Harriet: Maybe More Than a Crony
Guess who supports Miers

The proverbial light bulb flashed for me this morning while reading an article in the Christian Science Monitor online. Many people have been asking why Bush would nominate Miers and alienate the Religious Right. Now it seems the only ones excited by Harriet are business leaders. Maybe the evangelicals will finally get it and realize Bush’s primary allegiance at all times has been to his wealthy buddies. Their interests are the only ones that have had sustained strong support by this child of privilege sitting in the Oval Office. Just as the Democrats during Reconstruction (and Republicans following the civil rights movement of the 1960s) used race to get poor whites to vote against their economic interests, the Bushies now use religion to accomplish the same end.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1012/p04s02-usju.html?s=t5

The president's nomination of Harriet Miers is a good pick for the US
Supreme Court," said Chamber President and CEO Thomas Donohue in a statement
just after her nomination on Oct. 3. "She has a reputation of getting things
done and her diverse experience at the state and federal levels will be
essential in guiding the court on an array of business and other
issues."

Before joining Bush's inner circle during his years as Texas
governor, Miers headed a corporate law firm in Dallas. Her former clients
include Microsoft Corp., which she defended from a class-action suit, and the
Walt Disney Company, for whom she handled a trademark infringement case.
But her experience in trying cases in court, former colleagues say, doesn't capture
her specialty, which was keeping cases out of the courts - and the
headlines.

"Harriet has a wealth of experience in counseling corporations in
responding to not only matters that have been filed, either in court or in
arbitration, but matters that have been threatened to be brought to suit," says
Tom Connop, a partner in the firm of Locke, Liddell & Sapp, where Miers
became the first female managing partner.

Not since Richard Nixon tapped Lewis Powell in 1971 has a president picked nominees with as much corporate experience as Chief Justice Roberts and, more recently, Miers. A corporate lawyer, Powell served on the boards of 11 corporations. Like Miers, he had not been a judge prior to his nomination

"In looking at his tenure on the court, he repeatedly demonstrated a real sensitivity and understanding of the problems that business faces when it is involved in litigation," says Stephen Bokat, executive vice president of the National Chamber Litigation Center.