The Two Knocks on Miers

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Her most direct encounter with the life of a judge came after graduating, when she clerked for two years for District Court Judge Joe Estes--in part, says a classmate, because she didn't get many good job offers. But at the end of her two years with him, Estes called a big Dallas firm then known as Locke Purnell to say it should hire her. She rose as a corporate litigator representing clients like Disney and Microsoft, and soon there was glass all over the floor wherever she walked: first female president of the firm, president of the Dallas bar, then the Texas state bar. Shy but firm, precise to a fault, "she's unfailingly graceful about the fact that she beats you," as a courtroom opponent put it.

Like 41 of the 109 Justices in American history, Miers has never been a judge. And she does not make up for that, critics say, with other valuable experience. She was never a law professor, like William Douglas; her one unremarkable term on the Dallas city council does not match Earl Warren's three terms as Governor of California or the 27 Justices who had served in Congress; she wasn't even a leading appellate lawyer, like noted L.B.J. crony nominee Abe Fortas. "This is one of the slimmest résumés in the history of the court," says Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law scholar at George Washington University who puts Miers on a par with infamous Truman cronies Harold Burton and Sherman Minton. Her defenders argue that she has valuable experience in business and practical politics. "In a big law firm," says her S.M.U. classmate Gary Rice, "it's like herding cats sometimes. She will be great at finding consensus." But, of course, that would be a problem for people who don't see consensus as a virtue.

•THE RELIABILITY QUESTION

Marvin Olasky, the sometime Bush adviser and godfather of compassionate conservatism, sees the debate over Miers as being between those who wanted an "intellectual leader" and those who want "a suffering servant" who will follow her heart. The question of who Harriet Miers really is cloaks the real concern about who she will become once she has her lifetime seat on the bench. "There is a strong tendency for Republican nominees to shift to the left when they get to the court," said Bush's former speechwriter David Frum, "and the people most vulnerable to this are those who are not fully prepared."

Miers has served Bush faithfully ever since she worked as his counsel when he ran for Governor in 1994. Once elected, he appointed her to fix the scandal-ridden Texas Lottery Commission. Her first post at the White House was staff secretary, responsible for looking over every piece of paper that crossed the President's desk. Some staff members could get frustrated with her meticulousness: she was prone, said a colleague, "to make the perfect the enemy of the good." But Bush found in her many of the qualities he prizes: loyalty, toughness, an allergy to the limelight, a fierce work ethic. When White House counsel Alberto Gonzales moved over to become Attorney General, she took his place. "She's one of those people whom I think Washington has had a hard time figuring out," says Merrie Spaeth, director of media relations in the Reagan White House, who has known Miers for 20 years. "She is incredibly smart and driven, like a Condi Rice, but she doesn't smash you in the face with it."