Court nominee deserves fair hearing

According to the pundits, President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court because he wanted to avoid a fight with his base over his first choice, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

If that is the case, then President Bush badly miscalculated.

Miers, who had been working as the president's White House counsel, has proven to be a pint-sized pinata since accepting the president's nomination to fill the big shoes of Sandra Day O'Connor.

The president's supposed supporters on the right have been whacking Miers almost daily as unqualified, unprepared and unacceptable, while Democrats have been happily standing by to pick up the pieces.

It makes for amusing political theater, but what exactly does the conservative movement think it is accomplishing by ganging up on the president's nominee?

First, it serves to weaken the president even further at a crucial juncture in his second-term when he could be reduced to Jimmy Carter-like ineffectiveness. Don't forget: The president already has fallen to his lowest point of popularity, thanks to growing opposition to the war in Iraq, the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the plain cussedness of the fickle American public.

Second, it strengthens the hand of the Democratic minority in the Senate, who now might be able to leverage enough Republican votes to actually stop the president's nomination of an avowed pro-life evangelical Christian to be the swing vote on the Supreme Court.

Third, it turns a potential friendly vote on the court into a potential enemy. Miers, like all justices, would be expected to remain impartial in deciding cases, but you have to wonder whether the bum's rush she has been given so far by such right-wing luminaries as George Will and Ann Coulter will leave a bad taste in her mouth if she eventually prevails and is confirmed for the high court.

So what exactly does the right hope to gain? A sure vote against Roe vs. Wade? That's not possible to get with any candidate who is qualified for the bench in the first place. The facts must be judged when the case is presented, not before.

A constitutional scholar? That's fine. Then they should amend the Constitution to make that a requirement for holding the office. In the meantime, Harriet Miers' long legal career, her service in government, and the president's confidence in her all combine to make her a proper candidate. Talk of withdrawing her nomination should stop immediately, and the Senate Judiciary Committee should schedule hearings as soon as possible. That is the proper forum to gauge Ms. Miers on her intellect, her character and her legal knowledge, not the rancorous rants that take place nightly on the cable TV news channels.

So maybe President Bush miscalculated, but his friends in the Republican Party may have miscalculated more. The president has little to lose. If the Miers nomination is defeated, he goes back to the drawing board and starts over again. His place in history will likely have more to do with the outcome in Iraq than any vote on the Supreme Court.

But if the conservative stalwarts have made a misstep, they could be paying the price for years to come. Regardless of whether Miers is ever approved for the bench, the unyielding, unsympathetic approach of those who ambushed her may leave a sour taste that could cost the GOP dearly in the mid-term elections and beyond.