By Dana Milbank
Thursday, October 6, 2005

The woman President Bush called the most qualified person in America to sit on the Supreme Court arrived early yesterday morning for her courtesy call on Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). They talked about the weather.

"After Hurricane Katrina hit, it was 108 in Austin," the senator noted, calling it "unseasonably hot."

When Cornyn moved on to extoll the pleasures of Austin, Harriet Miers ventured her first opinion. "I agree," she said. "It's a great place."

Cornyn looked around. "What else should we talk about?" he wondered out loud.

The way things have been going since Bush nominated Miers on Monday, they'd have been well advised to stick with the weather.

Conservative columnist George Will, in yesterday morning's Post, found no evidence that Miers "possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court's tasks." At a morning meeting, conservative leaders told White House adviser Ed Gillespie of their unhappiness. And Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) told MSNBC he is "not comfortable with the nominee," asking rhetorically: "Is she the most qualified person? Clearly, the answer to that is 'no.' "

Whatever her qualifications are, Miers's optimism cannot be disputed. "We're having a good morning," she said after her first meeting, with Cornyn. By the time she arrived at her second meeting, with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), she raised the assessment. "It's a great morning, thanks very much," she said.

Miers sat silently and stiffly, hands folded in lap and legs crossed at the ankles, as Cornyn said "she fills a very real and important gap" on a Supreme Court filled with Ivy Leaguers and Beltway intellectuals. Miers nodded when the senator called her a "real leader." The pair finished their 45-minute private talk with 10 minutes to spare. After the nominee departed, Cornyn pleaded with conservatives to "reserve judgment" and promised that she has "ample qualifications" and is an "engaging person."

Cornyn, the administration's most loyal defender in the Senate, was trying to heal a rare rift between Bush and the conservative intelligentsia, which has openly challenged Miers's aptitude -- starting Monday morning, when conservative activist Manuel Miranda called her "possibly the most unqualified choice since Abe Fortas."

With understatement, Cornyn acknowledged the conundrum. "The president has disarmed some of his critics," he said, "but also made some of his supporters nervous."

Bush has also delighted late-night comics with the nomination. David Letterman came up with a "Top Ten Signs Your Supreme Court Pick Isn't Qualified" (8. "Her legal mentor: Oliver Wendell Redenbacher"). Liberal bloggers have dug up then-Sen. Roman Hruska's 1970 defense of doomed Supreme Court nominee G. Harrold Carswell: "[T]here are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. Aren't they entitled to a little representation and a little chance?"

Paying her call on Leahy yesterday, Miers again found herself in a meteorological colloquy. She wanted to know whether the leaves were changing in Vermont. "This weekend was especially nice," Leahy informed her, suggesting the assembled photographers all visit his home state.

This prompted the nominee's second publicly expressed opinion of the day. "They'd probably love to," she wagered.

After their session, Leahy did his best to increase the conservatives' worry. He said Miers assured him that she had "absolutely not" authorized anybody to say that she would oppose legal abortion. Leahy made the point twice more, and then his staff sent an e-mail to reporters calling attention to it. The senator pronounced himself "impressed" and "happy" with Miers's disavowals.

Next, Miers took her show to the office of Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), who has irked conservatives on judiciary issues. DeWine, after an hour-long meeting, called the nominee humane, compassionate and "one tough woman." Still, DeWine allowed, "I did not ask about where she was on specific issues."

Outside the Senate Republicans' weekly lunch gathering, conservatives who normally welcomed the microphones did their best to avoid reporters. Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.), almost sprinting out of the lunch, was tackled by reporters and found to be uncharacteristically shy. "I don't know her," he demurred, "so I can't express anything, positive or negative."

An attempt by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) to race past reporters was thwarted when a correspondent for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette leaped into his path. Santorum said he was "trying to get more comfortable with the nomination" and then continued past the roadblock.

Inside the closed-door GOP luncheon, anxious conservatives gave visiting White House advisers an earful. In the corridor outside, Gillespie appealed for calm. Lawmakers "have more questions" about Miers, he told reporters, but "this is not uncommon." As they learn about Miers, "people are getting excited about her confirmation," Gillespie said.

But excitement was not the emotion expressed by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), addressing another clump of reporters just 10 feet from Gillespie. "There's just a lot of angst," he said of his colleagues. "The uncertainty out there is palpable."