Dubya continued his pattern of choosing loyalty over competence when he chose Harriet Myers, White House counsel and a loyal member of the president's inner circle, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor.
Miers, who has never been a judge, was the first woman to serve as president of the Texas State Bar and the Dallas Bar Association.
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When Bush named her White House counsel in November 2004, the president described Miers as a lawyer with keen judgment and discerning intellect — "a trusted adviser on whom I have long relied for straightforward advice."
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Formerly Bush's personal lawyer in Texas, Miers came with the president to the White House as his staff secretary, the person in charge of all the paperwork that crosses the Oval Office desk. Miers was promoted to deputy chief of staff in June 2003.
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Pete Shane, a law professor at The Ohio State University, predicted that "it's going to be a long drawn-out exercise."
Noting criticism of Bush's choice of Michael Brown to head FEMA, a man who was later demoted and then resigned after a sluggish governmental response to Hurricane Katrina, Shane said of Bush: "He's going to pick his best friend in the White House counsel's office to be on the Supreme Court? It seems like a flat-footed thing to do."
