Posted on 10/03/2005 5:19:55 AM PDT by Former Military Chick
Oct. 3, 2005 — Harriet Ellan Miers is White House counsel and was formerly President Bush's personal lawyer in Texas. She first served in the White House as staff secretary and was deputy chief of staff before she was named counsel upon Alberto Gonzales' transition to attorney general.
When he was the governor of Texas, Bush once publicly introduced Miers as a "pit bull in size 6 shoes."
Born and raised in Dallas, Miers earned her undergraduate degree in mathematics and her law degree from Southern Methodist University. In addition to her legal career, she served one term on the Dallas City Council.
Miers, 60, broke barriers for women throughout her career. She reportedly was the first woman hired by the prestigious Dallas law firm Locke Purnell Boren Laney & Neely, where she became a successful commercial litigator. She also became the first female president of the Dallas Bar Association in 1985 and was the first woman elected president of the Texas Bar Association in 1992.
Miers met Bush in the 1980s, according to published reports, and she was counsel for his 1994 campaign for governor. He appointed her chair of the Texas Lottery Commission in 1995.
Miers then was president of Locke, Purnell, Rain & Harrell and co-managing partner of Locke Liddell & Sapp before she joined the White House in 2001.
In addition, Miers was named one of the Top 50 Most Influential Lawyers by the National Law Journal in 1998, and she received numerous other awards from groups including the Dallas Women Lawyers Association, the Anti-Defamation League and the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers.
I'm not sure that's our BEST option. My Senator is coburn... I kinda hope he votes against the confirmation.
Chrissy Matthews on MSNBC now looking sick. Says Dems will try and block (fillibuster) Miers. Feeling better everyone?
#236
Thank you. Some mathematicians can't even be trusted to button their shirts correctly.
I agree that we're trying to nominate people who will interpret the constitution and uphold the rule of law. I'm just not sure we need to leave that to chance when there are known quanitites out there. Our president has left us with a "trust me" candidate. And our president is a politician, like all other presidents.
Instead I have this feeling he's trying to mislead us for whatever reason.
Excellent response. I voted for GW because I trust him. He has not let me down. CFR was sent to him by the Congress when he warned them he would sign it. Not his fault.
Iraq is exactly what I expected and what he told us. A long hard fight. Same for the WOT.
Roberts was a brilliant choice. He put the Dems in a quandary, and it looks like we got a solid conservative for Chief Justice out of the deal.
Every budget he has submitted has called for restraint. Congress has overridden him. You generally don't veto your own party on the budget.
The same ones of FR that scream at him for not being more fiscally responsible are the same ones screaming to spend God only knows what to close the border.
He has consistently moved this country in a conservative direction. That apparently is just not enough for many of the more fundamentalist posters here!
Got a better idea? The Dems will beat the snot out of anyone that they can find ANY objection to. Making you and I feel good about the nominee will reveal that which will fling the Dems into a rage that will scare enough Repubs into squashing the nomination.
So long as she IS the right candidate, whether we know it or not, is fine. Sometimes getting things done means not letting everyone in on the details.
She donated to Gore's campaign. Enough said.
I agree with that. The only problem is that there aren't "do overs". Does she really seem like the right candidate to you?? I hope she is. But I'm going to encourage my senator to vote against her just in case she isn't. It's to important to be a "trust me" nomination.
I try to show respect to my seniors here... but she pushed-my-buttons with that gender comment.
Go Yanks!
In 1988. Since then she's donated heavily to Republicans. Enough said.
Eisenhower didn't know Warren for 10 years before nominating him either.
First, it is helpful to understand the conditions in the Senate. After the contentious fights over court nominees and the much-discussed compromise, several senators, including Susan Collins, asked the President to not send a controversial nominee. In better times he could afford to ignore Ms. Collins, but since so many of the conservative pundits and elected officials jumped on the Bash Bush Bandwagon over Katrina, the President's approval ratings have gone down which makes Congress nervous, being the cowards that they are. Meiers' nomination is partially their fault.
Now, what I think is that Ms. Meiers is a stealth nominee. If you look at her life history, there is much to say that she will be a strict constructionist.
She has an undergraduate degree in mathematics, which points to a logical mind which looks at facts, not feelings. She has been actively involved in two Christian ministries. She worked to overturn the pro-chooice position of the ABA. She has donated to pro-life candidates, including one from outside the state of Texas.
She has specialized in corporate law, which means she won't actively work against business. She has conducted herself with integrity as has been attested to by a great many people.
She worked her way up in her profession without any connections, in an era in which women were not universally respected as having the qualities to be decent attorneys.
And most importantly, it has been Harriet Meiers who ha vetted many of the candidates who have been praised on this board...Brown, Owens, Estrada, etc.
She is probably not the best person he could have named; she is the best person who he could have named who is conservative and who could get confirmed.
I think you summed it up just right here. As other posters have noted, who else could we have voted for? Kerry? I am very uneasy about this, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel on President Bush just yet. He is asking his base to take a big leap of faith here; I hope we're going to have a safe landing. Definitely there are troubling signs, but we do not know the full outcome yet. Let's hope your prayers (and those of so many others) are being answered, even if that fact isn't clear to us today.
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