Harriet Miers Watch: Miers Will Keep Visiting Senators

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, left, meets with Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2005, in Washington.

The ASSociated Press has Miers Will Keep Visiting Senators.

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers will continue meeting with senators next week, the White House said Friday, despite calls from some conservatives who said the courtesy visits aren’t helping and she should focus instead on preparing for her confirmation hearing.

“She’s done about 25 visits so far, and she’s got about a dozen next week,” White House spokesman Jim Dyke said Friday. “We get advice on a regular basis from outside groups. It doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”

In a conference call Thursday, some conservatives suggested Miers should stop calling on senators, saying that the visits, which have included some strategic stumbles on her part, have not been helping the White House counsel’s nomination as the replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

The conservatives on the call were airing their views to Leonard Leo, who is on leave as executive vice president of the Federalist Society to help the White House shepherd Miers’ nomination through the Senate.

While those discussions were going on, “we were adding congressional visits to her already established schedule for next week,” Dyke said.

What stumbles?

And why shouldn’t Miers continue her meeting with the Senators that will vote for her confirmation? It is more than a courtesy. The Senate deserves a personal one on one meet with the nominee. The Senators will make their own assessments of Miers. Flap really doesn’t need to hear it from sulking pundits who are pissed that they did not get their OWN way and who do NOT have a vote (thank God).

The conservative and left-wing carping at her every move is starting to become shrill for Flap. The pundits are portraying her as “unqualified” or a “blunder”, stupid or having poor punctuation.

Miers has faced attacks from both sides of the political spectrum — most notably from the president’s conservative allies — though none of the Senate’s majority Republicans has come out against her.
President Bush’s claim that she is the most qualified candidate has been roundly criticized by conservatives who wanted him to look to conservative federal judges like Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown.

Bush said Thursday that Miers’ confirmation process will show a “competent, strong, capable woman who shares the same judicial philosophy that I share.”

Miers has faced some criticism this week from senators, with some complaining that she has been vague in their private meetings with her and others complaining about her answers to a written questionnaire that the Judiciary Committee sent her.

“I would say that to this point Ms. Miers’ efforts to win support have not been successful,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a member of the Judiciary Committee, on Thursday.

And who cares what Senator Dick Durbin has to say? He will vote against her anyway.

Miers should continue her visit with Senators, prepare for the hearings and the pundits should just relax.

If they want her confirmation to fail, then formally oppose her.

NOTE: NO Republican Senators have broken ranks with the President and have formally opposed her confirmation.

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