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Mr. Rath didn't return my calls, and local sources say he is laying low now that reporters have uncovered his key role in pushing the nomination of David Souter in 1990. "It was Rath and [then-Sen. Warren] Rudman who convinced [then White House chief of staff] John Sununu to back Souter," recalls Gordon Humphrey, a former U.S. senator from the Granite State who at the time supported Judge Souter as a member of the Judiciary Committee.......

Another reason for conservative suspicion is that it was Mr. Card, a former moderate Massachusetts state legislator, who pushed the Miers choice. "This is something that Andy and the president cooked up," a White House adviser told Time magazine. "Andy knew it would appeal to the president because he loves appointing his own people and being supersecret and stealthy about it." Conservatives still recall that in the White House of the first President Bush, Mr. Card was deputy chief of staff to Mr. Sununu, the prime backer of Judge Souter. Mr. Card told me on Friday that "it would be a complete exaggeration to say I played a role in the Souter selection. I merely supported his nomination as I did all presidential appointments."

Ed Rollins, the GOP consultant who at the time headed the House Republican Campaign Committee and who was Mr. Card's boss in the Reagan White House, remembers it differently. "Of course Andy played a role," he told me. "He was Sununu's top aide." Two other aides who served with Mr. Card in the White House told me he was an enthusiastic backer of the Souter selection. "Now that he's brought us Miers we worry that 15 years later Andy is playing the role of a Serial Souterizer," one said.

Wonderful. The one who pushed Souter is sent to arm twist conservative Senators, and now a new detail I was unaware of.... Mr. Card was deputy chief of staff to Mr. Sununu. It just keeps getting better.