The latest buzz is that the choice will be Judge Samuel Alito from the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Pardon my cynicism, but "the latest buzz" and a buck sixty-five gets you a tall house coffee at the Dupont Circle Starbucks. Take it for what it's worth.

A Weakened President Faces New Risks, Washington Post

Washington, DC - "An influential segment of the right wing was profoundly disappointed that, with Harriet Miers, the president did not nominate a proven 'movement' conservative who would carry out their political agenda on the bench. They have been clamoring for the withdrawal of Ms. Miers' nomination for weeks. What has happened today is an ominous indication of capitulation to such pressure. An independent judiciary is the crown jewel of our democracy. It is too vital to be used as a means of placating a political party's base.

"As the president makes another attempt to fill Sandra Day O'Connor's pivotal seat, we encourage him to work in good faith with members of both parties to choose a consensus nominee who is committed to equal justice. The new nominee should not merely serve the interests of the radical right. He or she must serve the interests of the American people - in their entirety - by protecting and enforcing our rights, freedoms and legal protections."

Now we in Washington get to start playing our favorite game again—Speculation! (Well, we’ve been playing it for weeks on a number of matters, but now we’re playing Speculation: Supreme Court edition again.) Speculation is played in a similar manner to a high school journalism seminar exercise: Who? What? When? (The "Where" and the "How" play into it depending on the situation.)

We would like, at this time, to give credit to our editor. As we waited and waited for her questionnaire to come in, he predicted "She's not going to turn it in because she’s going to withdraw. You heard it here first." Well played, Editor. Well played, indeed.

President Bush said he reluctantly accepted her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down. He blamed her withdrawal on calls in the Senate for the release of internal White House documents that the administration has insisted were protected by executive privilege.

Shades of the Krautheimer exit strategy we mentioned in SCW 26.

Miers withdrawal letter
President Bush's statement

Adam Curry (A.K.A. the "Podfather") is often credited with bringing podcasting to the mainstream... it's great to be mentioned on the show. Thanks Adam!

Just two weeks shy of her hearings, we still don't know who Harriet Miers is. Senators and advocates on both sides of this nomination agree we need more information.

She has a heavy burden to meet to convince both the Senate and the American people that she is independent and qualified for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

Harriet Miers must prove that she will impartially enforce the rights, freedoms and legal safeguards protected by the Constitution.

Check out the rest of the statement here (PDF).

Look for the next show sometime in the next day or so... with all of the hurricane related power outages messin' with our host, we want to make sure everyone can actually get the show before we put it togeteher!

We hope everyone is dry and safe in Florida. We at Supreme Court Watch are eagerly awaiting the end of hurricane season on 11/15!

• Intro
  • News views and insight on the future of the Supreme Court
  • Shownotes and blog at supremecourtwatch.org - hit the podcast badge
  • Intro the roundtable
    • No droth or Dr. Oth
    • Louis the pug is sitting in
• Whaddaya got?
  • Kelly - Specter, Miers and Griswold
    • Team Is Preparing Miers for Tough Senate Hearing, NY Times
  • Adam - Questionnaire issues
    • T he Questionnaire
    • AFJ letter to Sen. Leahy and Sen. Specter
    • Specter-Leahy letter to Miers
  • Tim - Miers Prep
    • Blunder of the First Order, WSJ editorial excerpt via Washington Post's nomination blog
    • The Miers Support team: Gloomy, National Review
    • Miers: The Only Exit Strategy, Charles Krauthammer editorial in The Washington Post
    • A Friend in Need, Slate
• Magic 8 Ball
  • Will the White House shut down the Senate "meet and greets" between now and the hearings?
  • Will the Harriet Miers hearing provide enough common ground amongst Democrats and Republicans to cause party merger, ushering in The Era of Good Feelings 2: Electric Boogaloo?
• Close
  • Shownotes - podcast graphic on supremecourtwatch.org
  • Email - podcast@afj.org

New podcast tomorrow... welcome to everyone who's been introduced to us via the Yahoo Podcasts page!

So, onto the news as promised. First of all, Reuters (via The Washington Post in this link) is reporting that the Miers hearings will start on November 7. This makes sense, especially given Senator Frist's vow to adjourn this session of Congress by Thanksgiving. Of course, it makes less sense in terms of giving senators and the American people more time to learn more about Harriet Miers, but her public record is pretty slim, so the hearings will be our best shot to find out something. Or so we hope. If Miers fully answers questions. Hopefully she doesn't follow the precedent she set for herself on her Judiciary Committee questionnaire. Miers was asked (see question 17) what specific constitutional issues she has worked on during her time at the White House and her answer was crystal clear (and we paraphrase here): "I've worked on lots of issues. Moving on!" Oh, well, that clears it right up then.

Alliance for Justice has sent a letter to Senators Specter and Leahy reiterating the need for the Judiciary Committee to conduct thorough hearings and ask Miers substantive questions -- and demand substantive answers -- about the issues she has addressed during her time at the White House.

There was also an upsetting backtrack from Ms. Miers after her meeting with Senator Specter. The senator had reported that when he asked Miers about her views on two key cases on the constitutional right to privacy -- one of which, Griswold v. Connecticut, even Chief Justice John "I can't comment on that case" Roberts openly agreed was settled law -- she told him that she believed the cases were correctly decided. Hey! A definitive answer that gives some insight into her legal views. That's wonderf... Oh, wait. Never mind. She called the senator and said her remarks had been "misinterpreted." We should have known it was too good to be true.

So, that's the report for this morning. There's more for you, but since we're meaner than JJ Abrams* (and clearly more entertaining--Les Moonves is trying to broker a deal with us right now, in fact), we're going to leave you with a cliffhanger and get back to you when we have more solid information to report.

*We got some push-back from our pop-culture-illiterate editor on this one. For any other television philistines out there who don't feel like following the link, JJ Abrams is the creator of both Lost and Alias and master of the "What the...?" cliffhanger. Well, not so much on Alias this season, but we don't like to talk about that.

"She's a born-again Christian, owns a handgun, and headed the Texas Bar Association. I have a hard time understanding why this is a bad thing," says Ed Naile, chairman of the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers.

Outstanding... Miers hits Ed's trifecta.

• Intro
  • News views and insight on the future of the Supreme Court
  • Shownotes and blog at supremecourtwatch.org - click on the podcast badge
  • Intro the roundtable
• What do ya got?
  • Kelly - Assurances over Roe
  • Adam
    • Sen. Feinstein and cutting ties
    • Adam also mentioned the Anthony Lewis op-ed, License to Torture from The New York Times
  • Dan - B-I-N-G-O
  • Tim
    • Maureen Dowd on Chris Matthews
    • Tim also mentioned the "chummy" post here
• Magic 8 Ball
  • Will the hearings for Harriet Miers be completed before Thanksgiving?
  • If this whole Supreme Court thing doesn't work out for Harriet Miers, does she have a future in the greeting card business?
• Close
  • Shownotes - podcast badge on supremecourtwatch.org
  • Email - podcast@afj.org

  UPDATE - Late breaking news... Looks like our Magic 8 Ball predictions were right on. GOP Senators want the Miers hearings to begin on November 7. See the AP report here.

Now, if you'd like to throw a little love back at us, make sure you mention the show to your friends and family. Our numbers are already much larger than we ever imagined when we started this little dog and pont show, but we've become greedy and want an even larger audience.

Still not satisfied? Do you need to do more? Consider voting for us at Podcast Alley or Yahoo Podcasts. Thanks and have a great weekend... we're keeping an eye on the continuing developments (Miers had a glint of liberalism in the 90's? El Rushbo will love that.). Look for a new show (#25!) on Monday.

According to the poll, 29 percent say she's qualified to serve on the Supreme Court, while 24 percent think she's unqualified. Forty-six percent say they don't know enough about her.

"There is nothing to suggest that people have turned on her," [Democratic pollster Peter] Hart said. "But there is just a huge question mark behind her at this stage. She has to establish her own bona fides."

Stay tuned...

When we were little, we always really enjoyed the movie Alice in Wonderland. It was one of the first videos we owned, along with Winnie-the-Pooh and a Strawberry Shortcake number. Ah, the early ’80s. But we are not here to talk about our childhoods spent growing up in the early ’80s—sorry Freud and VH1—we are here to talk about the Miers nomination. And one thought that arises, courtesy of Lewis Carroll (yes, we DID eventually read the books), is “curiouser and curiouser.� It’s been an odd week.

The right-wing is divided against itself for the first time in… Well, perhaps since we were happily watching that Alice in Wonderland video. And all because of Harriet Miers. Many are concerned that she won’t drive their radical revolution on our nation’s highest court because she doesn’t have the conservative track-record of, say, a Priscilla Owen. So, the Bush administration has begun a charm campaign aimed at the right wing. The thing is, it’s not going quite as well as they might have hoped (even normally staunch Bush supporters like Senator Brownback are expressing reservations and some, like William Kristol of the Weekly Standard, outright opposition). And their charm campaign isn’t really all that reassuring to us, since it seems to be focused on off-the-record conversations and special treatment of certain people rather than a transparent and inclusive process. We think that Patrick Leahy should get to know just as much as James Dobson, not to mention the millions of Americans Leahy and other senators represent.

We’re also not particularly thrilled with some of the comments the reassurances are engendering. They certainly don’t make us think “Wow, check out THAT judicial independence.� We’ve heard a lot about her loyalty to the president and the way he thinks, and not anything concrete about her views and outlook. And that’s what we, the Senate, and the American people really need to know. For a look at exactly what the Bush administration has been up to in trying to sell Miers’ nomination, click here.

The Miers nomination continues to divide conservative commentators. George Will's column is a must-read today. Meanwhile the rest of us are taking a closer look at Harriet Mier's record... stay tuned!

Count Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) on the pro-Miers side however. The Washington Post's Campaign for the Supreme Court blog offered this quote from the good Senator:

"A lot of my fellow conservatives are concerned, but they don't know her as I do," said Hatch, a former Judiciary Committee chairman. "She's going to basically do what the president thinks she should, and that is be a strict constructionist."

Meanwhile, we're gearing up for the record review. Stay tuned...

"Because Ms. Miers does not have any record providing a window into her legal views, the Senate must take its advise-and-consent duties very seriously. A thorough, searching review of Ms. Miers' legal philosophy and the role she has played in some of the most controversial policies of the Bush administration is imperative. This is particularly true given what’s at stake: the balance of the Court, which has often shifted with Justice O'Connor’s vote," emphasized Aron. "The president clearly has some idea what Ms. Miers thinks. She has served by his side for more than a decade. It is now incumbent upon the Senate to obtain the information needed to let the American people know what the president does."

"We trust the Senate to do its job. It must be vigilant in ensuring that Ms. Miers, if confirmed, would meaningfully enforce the safeguards our legislatures have enacted and the rights our Constitution protects. The burden in on Harriet Miers' to demonstrate her fitness for a seat on the Supreme Court to the Senate and the American people." concluded Aron.

* * *

PODCAST UPDATE... we'll have a show for you later today on the Miers nomination. Stay tuned!