The Nine [160]
That Sunday afternoon, Bush formally offered the appointment to Miers. She accepted, and the White House press office spent the evening working in secrecy to produce the biographical material and talking points that would accompany the announcement.
On Monday, October 3, at Bush’s now customary 8:01 a.m., the president and Miers stood side by side in the Oval Office. “This morning, I’m proud to announce that I am nominating Harriet Ellan Miers to serve as associate justice of the Supreme Court. For the past five years, Harriet Miers has served in critical roles in our nation’s government, including one of the most important legal positions in the country, White House counsel. She has devoted her life to the rule of law and the cause of justice,” he said. “I’ve known Harriet for more than a decade. I know her heart, I know her character. I know that Harriet’s mother is proud of her today, and I know her father would be proud of her, too. I’m confident that Harriet Miers will add to the wisdom and character of our judiciary when she is confirmed as the 110th justice of the Supreme Court.”
Miers, unlike Roberts, chose to read her brief remarks: “From my early days as a clerk in the federal district court, and throughout almost three decades of legal practice, bar service, and community service, I have always had a great respect and admiration for the genius that inspired our Constitution and our system of government. My respect and admiration have only grown over these past five years that you have allowed me to serve the American people as a representative of the executive branch.” Then Miers tried to define her judicial philosophy, which she clearly had not developed in her legal career. “The wisdom of those who drafted our Constitution and conceived our nation as functioning with three strong and independent branches have proven truly remarkable,” she began, ungrammatically. “It is the responsibility of every generation to be true to the founders’ vision of the proper role of the courts in our society.” By citing the “founders’ vision,” Miers was positioning herself as an originalist, like Scalia. “If confirmed,” she went on, “I recognize that I will have a tremendous responsibility to keep our judicial system strong, and to help ensure that the courts meet their obligations to strictly apply the laws and the Constitution.” Likewise, the use of the word strictly was meant to identify her with strict constructionists, like Rehnquist.
But Miers’s tentative advocacy for herself was already late. By the time her announcement ceremony concluded at 8:14 a.m., the assault on her had already begun.
At 8:12, Manny Miranda sent out an e-mail to his colleagues in the conservative movement. “The president has made possibly the most unqualified choice since Abe Fortas, who had been the president’s lawyer,” Miranda wrote. “The nomination of a nominee with no judicial record is a significant failure for the advisors that the White House gathered around it.” At 8:51, David Frum, a former speech-writer in the Bush White House, offered a similar dismissal of Miers, based on firsthand knowledge. “Harriet Miers is a taut, nervous, anxious personality,” Frum wrote on his blog for the National Review. “I am not saying that Harriet Miers is not a legal conservative. I am not saying that she is not steely. I am saying only that there is no good reason to believe either of these things.”
Later that day, as Rove had promised, Nathan Hecht, as well as another Texas judge, Ed Kinkeade of the federal district court, convened