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BILL ADAIR and WES ALLISONAfter Harriet Miers, President Bush looks for a nominee who can satisfy an emboldened right and still hopeful left.
WASHINGTON - President Bush withdrew the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers Thursday and began searching for a candidate who is conservative enough to satisfy the vocal right wing of the Republican Party, but who can still win confirmation in the Senate.
Miers' withdrawal had been anticipated but came abruptly in a letter to Bush released early Thursday morning. Just the night before, she submitted a second set of answers to a questionnaire from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had been dissatisfied with the first.
Officially, the Bush administration said Miers chose to withdraw because the Senate was demanding documents she wrote or supervised while working in the White House, in hopes of understanding her judicial philosophy. The White House considered the papers confidential.
"It is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House - disclosures that would undermine a president's ability to receive candid counsel," Bush said.
But the decision was as much about politics as executive power. Miers got a lukewarm response when Bush announced the nomination on Oct. 3 and the situation never improved. Many Republicans complained that she was not qualified for the nation's highest court and lacked a solid conservative record to show how she would behave on the bench. Two groups set up Web sites urging her to withdraw. One began airing TV ads against her.
The withdrawal gives Bush an opportunity to get back in the good graces of conservatives, who were surprisingly rebellious in their treatment of Miers. But the politically weakened president faces a delicate balancing act between the demands of the emboldened right and the still hopeful left.
The administration's retreat was a major victory for conservative activists who had been dismayed - even angered - by what they perceived as Miers' lack of experience and conservative intellectual heft.
While some influential evangelical leaders, including Pat Robertson and James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, had vouched for her because of her deep Christian faith, that wasn't enough for those who thought the job should go to a proven jurist with a record of advocating for strict interpretations of the U.S. Constitution.
Many right-leaning opinion leaders, from Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund to David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, had wanted a nominee in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court's most conservative members. Conservatives felt it was their due, for playing a vital role in Bush's re-election.
Miers was not that person, and over the past three weeks conservatives hectored White House emissaries who were sent to pacify them. Even Thursday, still running on the fumes of their discontent, conservative leaders pelted Miers' nomination as a "debacle," an "unfortunate incident," a "mistake" - tough criticism from a bloc that had always fallen in step behind the president.
"The court is not a place for workaday lawyers," said Roger Pilon, a former Reagan administration official and vice president for legal affairs for the libertarian Cato Institute. "The court is a job for people who are immersed in the history and intellectual foundations of the Constitution."
Jan LaRue, chief counsel for the Concerned Women for America, a conservative, Christian-based advocacy group, said she's "always delighted to hear that someone shares my faith in Christ," but it was "patronizing and disturbing" that the White House believed that was enough to win support for Miers.
Whatever backing Miers had fell away this week, after revelations that she had suggested in 1993 that abortion may be a matter for "self-determination." Even Dobson, a rare public defender, said her withdrawal was for the best.
"Based on what we now know about Miss Miers, it appears that we would not have been able to support her candidacy," Dobson said in a statement. "Thankfully, that difficult evaluation is no longer necessary."
Miers' nomination was only the latest example of the president trying to draw from a conservative bank of goodwill without making the appropriate deposits. Many are still irritated at his support for big federal spending, especially on the $795-billion prescription drug benefit for Medicare, and at his signing of a campaign finance reform bill limiting political contributions, which many conservatives see as a restriction on free speech.
Getting them back will take work, and conservative leaders see the president's capitulation on Miers as an opportunity to demand the moon.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a leading conservative who withheld his approval on Miers, was straightforward about the things he wanted: "A good conservative jurist faithful to the Constitution and some help in pushing our spending cuts and strong backing for a constitutional amendment on marriage would be three good ones."
But nothing would show Bush cares like delivering the right Supreme Court nominee. Conservative leaders say that's essential if the president hopes to win back their trust.
"The people who have been advocating a conservative agenda clearly understand the importance of this moment," said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council. "This nominee cannot be someone that's an unknown."
On Thursday, conservatives warned the White House against nominating someone simply because he or she will be acceptable to Senate Democrats, even if it means a major political fight or threats of filibuster.
"The conservative base's ability to re-establish its trust in the president is up to the president," said Bill Lauderback, executive vice president of the American Conservative Union.
Democrats said just the opposite. "In choosing the next nominee, he should listen to all Americans, not just the far right," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. "If he does, we can have a smooth and dignified confirmation process and avoid the kind of harsh battle that the extremists on the right seem bent on provoking."
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., warned that "if the president continues to listen to the extreme wing of his party, it can only spell trouble for his presidency and America."
Bush faces a difficult choice.
Because his nominee would replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the court, he has been urged to pick a woman. But he might want to cement his place in history by picking the first Hispanic justice, or opt for a senator such as John Cornyn of Texas, who offers conservative credentials but would have an easier confirmation.
On Thursday, Republican senators suggested federal judges such as J. Michael Luttig, J. Harvie Wilkinson III, Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and Karen Williams. Another name being mentioned by Floridians is state Supreme Court Justice Raoul G. Cantero. The judges have established records and might win easier support from conservatives. But in choosing Miers, Bush said he liked the idea of putting someone on the Supreme Court who has not been a judge.
Miers will return as White House counsel and oversee the selection of judicial nominees.
Bush said he would propose a new nominee "in a timely manner," but he did not give a timetable. Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist held out the possibility of confirmation hearings before Christmas.
David Bookbinder, a senior attorney with the Sierra Club, predicted the nomination would come next week. "If indictments come down (in the Plame case today), they are going to want to distract public attention from that."