US: US President George Bush has rejected charges of cronyism after choosing his top White House lawyer, Harriet Miers, for the Supreme Court. He has also ruled out handing over internal documents sought by Democrats which might shed light on her legal views.
Mr Bush was defensive yesterday when peppered with questions about his nomination.
He dismissed criticism from conservatives that he passed over more competent candidates to pick a non-judge from his inner circle who may or may not shift the court to the right.
"I picked the best person I could find," he said. "She is plenty bright . . . She hasn't been, you know, one of these publicity hounds. She's been somebody [ who] just quietly does her job."
Mr Bush also denied he picked Ms Miers (60) to avoid a bloody Senate confirmation battle with Democrats at a time when he was politically weakened by Iraq, the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina and high petrol prices.
The president was fighting a backlash from the right wing of his own party, who were cool to Monday's announcement rather than giving it the warm welcome the White House had hoped for.
This followed a grim period in which Mr Bush's approval rating at one point languished at 40 per cent, his lowest.
The criticism from the right was notable because conservatives have typically rallied to his side. They were particularly alarmed at reports that Ms Miers was a Democrat in the 1980s, when conservative icon Ronald Reagan was president, and at comments by Senate minority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, who said: "I like Harriet Miers."
The absence of a paper trail that might lift the veil on Ms Miers's views about issues such as abortion has led to concerns on both sides.
With some Democrats saying Ms Miers may well be a mainstream nominee, Senate confirmation looks achievable, but a key question will be how hard Democrats fight for internal White House documents they believe could shed light on her views.
Mr Bush, who has consistently refused to turn over documents on internal White House deliberations, said he would refuse again.
"I'm sure they're going to try to bring this up," he said of Democrats. "I happen to view it as a distraction from whether or not Harriet Miers is capable of answering the questions she's asked."
On whether he knew her position on abortion, Mr Bush insisted he had no litmus test, but when pressed, said not to his recollection did he ever talk to her about it.
The president, who repeated he was "pro-life", insisted that Ms Miers held his conservative philosophy, saying she was a "strict constructionist" who would not legislate from the bench.
"There should be no doubt in anybody's mind what I believe the philosophy of a judge" should be, "and Harriet Miers shares that philosophy." He added "I know her well enough to be able to say that she's not going to change; that 20 years from now she'll be the same person, with the same philosophy."
Some of the criticism has been biting, like that of Republican firebrand Patrick Buchanan, a former Reagan aide. "Handed a once-in- a-generation opportunity to return the Supreme Court to constitutionalism, George W Bush passed over a dozen of the finest jurists of his day - to name his personal lawyer," he wrote.
Sam Brownback, a conservative Kansas Republican senator and a member of the judiciary committee that will hold Ms Miers's confirmation hearing, said he wanted to know more about her.
He hoped she would be in the mould of conservative judges Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. - (Reuters)