RePackaging Miers

The White House is beginning to look more and more like the set of Saturday Night Live. Now that Conservatives and Liberals alike are criticizing Harriet Miers for failing to live up to Supreme Court standards, the White House spinmeisters are changing their approach. They've decided to back away from touting her religious affiliations and now wish to highlight her stellar career as a lawyer.

Unfortunately, that seems to be backfiring as well. In an effort to find evidence of legal prowess, all that's been turned up, it seems, is a stash of obsequious and poorly written invitations and thank you notes to high level officials--many of them written to George W. Bush. Here's a taste from a recent Washington Post article:

Here is one example, from a May 1996 letter asking George and Laura Bush to appear at a ceremony honoring her,  "I am respectful of both of your great many time commitments and I realize you receive many, many requests," she wrote. "Of course, I would be very pleased if either of you is able to participate. However, I will be pleased with your judgment about whether participating in this event fits your schedule whatever your decision. . . . I feel honored even to be able to extend this invitation to such extraordinary people." If that's not ass-kissing, I don't know what is.

Republican Senator Rick Santorum remained unmoved by Ms. Miers conciliatory tone. His comment appeared in another Post article, also published Saturday:

"I don't know yet," Santorum said, according to an account yesterday in the Public Opinion newspaper of Chambersburg, Pa. "But I am concerned President Bush nominated someone who is a blank slate. I'm disappointed he wanted to nominate someone like that instead of someone with a record."

Here's another sizzling example of her "tortuous prose," from a 1997 handwritten card, also courtesy of the Washington Post: "Hopefully Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are 'cool' -- as do the rest of us. . . . All I hear is how great you and Laura are doing. . . . Keep up all the great work. Texas is blessed!"

Even pro-conservative political pundits are having a hard time standing by Ms. Miers. Here's what Times' columnist David Brooks had to say about columns Miers wrote in the early 1990s, when she was president of the State Bar of Texas. "The quality of thought and writing doesn't even rise to the level of pedestrian."

Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card responded to the intense criticism of Miers by political pundits, lawyers and activists by saying that he was "a little surprised that they came out of the box so cynically." Card also denied having had to "shout down opposition" to the Miers appointment in staff meetings. "That is fiction," he said, "and I live in a nonfiction world." (Odd that the distinction between reality and fantasy was not so apparent in the lead up to the Iraq war.)

So to all those Conservatives who keep saying that Bush picked Miers to avoid a fight, all I can say is: it didn't work very well, did it?

Manuel Miranda, head of a coalition of conservative and libertarian groups that oppose the Miers nomination put it plainly: "Right now the base is completely fractured and people are very concerned about the impact on the 2006 elections. The troubling thing is that the Supreme Court was the gold ring and the president's thinking appears indiscernible, unless you're willing to take it as a matter of faith." Funny how the faith thing keeps coming up, isn't it?