WASHINGTON — After a blistering week, the White House is scrambling to control a conservative uprising over the nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court, with President Bush pitching his choice directly to the public on Saturday as his Republican allies plotted strategy to shore up support.
"Harriet Miers will be the type of judge I said I would nominate: a good conservative judge," Bush said in his weekly radio address. He added, "When she goes before the Senate, I am confident that all Americans will see what I see every day: Harriet Miers is a woman of intelligence, strength and conviction."
It was the third time since he picked Miers on Monday that the president has come to her defense. His remarks came as the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee — who will preside over the Miers confirmation hearings and who has called her "intellectually able" — offered a blunt assessment that was yet another sign that the nomination was in trouble on Capitol Hill. "She needs more than murder boards," the chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview, referring to the mock question-and-answer sessions that most nominees use to prepare for their confirmation hearings. "She needs a crash course in constitutional law."
A week ago, Republicans were saying they looked forward to a new Supreme Court nominee because it would give them something to rally around, providing a welcome distraction from the Bush administration's problems. But the nomination of Miers only served to roil a party that is already divided over domestic matters like Social Security and how to pay to rebuild the Gulf Coast.
Now, having alienated his conservative backers, Bush must go forward on the Miers nomination alone, without the help of many of the advocates who led the charge for the last nominee, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
Behind the scenes, Republican allies of the White House said they were trying to put together a public relations strategy to combat the mounting criticism over the Miers nomination. The effort, they said, would include administration officials, the Republican National Committee and conservative advocates who will carry onto television, talk radio and other forums the message that Miers, the White House counsel and a close confidante of the president, is a strong choice and that Bush will stand firmly behind her.
They said the White House was working to assemble a dossier that would back up its case about Miers' record of accomplishment, her legal qualifications and her conservative credentials.
After Bush campaigned on a promise that he would choose justices in the mold of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, two of the court's most reliable conservatives, the selection of Miers, the White House counsel, has infuriated conservatives, who have bitterly assailed her as a crony who lacks the proper credentials, as well as a clear record on some of the most important social issues of the day, including abortion, gay marriage and religion in public life.