Supreme Court confirmation battles usually involve excavations of the nominee's judicial opinions, legal briefs and decades-old government memos. Harriet Miers is the first nominee to hit trouble because of thank-you letters. Miers's paper trail may be relatively short, but it makes plain that her climb through Texas legal circles and into George W. Bush's inner circle was aided by a penchant for cheerful personal notes. Years later, even some of her supporters are cringing -- and her opponents are viciously making merry -- at the public disclosure of this correspondence and other writings from the 1990s. Bush may have enjoyed...