Democrats warn on next pick
WASHINGTON -- Democrats argued yesterday that the right wing of the Republican Party had pressured Harriet E. Miers to withdraw her nomination to the Supreme Court, and sent a message to an embattled President Bush that he should not pick a conservative ideologue to appease his political base.
''Whether we're going to have a political battle or a political struggle is all in the hands of the president of the United States," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who is a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. ''If the president wants a political struggle, a political battle, he can have one here."
Miers's withdrawal buoyed conservatives, who were unsure of her judicial philosophy, and also Democrats, who seemed to have been pleased at the spectacle of a Republican Party engaged in internal struggle. But like Kennedy, many Democrats seemed to be bracing for a fight against a more openly conservative nominee.
''The radical, unrelenting right wing of the Republican Party killed the Harriet Miers nomination. Apparently, Ms. Miers did not satisfy those who want to pack the Supreme Court with rigid ideologues," said Senate minority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who had supported her nomination.
''In choosing a replacement for Ms. Miers, President Bush should not reward the bad behavior of his right-wing base" and ''should reject the demands of a few right-wing extremists," Reid said.
While Democrats were careful not to openly threaten a filibuster over a nominee whom they do not like, they warned that a controversial pick would cause headaches for a White House saddled with low presidential approval ratings and faced with the possibility that a White House aide might be charged in the alleged leak of the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
''If the president caves in to the radical right wing of the Republican Party, I'm afraid we're in for a terrible nomination process here," said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.
While most Democrats had never been excited about Miers's nomination, they largely avoided criticizing her. They left that to conservatives in the president's party. Yesterday, Democrats accused conservative groups of having applied a ''litmus test" to Miers's nomination, and said that she had not been given a ''fair hearing" in the Senate.
Republicans sought to portray Miers's decision as a matter of personal integrity, saying Miers had preferred to avoid a conflict over congressional demands for White House documents that the administration said would compromise the president's ability to confer confidentially with his staff. Democrats and a few Republicans on Capitol Hill had sought the papers, they said, in an effort to figure out the judicial philosophy of the White House counsel, who has no judicial record.
But even Republican loyalists acknowledged that Miers had been hampered by an attack by social conservatives who had called for her withdrawal.
''What some went so far to suggest is, 'We want someone who will rule in a particular way.' I would say that is an unprincipled position," said Senator John Cornyn, a Republican who supported Miers, a fellow Texan.
Further, Miers did not dazzle senators during her visits to the Capitol.
That problem was amplified by the fact that senators were greatly impressed with Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who was approved overwhelmingly last month after a speedy nomination process.
''She had the misfortune of having to follow someone who set a new standard for confirmation," said former senator Dan Coats, an Indiana Republican who was shepherding Miers around the Hill for the White House.
''For some reason, from day one, [Miers] just didn't seem to fit," said Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican who had offered qualified support for the nomination but then grew skeptical.
Other congressional Republicans, who have usually acquiesced to White House proposals, are showing signs of rebellion in Bush's second term. Conservatives were lukewarm about the Miers nomination, and some are less willing to go to the mat for a White House on the defensive because of the war in Iraq, high gas prices, and the Plame investigation. 