WP: For Miers, Proximity Means Power

[highplainsdem]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/12/AR2005101202459.html

For Miers, Proximity Means Power
As President's Confidante, Court Nominee Is Noted as Student of the Process

By Amy Goldstein and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A01


<snip>

At staff meetings, Miers spoke up only when she considered it essential. "There were plenty of us banging around with very strong views on issues, and she understood she was wearing the striped shirt," said Indiana Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. (R), who was Bush's first budget director. "A word from Harriet would calm everybody down. She did have that schoolmarm voice."

Her demure exterior, however, cloaks a tough will and an uncommonly close relationship with Bush. In the Oval Office and on the road, Miers has spent more time with him than perhaps any aide except Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. On Sept. 11, 2001, she was flying on Air Force One as it sped the president to the Midwest and back after the terrorist attacks.

In June 2003, when Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to declare that "major combat operations" had ended in Iraq, Miers was part of a nucleus of aides who stayed overnight with him on the aircraft carrier. She is with him often at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., and is a regular weekend visitor to the presidential retreat at Camp David.

Such proximity to Bush makes her unlike any Supreme Court nominee of the past generation. Not since 1965, when Lyndon B. Johnson nominated his personal lawyer and trusted adviser, Abe Fortas, has a president chosen someone with whom he is on such close terms.

<snip>

[knowbody0]

1. that is just so gross!

[spindrifter]

2. There is no way

this person should remain as a nominee. She should have the integrity to look in the mirror and tell herself that such close ties to the Executive Branch taint her sufficiently that she should not presume that she can hear cases in an impartial manner.

[kskiska]

3. She'll be returning a background questionnaire in 3 days

(snip)

Already, Specter has gotten a firsthand glimpse of her work style. On Tuesday, he said, he asked her when she could complete a preliminary questionnaire about her background. "Some people take forever. Not Harriet Miers," he said. She told him she would return it within three days.

There's probably a reason for this.