US: President Bush has nominated his former personal lawyer, Harriet Miers, to take the Supreme Court seat which until now held the balance of power between the court's liberals and conservatives.
Ms Miers, whom the president once called "a pit bull in size six shoes" for her legal tenacity, was drawn from Mr Bush's inner circle and had been entrusted with the White House search for Supreme Court nominees, before being picked herself.
The surprise nomination drew complaints from both the left and right that Ms Miers, a former corporate lawyer who has no experience as a judge, was unqualified, with no judicial record on which to judge her views on abortion, gay marriage and privacy rights.
Her nomination was announced hours before John Roberts, the president's first nominee, was sworn in as the Supreme Court's new Chief Justice, replacing William Rehnquist, who died last month. Mr Justice Roberts's investiture marked the replacement of one pragmatic conservative by another.
Ms Miers (60) has been nominated to take the place of Ms Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate swing vote in recent years, and therefore a critical seat that could alter the court's balance.
Right-wingers had been hoping for a more overtly ideological nominee. David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and a conservative columnist, called Ms Miers's nomination an "unforced error".
However, most legal observers said her low profile to date, with no judgments or public opinions on the most emotive issues likely to face the Supreme Court in the next few years, would make it easy for the president to get her confirmed.
"She is a fairly blank slate," said John Council, a senior reporter on Texas Lawyer magazine.
Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader, welcomed the nomination. "I like Harriet Miers . . . In my view, the Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practising lawyer."
Introducing Ms Miers on television in the Oval Office, Mr Bush defended his choice. "I've given a lot [ of thought] to the kind of people who should serve on the federal judiciary," the president said. "I've come to agree with the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who wrote about the importance of having judges who are drawn from a wide diversity of professional backgrounds."
She went to the same college, Southern Methodist University, as Mr Bush's wife and his adviser, Karen Hughes. Unlike Ms Hughes, Ms Miers's job has been to stay out of the limelight, but, as staff secretary, she decided what crossed the president's desk, and, as chief White House counsel this year, she acted as the administration's lawyer.
Mr Bush hired Ms Miers in 1993 to give legal advice for his governorship campaign. After he won, she became his personal lawyer, arguing his case in a property dispute involving a country cottage he owned in east Texas.
He put her in charge of the Texas lottery commission at a time it was under fire for corruption, and she was widely praised for cleaning it up. Until then, she had been a corporate lawyer, arguing cases for the likes of Microsoft and Walt Disney.
She rose to the top of her law firm, Locke, Purnell, Rain & Harrell, and became head of the Texas bar in 1992, the first woman to rise to such senior positions.
The only controversial issue on which she has a record is a Texas call in 1993 for a referendum in the American Bar Association to reconsider its embrace of abortion rights.
When Mr Bush moved on to Washington, he took Ms Miers with him, making her staff secretary, then deputy chief of staff, and finally chief counsel.
Ms Miers does not have a record in partisan politics. In fact she has contributed money to Republican and Democratic campaigns.
She is single, intensely private, a devout churchgoer who does not talk much about her religion, and has served on charities.
The only sign of a private life on her official biography is a penchant for tennis and opera. - (Guardian service)