faced a growing Republican backlash Wednesday over the nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court, with several GOP senators threatening to oppose her confirmation and top conservative activists questioning her qualifications during a tense confrontation with White House advisors.

DALLAS -- For Harriet Ellan Miers, the road to a Supreme Court nomination began in summer 1994, with an ugly little legal problem involving an exclusive East Texas fishing camp and the soon-to-be governor, George W. Bush. A caretaker named J.W. Moseley alleged that Bush and the other members -- who included two former Texas secretaries of state and former Dallas Cowboys owner H.R. "Bum" Bright -- had unjustly fired him out of "spite and ill will."

Seeking to quell unrest on his conservative flank, President Bush mounted a defense Tuesday of Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers, insisting that his friend and former personal lawyer was "the best person I could find" for the job. "I can understand people not knowing Harriet. She hasn't been one of these publicity hounds," Bush said during a Rose Garden news conference, his first in more than four months. "She's been somebody who just quietly does her job.

Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers is personally opposed to abortion, her longtime companion said Tuesday, but he added that doesn't mean she will vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Nathan L. Hecht, a Texas Supreme Court justice, has been a close companion of Miers since they first worked together for a Dallas law firm 30 years ago. His comments are the clearest indication to date of Miers' view on abortion -- which, as with other issues she would be likely to face on the high court, is unknown.

Harriet E. Miers is a trailblazer among women -- the first to break the gender barrier at her Texas law firm, the first female president of the Dallas Bar Assn., the first woman elected to lead the State Bar of Texas. But in the tradition of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee has climbed the ladders of power without the added responsibilities many career women face: a husband and children.

President Bush on Monday nominated White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers, an old friend and political ally with a distinguished legal resume but no judicial experience, to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Bush's choice of the 60-year-old lawyer perplexed some lawmakers and activists, who complained that her limited record on some of the central legal issues of the day made it difficult to assess her politics and philosophy.