President scrambles for nominee

Bush has to find a replacement for Harriet Miers.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Denied his first choice, President Bush scrambled Thursday to find a new Supreme Court nominee who could calm a conservative rebellion and walk sure-footedly through a Senate confirmation hearing.
That could point to a handful of federal judges believed to have been finalists when Bush made his doomed choice of Harriet Miers.
Some top contenders are believed to be federal appellate judges Samuel Alito, J. Michael Luttig, J. Harvie Wilkinson, Alice Batchelder, Priscilla Owen and Karen Williams as well as Michigan Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan.
Or, Bush could turn to a current or past senator, such as Republican John Cornyn of Texas, believing the Senate would be more likely to embrace one of its own.
Miers, a Texas lawyer and loyal Bush confidante who remains White House counsel, was criticized for having thin credentials on constitutional law and no proven record as a judicial conservative.
That criticism lessens the chance that Bush will pick someone else who has never rapped a gavel on a judicial bench. It also makes it less likely that the president will choose anyone who could be tagged a Bush crony, according to lawyers in regular touch with White House officials involved in the selection process.
Bush now finds himself in the awkward spot of finding a replacement for a candidate he had described as the most qualified person in the country. He also had said Miers brought a fresh approach because she had never been a judge.
Deeply disappointed by Miers' demise, Bush will be looking for a repeat of the Senate's 78-22 vote to confirm John Roberts as the 17th chief justice.
"I think that the president is likely to return to the short list of people that everyone left to right agreed are the most qualified," said Brad Berenson, a former staff member of the White House counsel's office in the Bush administration. "The lesson of the Roberts and Miers nominations taken together is that there's considerable safety and power in selecting people whose qualifications can't be questioned."
Demand for documents
The White House said it was not the firestorm of opposition from Bush's right flank, but the Senate's demand for documents covered by attorney-client and executive privileges that forced Miers' withdrawal.
Both these reasons make it unlikely Bush will choose Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, another Bush ally who has been on the candidate list.
As with Miers, senators would seek documents Gonzales handled when he was White House counsel, and the White House again would claim executive privilege in denying their release. Nominating Gonzales also would reignite the very opposition Bush is trying to dampen on his right from members of his own party who don't think Gonzales is a reliable conservative vote on abortion and affirmative action.
"The best predictor of future Supreme Court performance is prior court performance," said Wendy Long, counsel for the Judicial Confirmation Network, which was established to back Bush's picks for federal judgeships. "It avoids the problem of only being able to evaluate someone through privileged documents."
One prospective candidate who is not a judge, Larry Thompson, is still believed to be under consideration. Bush likes and trusts Thompson, a corporate attorney for PepsiCo who was the highest-ranking black in the administration during Bush's first term. Thompson, however, might be tagged like Miers as someone beholden to the White House.
Another nonjudicial candidate is Maureen Mahoney, a frequent litigator before the high court, who is sometimes referred to as the "female version of Roberts."
Timely nomination
Bush said he would make his next nomination in a "timely manner." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he expected a nomination within days, with confirmation hearings perhaps before Christmas.
Conservatives are likely to continue cheering for a judge who will strictly interpret the Constitution and not allow personal views on issues to sway decisions.
"The president now has the chance to correct the wayward path this nomination process has taken by nominating a strict constructionist whose record clearly demonstrates a judicial philosophy that respects and defends the civil rights of all Americans born and unborn," said Stephen G. Peroutka, chairman of the National Pro-Life Action Center.
Fearing that Bush's next pick will be a darling of the right, Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice, urged Bush to choose a consensus nominee.
"An independent judiciary is the crown jewel of our democracy," Aron said. "It is too vital to be used as a means of placating a political party's base."
Lowest rating
With his job approval rating the lowest of his presidency, Bush may feel it is necessary to appease his base.
"His poll numbers didn't slip in the last number of months because Democrats decided they didn't like him any more," said Sean Rushton, director of the conservative Committee for Justice. "The numbers slipped with Republicans and moderates. And my view is that this is the first day of the repair of that."
Meanwhile, Harriet Miers still has her job as the White House's chief lawyer and a salary of $161,000.
She resumes her work as White House counsel, overseeing a team of attorneys who provide legal advice to President Bush on matters large and small. But as she does so, Miers will never again be the unknown behind-the-scenes figure she was before her nomination thrust her into the public eye and the center of a conservative backlash that ultimately sank her chances of serving on the nation's highest court.
Miers has spent much of the past three weeks preparing for confirmation hearings. Now that she goes back to her White House job full time, one of her first tasks will be to help Bush choose a new Supreme Court nominee to replace herself. The counsel's office is in charge of vetting potential candidates, and then preparing the nominee for the confirmation process.
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