»Harriet Miers in place of Sandra O' Connor?«

Miers, if confirmed, will be the first justice in 34 years who has never been a judge , though some, like Clarence Thomas, served only a year's apprenticeship in that role.
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But Miers is unusual even among justices with no judicial experience, because as a corporate lawyer in Dallas representing clients like Microsoft Corp. and the Walt Disney Co. she has specialized in commercial law .

"In terms of what does she think about issues like religious liberty, free speech and the right to privacy, she has thought about it possibly about as much as any educated man or woman on the street," said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Texas.

Laycock said Miers will stand in contrast to Chief Justice John G. Roberts, whose career was based on Supreme Court advocacy.

"It will be surprising if she handles her confirmation hearings as well as Roberts did, because she just doesn't know anything. She can only cram so much," Laycock said.

But that may not be a bad thing for Democrats, Laycock suggested.

"She's a roll of the dice for people who disagree with the president, but a roll of the dice may be the best they could hope for," he said.
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In 1989 she was elected to the Dallas City Council, but politics apparently did not agree with the woman who has always bragged about staying out of the spotlights. She did not run for re-election when her term ended in 1991. She has served as a personal lawyer for George W. Bush in Texas, and as general counsel for his transition team when he was elected governor in 1994. Bush appointed her chairman of the Texas Lottery Commission in 1995. A graduate of Southern Methodist University and law school who is described by some as deeply religious, Miers serves on the board of Pioneer Bible Translators, a missionary group based in Dallas. She moved to Washington in 2001 with the president as staff secretary, controlling the flow of paper to and from the president. She became deputy chief of staff in 2003, and earlier this year assumed the job of White House counsel.

A prominent Texas lawyer, she was among the first women to rise to power in a large law firm there, and the first female head of the state bar. Mr Bush’s nomination speech made much of her feminist credentials, as well as her gumption in working her way through college—Mr Bush once described her as “a pit bull in size six shoes”. But Ms Miers has never served as a judge, and thus there is very little to indicate how she might vote on key issues. (The appointment of someone who has never been a judge is not that unusual: Mr Rehnquist himself had no previous judicial experience, for instance.)

There are also drawbacks for Mr Bush, however, in a nominee with no record on the issues so dear to the hearts of his political base: some conservatives are already making it clear that they are uncomfortable with the mysteriousness of Ms Miers’s opinions. Many in the Republican Party have been longing for a high-profile public debate on a host of controversies; now they may not get that. In his nomination speech, Mr Bush attempted to assuage these fears by stressing that Ms Miers can be relied upon to follow the law rather than “legislat[e] from the bench”—a sort of coded message to activists that she will be a reliable vote for their cause. Ms Miers echoed those sentiments in her acceptance speech.

But conservatives are still haunted by the memory of David Souter. Mr Souter too had only a sparse paper trail on controversial issues; he was nominated to the court in 1990 by the current president’s father, who wanted to avoid the kind of bruising confirmation battle that Ronald Reagan had faced over Robert Bork. Mr Souter has been a grave disappointment to the Republican base, and it is keen to avoid a repeat.

The nomination also leaves Mr Bush vulnerable to charges of cronyism, which have long dogged his administration. But while the personal connection undoubtedly played a role, it seems more important that Ms Miers looks relatively easy to confirm compared with solidly conservative judges (like Janice Brown, for instance). With his popularity severely eroded by the economy's fading dynamism, the suffering in Iraq and the botched rescue effort after Hurricane Katrina, Mr Bush seems to be unwilling to spend political capital on installing someone whose record indicates they will move the court in a direction that pleases his Republican base. For now, activists on both sides will have to be satisfied with the fact that their opponents are just as worried as they are.

Second is the refusal of the administration to let us see any documents you wrote when you served as deputy solicitor general, when you were not simply following policy, which you've reminded us in your earlier days there and in the counsel's office, but making it.

This would have given us tremendous insight into who you are, into knowing who you are and what kind of justice you'd make.

But, for what seems to be self-serving reasons, they were refused.

Bush always has had a habit of surrounding himself with what he calls “mother hens.” Miers is one of them. Others, in approximate order of their time of prime service, include Barbara Bush, Laura Bush, Karen Hughes, Condi Rice and Frances Townsend. These women are of a type: independent, athletic, forceful and not quite traditional by the old standards of the Establishment.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said anyone who tried to bring up the topic of religion during the Roberts confirmation was labeled a bigot. "Now Bush and Rove are touting where Miers goes to church and using that as a selling point," Lynn said. "The hypocrisy is staggering."

On October 27th Harriet Miers, his personal lawyer, whom he had foolishly nominated to the Supreme Court, withdrew. The excuse given was that she could not answer the questions asked of her by increasingly indignant senators without breaking rules about client privilege. In fact, her nomination was in trouble with politicians of all persuasions for the simple reason that she was woefully underqualified for the highest court in the land.

It was also a personal humiliation for Mr Bush. He had vouched for her character. His basic pitch on her behalf had come down to two words: trust me. But many senators were not inclined to do so. They saw a woman with little experience of constitutional law, whose main qualification seemed to be a fawning admiration for “the most brilliant man she had ever met”. Ms Miers's written answers to the Judiciary Committee were so embarrassing that senators from both sides asked her to resubmit them. This was clearly an exercise in nepotism rather than careful selection.