Harriet Miers

A three-judge panel in Fort Worth has dismissed the reprimand of a Texas Supreme Court justice who publicly endorsed his friend Harriet E. Miers after her short-lived U.S. Supreme Court nomination. In a ruling announced Friday, the panel of appeals court judges said Nathan L. Hecht did not violate state rules that bar judges from lending their office's prestige to boost the private interests of themselves or others, and from using their names to endorse candidates for office.

Lawyers for former President George W. Bush, the House and the Obama administration reached agreement Wednesday to resolve a long-running dispute over the scope of executive power, which will allow lawmakers to question Bush aides Karl Rove and Harriet E. Miers about their role in the firing of nine federal prosecutors in 2006.

\o7IT'S HARD TO \f7have an opinion on a subject you know very little about. It is not impossible, however, and this morning editorial writers rise to the occasion with President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers. The first step is to admit ignorance. For the Wall Street Journal, "the nominee is mostly a Texas mystery." The New York Times worries that Miers' record "is so thin that no one seems to have any idea of what she believes."

Didn't President Bush promise to take his time and conduct a thorough and complete search for his Supreme Court nominee? He didn't look far in appointing Harriet Miers, a member of his inner circle. Why does he pretend? Why not say, I've made my choice and I'm not going to listen to anyone. If this weren't such a serious matter, it would be quite a joke on the American people. Women are not going to be happy just because the appointment is a woman. Minorities should be outraged. Of all the qualified people who should have been seriously considered, I find this appointment outrageous.

If the sun had come up in the West on Monday morning, Washington would not have been more disoriented than it was in the first hours after President Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Bush's selection -- for a decisive swing seat on the court -- of a longtime aide with virtually no public record on constitutional issues left both parties in a state of highly agitated confusion and immediately visible division.

Harriet E. Miers may be a conservative Republican now, but she wasn't always that way, public records and Texas colleagues say. In 1987 and 1988, Miers donated $3,000 to Democratic campaign committees -- $1,000 each to the Democratic National Committee, to the reelection campaign of Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, and to the presidential campaign of Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee. Gore cast himself as the most conservative choice in a field of seven Democrats.

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.

"Disappointed." "Missed opportunity." "Unforced error." Those were among the reactions Monday to President Bush's nomination of White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court -- not from the usual Democratic critics of the president, but from conservatives.

When Harriet E. Miers sat down Sunday for supper with President Bush in the private quarters of the White House, she had an influential ally at the table: Laura Bush. Twice this summer, Mrs. Bush had publicly expressed the hope that her husband would name a woman to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Before the dinner of fried shrimp, polenta and chocolate mousse was over, the first lady's wish came true.

Re "Bush Selects Close Ally for Court," Oct. 4 Harriet Miers has never been a judge. The president nominated her simply because she, like his lamentable choice for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is a devoted lackey. It's time to say enough. Enough of Bush's fools, followers and fanatics. Enough cronyism and constitutional contempt. We need a real, experienced, moderate judge for the Supreme Court -- or we need a filibuster. SIMON GLICKMAN \o7Los Angeles \f7 Once again the White House has shot itself in the foot!