Opinion: Harriet, we hardly knew ye

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Harriet E. Miers, who has announced that she is resigning as White House counsel, will be no more than a footnote to history (and, if she’s lucky, a question on ‘Jeopardy!’).

But it could have been different. Really. If Bush hadn’t withdrawn Miers’ name from consideration for a seat on the Supreme Court in 2005, she very well might have been confirmed by a coalition of Bush loyalists and hopeful Democrats. In that event, lawyers, journalists and scholars would be poring (or puzzling) over her opinions for years to come.

Alas, the very quality in Miers that appealed to Bush — loyalty to him, sometimes expressed in gushing terms — led her to fall on her sword when her nomination angered social conservatives. Now she has left the counsel’s office to be replaced by Fred Fielding, an A list Washington attorney with the right stuff to deal with a Democratic Congress.

But let’s take a last look at Miers. Her brief time in the Washington limelight made everyone concerned look bad.

Miers herself had to put up with scathing attacks on her credentials and armchair psychology about her unmarried status and religious odyssey. Then there was the White House’s clumsy attempt to play the religion card by publicizing the fact that Miers belonged to an evangelical church.

Bush, who rightly took pride in nominating über-jurist Judge John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice, flip-flopped in his approach to Supreme Court nominations by turning to Miers, a crony from Texas who, while a respected lawyer, was not remotely in Roberts’ league. For many women, Bush added insult to injury by suggesting that Miers was the best female candidate available, ignoring the impressive bench of female federal judges named by both Republican and Democratic presidents.

Finally, the Miers episode showed that some Senate Democrats were just as fickle and unprincipled in their approach to Supreme Court appointments as Bush was.

Whatever one thinks of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s philosophy, his professional and academic credentials — like those of Roberts and Bill Clinton’s two appointees to the court — were first rate. If another Supreme Court vacancy occurs on Bush’s watch, he should look for someone (male or female) of similar stature.

And when Bush says goodbye to the woman he once called ‘a pit bull in size 6 shoes,’ he should apologize for putting her through this ordeal before yanking the leash.