President Bush’s Rose Garden defense of Harriet Miers yesterday hinged on his personal acquaintance with a critical piece of her anatomy: her heart.
“I know her character, I know her strength, I know her talent, and I know she’s going to be a fine judge,” was the almost sing-song refrain reporters heard again and again from the president yesterday. The word “character” was mentioned at least eight times, by our count (“It’s one thing to say a person can read the law — and that’s important … But what also matters is the intangibles. To me a person’s strength of character counts a lot. And as a result of my friendship with Harriet, I know her strength of character.”)
Considering that the highlights of Miers’ career include heading the Texas Lottery Commission and sitting on the Dallas City Council, it’s no mystery why the president would want to shift the focus away from her resumé and onto her chest cavity.
The administration, it seems, wants the press use a stethoscope to examine Miers, not a scalpel.
And to judge from the A1 pieces in the New York Times and the Washington Post today, that’s exactly what they’re doing.
According to the Times, the White House made available yesterday Miers’ sometime boyfriend, Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan L. Hecht: “To persuade the right to embrace Ms. Miers’ selection despite her lack of a clear record on social issues, representatives of the White House put Justice Hecht on at least one conference call with influential social conservative organizers on Monday to talk about her faith and character.”
In addition to putting Hecht on the phone with conservatives, the White House also evidently put him on the phone with journalists, because his testimony about the state of Miers’ heart lead both articles. And what insight he offered was pretty paltry. Miers’ midlife conversion to evangelical Christianity came along with this realization, provided via Hecht: “I’m convinced that life begins at conception.”
Okay, fine. That would have been easy enough to infer just from looking at what church she belongs to. And, as Judge Hecht points out himself, “You can be just as pro-life as the day is long and can decide the Constitution requires Roe” to be upheld.
All we really learn from these pieces is that Miers’ faith has made that heart of hers more red than blue. Instead of giving us any better understanding of the nominee’s character — or any sense of how she might rule on critical issues — the people quoted in the article, besides Hecht, point more to Miers being a shrinking violet than to anything else.
“Harriet didn’t really distinguish herself,” was the flattering assessment of Domingo Garcia, who served with Miers on the Dallas City Council. “She wasn’t a leader and wasn’t furniture. She was in between.”
Or how about this from her high school classmate, Ron Natinsky: “She was almost an unseen person at school.”
And we couldn’t ignore this stunning vote of confidence from Vickie Wilson, the office manager at Miers’ church: “She never took a role where she was trying to stand out front. She put herself in servant roles, making coffee every Sunday morning and putting doughnuts out.”
But wait. The Post does offer one fresh tidbit: She is not a good singer. “Let’s just say she makes a joyful noise unto the Lord,” a fellow church member reveals.
The Times and the Post are going to have to do more than rely on a source the White House itself has been passing around like a tray of cookies. And, no matter what the president says, efforts to unlock Miers’ — or anyone’s — heart aren’t likely to bear fruit. Members of the press would do better to get on the phone and start calling brain surgeons, because there’s another part of Miers’ body we need to learn about.
–Gal Beckerman
Gal Beckerman is a former staff writer at CJR and a writer and editor for the New York Times Book Review.