Harriet

A 176-year-old tortoise that was possibly one of the world's oldest living creatures, and believed by some to have once been in Charles Darwin's possession, has died of heart failure. The giant tortoise, known as Harriet, died at the Queensland-based Australia Zoo owned by "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin and his wife, Terri. Irwin said Saturday that Harriet's death was "not only a great loss for the world but a very sad day for my family. She was a grand old lady."

MOVE over Eddie Haskell. Harriet E. Miers could teach you a thing or two about sucking up. Papers released last week by the Texas state archives show a woman who admired the boss and wasn't afraid to show it, with puppy dog cards and flowery notes in her own hand, often added to official typed correspondence. "You are the best Governor ever -- deserving of great respect!" Miers wrote to George W. Bush in a belated card for his 51st birthday.

IF HARRIET E. MIERS WERE A SOFT DRINK, she would be New Coke: a carefully marketed product that no one is buying. The Bush administration deserves most of the blame for this clumsy campaign, but part of the problem is the confirmation process itself. Judicial confirmations, by custom if not design, now proceed mostly through indirection.

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.

Uniters "She is an evangelical Christian who is deeply committed to Christ and has been since the late '70s ... an outstanding selection by the president." James Dobson, Focus on the Family * "This is not uncommon in the nomination-confirmation process. It's kind of the natural cycle." -- Ed Gillespie, Republican Party chairman Whiners "I'm disappointed, depressed and demoralized." -- William Kristol, editor of Weekly Standard * " ...

He was a country boy who grew up on a wheat farm, she a city girl who played on her high school tennis team. The lives of Nathan Hecht and Harriet E. Miers began to intertwine in the early 1970s, shortly after they finished law school at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Soon, they were rising stars at the same law firm, and their lives seemed to be converging in every way. They were earnest, ambitious and increasingly affectionate with one another. Friends thought they would get married.

IT'S HARD TO have 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."

Harriet Berk Deutsch, 89, who with her husband, the late Armand Deutsch, was a major patron of the Los Angeles Music Center, died Wednesday at the Santa Monica Health Care Center. The cause was complications from a stroke. In the 1960s Deutsch was among the first members of the Blue Ribbon 400 (now called the Blue Ribbon of the Music Center), a group that raises money to support the Music Center arts and educational programs.

Strange bedfellows? Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), author of "The Divine Comedy," arguably the world's greatest poem. Harriet Rubin, modern-day media consultant, publisher, columnist and author of a recent bestseller enticingly entitled "The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women."

Harriet B. Braiker, psychologist, expert on stress management and best-selling author of self-help books, including "The Type E Woman" and "The September 11 Syndrome," has died. She was 55. Braiker died Saturday at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena of respiratory failure after suffering from pneumonia, said her husband, Steven Fink.