Nomination Was Plagued By Missteps From the Start

As Bush thought about the next opening he would have to fill, he focused increasingly on Miers. He had already settled on three criteria, according to a Republican lawyer close to the selection process: He wanted a conservative, a woman and a nominee who would be confirmed as successfully as Roberts was. The next nominee needed to be someone who would follow Roberts's lead as part of a new voting bloc that would steer the court to the right, not necessarily an independent figure with a long track record.

But as other possible female candidates either asked not to be considered or were ruled out for various reasons, Miers looked better and better. "There was one person left standing," the Republican lawyer said. It was a back-channel process. Since Miers was in charge of the selection apparatus, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. instructed Miers's deputy, William Kelley, to secretly vet her. She was not told she was a candidate until two weeks before her nomination, and no one had done a thorough search of her background to turn up past writings and speeches that would later become public.

Recognizing that conservatives might not find Miers exciting, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove tried to lock up a few important figures who would back her, mainly James C. Dobson, head of the evangelical Focus on the Family. As Dobson later recalled it, Rove assured him "that Harriet Miers is an evangelical Christian [and] that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life."

That was enough for Dobson, and Dobson's blessing was enough for Rove.

Dismay on the Right

The morning of Oct. 3, Manuel A. Miranda, leader of a group called the Third Branch Conference that pushes for conservative judges, woke up before dawn. He flipped on his computer and found an e-mail that a friend had sent at 6:06 a.m. with an Associated Press headline reporting that Bush would nominate Miers to the court.

A lawyer who had worked on judicial nominations for Frist before stepping down two years ago while under investigation for reading Democratic documents, Miranda had by this time heard Miers's name mentioned as a possible choice for about a week. "I thought it was a joke," he recalls. "I dismissed it as some sycophant floating her name just to get their own nomination some day."

By 7:32 a.m., half an hour before Bush would go on television to announce his choice, Miranda tapped out a quick note to his e-mail list that said, "I fear the president has made the worse [sic] choice I could have imagined." At 8:12, two minutes before Bush would finish introducing his nominee, Miranda sent out a second dispatch: "The reaction of many conservatives today will be that the president has made possibly the most unqualified choice since Abe Fortas, who had been the president's lawyer."

By happenstance, William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, was already scheduled to appear on Fox News Channel, and he did not hold back. "I think it's politically risky and I think it sends a bad signal," he declared. After returning to his office, he posted a more stinging assessment on the magazine's Web site, pronouncing himself "disappointed, depressed and demoralized."

Others followed, including former Bush speechwriter David Frum, columnists Charles Krauthammer and George Will, former judge Robert H. Bork, radio host Rush Limbaugh, and a coterie of activists. "Things started to run out of control," said a Republican strategist working for her nomination.

In the past, the White House had been able to tamp down conservative unrest over Bush policies on federal spending, Medicare and immigration. But Rove, the president's chief enforcer and ambassador to the right, was recalled to appear before the grand jury investigating the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name, and insiders differ over how involved he really was able to be.

Other aides were occupied with matters related to the leak case as well, including Miers deputy Kelley. Former senator Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.), who helped shepherd Roberts to confirmation, bowed out for Miers because of work commitments, and Steve Schmidt, a White House counselor who also worked on Roberts, left for Iraq for several weeks.

With Bush at a low ebb in the polls and conservatives itching for a champion on the court, years of frustration boiled over public view. "The White House didn't understand the independence of the conservative movement," Kristol said. Usually, he said, "the White House rolls out the big guns and everyone pretty much falls in line." But a call from Rove left him unpersuaded this time. "What this shows is that for conservatives, the Supreme Court is so central" they were unwilling to stay silent.