STEADYING THE SHIP

by MONITOR
THE supreme importance of the Supreme Court of the United States symbolises one of the major constitutional differences between America and Britain. President Bush's recent appointment of Judge John Roberts as Chief Justice was something of a surprise given his relative obscurity but his further decision, made last Monday, to appoint Harriet Miers to the remaining vacancy on the Court was totally unexpected. Ms Miers, a Texan aged 60, has been a loyal legal adviser to Mr Bush since the 1980s and White House counsel since November last year. The thing that stuck out a mile to those unfamiliar with appointments to the Suprteme Court was that Ms Miers has never been a judge but the White House was quick to point out that 20 previous Supreme Court appointments had never served as judges before being named, including William Rehnquist, the Chief Justice who died in September after serving on the Court since 1972. What has become clear in the past few days is that Mr Bush wanted to find someone without much on-the-record judicial form who would not be faulted during the tough Congressional approval hearings. In particular he did not want to appoint the kind of right-wing jurist who would encounter intense opposition in Congress and possibly fail to get approval. This evasive tactic has angered the President's extreme right-wing supporters; the influential neoconservative William Kristol said he was “depressed and disillusioned” by the nomination of Harriet Miers and Ron Brownstein, a leading West Coast commentator, remarked that “Nothing Mr Bush has done throughout his presidency has drawn more fire from conservatives”. The President's dilemma is that nothing is going right for him at the moment, either at home or abroad, and he needs to stabilise the ship of state. Whether Harriet Miers' nomination will help to do that or instead rock the boat even more dangerously remains to be seen.