Real Kato Blog: Bush Selects Miers For Supreme Court Post

Bush's announced today that White House counsel Harriet Miers was his nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court.

Um, wow.

Harriet Miers has long been a close ally of President Bush, and is now being rewarded with a Supreme Court nomination. (You'll hear the word "cronyism" a lot over the next few weeks.) She was president of the Texas State Bar, the first woman to hold that post. She has no prior judicial experience, making her again somewhat of a "stealth" nominee.

A couple of interesting tidbits, though: reportedly, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) encouraged Bush to consider Miers as someone who could win bipartisan support. And according to this web site, Miers has contributed to Democratic campaigns in the past. Interesting.

As far as dirty laundry goes, Miers has been mentioned in a potential scandal: the old Bush/National Guard thing. Allegedly, a lobbyist for GTECH, the company running the state lottery, helped Bush get into the National Guard... and in return, in the mid 1990s, the lottery commission extended GTECH's contract, without looking at competitive bids. Miers was the chair of the Texas lottery commission at the time... appointed by then-governor Bush. I don't know how much weight this charge will carry, but it'll be interesting to see that National Guard issue get dredged up again.

I think she'll upset some social conservatives, who probably won't consider her staunchly pro-life enough. I'm already seeing negative reactions on some conservative blogs. Liberal blogs don't seem to be weighing in heavily on one side or the other, except to note her lack of qualifications and her somewhat unconventional lifestyle (single at the age of 60, perhaps giving her a socially liberal outlook).

Interesting... maybe it'll be the Republicans in Congress who try to filibuster her nomination. Heh. What will confirmthem.com say then?

Permalink 4 Comment

Posted by Ken in: politics

Comments

Comment #1 from Nicholas (Guest)
2005 Oct 3 - 12:41 pm : #

Maybe she is a lesbian.

Comment #2 from Ken (realkato)
2005 Oct 3 - 1:00 pm : #

There seem to be plenty of people wondering about that. :lol:

Comment #3 from Nicholas (Guest)
2005 Oct 3 - 1:11 pm : #

Not that there is anything wrong with that........

Just a tittilating explaination for singledom.

Comment #4 from olafandyjon (Guest)
2005 Oct 3 - 1:23 pm : #

Wow...what would the Conservative Christian Right do if that were true (Miers being a lesbian)? There would need to be "outrage," but yet it is their boy Dubya who nominated her. You might see heads implode all over the red states on that one! :D

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