Miers Nomination Withdrawn
The President has accepted Harriet Miers’s request to withdraw her nomination, explaining that the nomination was of less importance to him than the ability to keep confidential certain White House documents (principally involving Executive authority in the current wars). Miers’s letter to the President is here.
And here’s the President’s statement:
Today, I have reluctantly accepted Harriet Miers’ decision to withdraw her nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States.
I nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court because of her extraordinary legal experience, her character, and her conservative judicial philosophy. Throughout her career, she has gained the respect and admiration of her fellow attorneys. She has earned a reputation for fairness and total integrity. She has been a leader and a pioneer in the American legal profession. She has worked in important positions in state and local government and in the bar. And for the last five years, she has served with distinction and honor in critical positions in the Executive Branch.
I understand and share her concern, however, about the current state of the Supreme Court confirmation process. It is clear that Senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House - disclosures that would undermine a President’s ability to receive candid counsel. Harriet Miers’ decision demonstrates her deep respect for this essential aspect of the Constitutional separation of powers - and confirms my deep respect and admiration for her.
I am grateful for Harriet Miers’ friendship and devotion to our country. And I am honored that she will continue to serve our Nation as White House Counsel.
My responsibility to fill this vacancy remains. I will do so in a timely manner.
Was the Meirs nomination possibly a decoy for someone more appealing for the evangelical base to rally around just in time for midterm elections, or did Bush drop the ball that badly? It seems the Bush administration is far far too clever to make such a blunder.
-Stella
Comment by Stella — October 27, 2005 @ 9:37 am
Stella wonders whether the Meirs nomination possibly a decoy for someone more appealing for the evangelical base to rally around just in time for midterm elections. To the contrary, I think the Republican party elite’s slip is showing. They verbally pitched a Wall Street friendly nominee but the fundamentalist extremist clothing did not fit properly. The Republican party leadership only talks the talk to get the votes. Its real agenda is (and has been since Reagan) to support the Fortune 500 class.
Comment by Aire Libre — October 27, 2005 @ 10:00 am
Even if he asked her to resign, it doesn’t seem fair to me to put ‘reluctantly’ in scare quotes. After all, even if he’s behind the resignation, it was a reluctant withdrawal. He originally didn’t want it to come to this point, and it’s reluctant even if he insisted on it. This is, of course, barring wild conspiracy theories such as the one in the previous comment, but that seems really unlikely. He had every indication that evangelicals would rally around her. He was totally blindsided by the immediate and irrational opposition to her that became gradually more rational as more information came about, but no one could have predicted how angry people could have gotten while there was still basically no evidence to support such anger.
ML responds: They weren’t intended as scare quotes: I meant them only to indicate a direct quotation, added before I had posted the full text of the President’s statement. Now that I’ve posted the statement, it of course speaks for itself, and therefore I’ve deleted the adverb altogether. Sorry for any misunderstanding.
Comment by Jeremy Pierce — October 27, 2005 @ 10:09 am
I think they “misunderestimated” the expectations of a large portion of their base, and thought that the usual winks and nods about her “true” views would be enough.
Comment by boonelsj — October 27, 2005 @ 10:15 am
We’ll see just how “wild” the conspiracy theory advanced by Stella and others is when the President announces his next candidate. If it turns out to be Luttig or any of the others for whom the base has been clamoring all along, those theories wouldn’t seem so wild after all.
Comment by LegalThoughts — October 27, 2005 @ 10:22 am