John Resnick emails me a reprint of a Dallas News profile on Miers from 1991 (login required). A bit:
The answer is elusive. For Harriet Miers essentially is a shy person with a protective layer of quiet, unassuming reserve.
Over time, she also has developed a lawyerly caginess that enables her to play her cards—personal, political and professional—very close to the vest. She weighs her words judiciously, seldom allowing an incautious phrase to escape.
“People who see Harriet as a litigator don’t see her tender, personal side,” says Nathan Hecht, a Texas Supreme Court judge and a close friend. “And family and friends don’t see her going into the courtroom to duke it out.”
The vast difference in perception is most marked when Ms. Miers’ council career is the subject.
“I know her less today than I did the day after she was elected (in 1989),” says Jerry Bartos, a City Council colleague who frequently has been Ms. Miers’ opponent. “I’d say she is the consummate loner.”
“She’s independent. She’s a thinker, not a clone,” counters council member Al Lipscomb, who also has had run-ins with Ms. Miers.
“She’s a very independent thinker,” echoes Mayor Annette Strauss. But, in acknowledging Ms. Miers’ “loner” status, the mayor gives a Zen-like answer: “It is difficult—because the right answer is not right for everybody.”
For Harriet Miers in particular, two years in political office seemed to hold few right answers. She regards her council service, as she does most things in life, as an educational experience. But she admits it’s been frustrating.
“The most disappointing aspect about being in public office has been observing the impact of politics,” she says. “You see decisions that are more political than what I might view as the right result.”
Ms. Miers, 45, gives the impression she might have been happier if the City Council had worked more like a courtroom. She is most comfortable within the legal system, within its codified precedents and presentations of fact-based logic.
But on Dallas’ City Council there were, as she puts it, “Eleven different people with 11 different agendas.” Personalities clashed, and questions of fact and logic often surrendered to raw emotion and ego.
As an at-large representative, Ms. Miers says, “I’m committed to make decisions based on the facts of the particular issue, and what I believe is in the best interest of the city.” She pauses, firmly setting her small, square jaw: “Not one part of the city, but the entire city.”
This profile seems to suggest that, in 1991, at least, Miers found politics almost distasteful, and brought a judicial temperament to bear on her political work, which she found wasn’t always easy.
A nod in her favor if that same ideology holds today, it seems to me—and provided we can be assured her thinking is rigorous, and that her judicial philosophy is in line with the constructionist philosophy Bush has suggested (but never promised) his nominees will hold (which is hardly manifest, in this case).
Her hearings, then, will prove crucial to conservatives—if only that they’ll give us some insight into how her mind works.
In the meantime, though, we’re likely to continue to read things like this, from NRO’s Rick Brookhiser: “The Good News on Miers: It’s not as bad as Caligula putting his horse in the Senate.”
If Kos and Jeralyn (whom I like well enough) like her, she has to be an abominable pick. What the fuck is he thinking?
A shy loner? Maybe she really is like Souter.
What he’s thinking is that he knows her and lefty idealogues don’t. Neither do the socialists in the Senate, nor do you or I. I don’t remember anyone on the right crapping their pants over Kennedy or Souter. I believe we should hold our water till she answers some questions. When that happens, if she is far enough off the constitutional path, she can be rejected by the Republicans in the Senate.
Word: “such” Chuck Schumer is such a dickweed.
In an effort to offend women and Muslims,
I’ll add this:
Harriet Miers is pig in a poke
Actually, the right wasn’t very enthusiastic about Souter, to say the least. It (we) wanted Edith Jones and didn’t trust Papa Bush, John Sununu, or the others. At the time, I thought there was a reasonable chance that Souter was talking like a lib at his hearings to fool the fools on the Judiciary Committee, but I was the one he fooled. Believe me, there were a lot of unhappy conservatives back then.
Attila-
Yes, once the hearings start all bets are off, but I still don’t recall seeing conservatives on window ledges on the day of his nomination.
This thing is huge, really huge, but I don’t see any good coming from a stampede. It never does. Everyone take a breath and come back to this thing tomorrow.
Word: “him”-Chuck Schumer is still a dickweed. Sure it doesn’t work within the formula, but it sure is fun to type.
The problem is Rickinsti is that she may shine in the hearings and look just dandy. That doesn’t change the fact that she was nominated soley because she’s connected. That’s all there is to it. She has leap-froged canidates that are vastly more qualified based on one attribute, she knew the right people. She’s going to be the freeking Tori Spelling of the Supreme Court.
Dario, I might be alone in this, but I’d have to say that in the case of being nominated to the SCOTUS, knowing the right people is incredibly important, and rightfully so.
These people have incredible power to shape the future of the US and going merely by their resume is the type of mistake that has led to the ‘liberal’ republican justices that you have now.
Even judges who may have seemed conservative in their rulings can easily slip towards activism when placed in a position where they really have no worry about someone over turning them, but in general a persons heartfelt ideology does not change, and that type of information is not usually written down on their CV’s.
I’m not saying she was necessarily the most qualified for the job, but she may still be the best choice. After the decision to go with Roberts, which initially, also had many dissenters on the right, I’d have to say that GW seems to have at least some understanding of what he’s doing.
Of course that’s just one Canadians opinion.
=)
Thanks for all this important information. I have a question about something that I have not heard mentioned. What is up with her hair and clothes? She had a broach on one shoulder, a flag pin on the other. A chain with some sort of pendant AND a string of pearls. Then the bizarre shiny blue top with the ill-fitted blue suit combo. Both blue, not enough contrast between the two blues to make it work. Don’t get me started on the hair.
Yeah, I’m gay. What of it?
Yeah, that’s fine Bic. I hope it’s true. What it comes down to is basically “trust Bush”.
Maybe because I’m having such a hard time doing so says more about my belief in the President I voted for than it does about Miers. I find myself not trusting this pick. But it’s his pick to make.
Hmmmm.
“… so says more about my belief in the President I voted for …”
Frankly, at this point, I don’t trust Bush to choose dinner from a Chinese menu.
“Pick 1 from column A and 1 from column B … “
You don’t play rope-a-dope tricks on your own people. I’m starting to suspect somebody sneaked in and lobotomized Karl Rove when he was in the hospital a few weeks back.
Patrick,
She’s from Texas, that’s the explanation.
Does it seem to anyone else that Bush is acting more like he is running for re-election now than when he was actually running for re-election?