Lexis-Nexis has just issued a press release with the results of its search of court cases involving Harriet Miers. The report is free and available here. (pdf).

Lexis also searched for cases involving others named as potential nominees. According to the LexisNexis database, Miers has been involved 16 cases. The others, it notes, have far more experience. Of course, most of those are judges who write opinions for a living.

What's key here is a reminder of who might be appointed if Ms. Miers' nomination is defeated.

by TChris

Senators who no longer deem it appropriate to rubber stamp unqualified presidential appointees to federal jobs are starting to ask questions. The latest nominee to search for answers is Ellen Sauerbrey, "a Republican loyalist chosen by President Bush to head the State Department's refugee program."

"It doesn't appear that you have very specific experience," said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., during Sauerbrey's confirmation hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee.

"I don't think we see the requisite experience that we've seen in other nominees" for the job, added Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

What experience did Sauerbrey have that motivated the president to nominate her to the post? She ran Bush's 2000 campaign in Maryland.

Many news reports from 1999 have this quote of George Bush at a 1999 news conference. (E.g. AP, 6/8/99, USA Today, 6/11/99, Dallas Morning News, 6/9/99, available on Lexis.com)

Texas Gov. George W. Bush said Tuesday that he would have voted to impeach President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

"I would have voted for it. I thought the man lied," he said in response to a question posed during a news conference.

Memo to President Bush: If you're thinking of reacting to any false statement or perjury charges with a statement that your boys just got confused in their testimony, that dog won't hunt.

Lots of liberals are ticked off today by Nicholas Kristof's column in the New York Times in which he writes:

So I find myself repulsed by the glee that some Democrats show at the possibility of Karl Rove and Mr. Libby being dragged off in handcuffs. It was wrong for prosecutors to cook up borderline and technical indictments during the Clinton administration, and it would be just as wrong today.

Here's Trey Ellis at Huffington Post. Atrios calls Kristof the "wanker of the day."

My favorite is Bourbon Street's author Leonce Gaiter's "Kristof Wants to Be a Virgin." Here's a snippet:

by TChris

Trying to get ahead of the headlines that will remind us of the 2,000 American soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq -- a milestone that will likely be was reached today, if it hasn't been already -- the military is cautioning reporters "not to look at the event as a milestone." Lt. Col. Steve Boylan argues that the number is "an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."

Nonsense. The number is real, representing 2,000 men and women who are no longer alive, thanks to the Bush administration. There is nothing "artificial" about those deaths. While it may be thought arbitrary to report that the number of dead has reached 2,000 (as opposed to 1,999 or 2,001), reporting the fact that the Bush administration has sacrificed the lives of a growing number of American soldiers has nothing to do with agendas or motives. It is the tangible result of this administration's decision to rush to war.

by TChris

Harriet Miers on Priscilla Owens:

Knowing and watching her over the course of the years, knowing the incredible person that she is, and knowing what a highly capable and qualified jurist that she is, what's happened to her in the judicial process is surprising and disappointing. You would never expect that someone who is as well thought of in our state, across party lines, could experience what she's had to experience. It's just personally very, very disappointing that she has been treated the way she's been treated.

In the same April 2005 interview, Miers on Bush:

by TChris

Tommy Riley, sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee, is on trial for official misconduct. Riley released Sheila Kirk from her sentence before it ended. A deputy, Johnny Carter, admitted that he brought Kirk cigarettes and drugs and that he had sex with her while she was in jail. The prosecution contends that Carter persuaded Riley to release Kirk so she could get an abortion, and that Riley let her stay out after Kirk’s mother threatened to expose the scandal if her daughter returned to jail. Riley says he released Kirk so that taxpayers wouldn’t have to fund her abortion.

[Special Agent Scott Lott] testified that when he came to arrest Riley following his indictment last October, his first reaction was, "Does this mean I can't be sheriff anymore?"

Riley’s first trial ended with a hung jury. Most of the original charges have been dropped as prosecutors focus on the misconduct charge.

by TChris

Vice President Cheney, hoping to gut the recently passed (by a 90-9 vote) Senate bill banning torture of detainees, met with the bill's primary sponsor, John McCain, to propose an exception that would permit the CIA to use the prohibited interrogation techniques "with respect to clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad" if "the president determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack." McCain said no.

Mr. McCain has kept the pressure on as the issue moves to a House-Senate conference committee, perhaps later this week or next. ... The matter will probably be settled in a private meeting in the next week or two among four senior lawmakers: Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska and Representative C. W. Bill Young of Florida, both Republicans; and Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii and Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, both Democrats. All are on the conference committee.

The White House also opposes a proposal advanced by Sen. Carl Levin to create an independent commission that would review accusations of prisoner abuse by American forces abroad.

Just breaking in tomorrow's New York Times: Scooter Libby took notes during a June 12 conversation with Vice President Dick Cheney. In them, he writes that Cheney learned about Valerie Wilson working for the CIA from George Tenet.

Shorter version: Libby lied to protect Cheney, who may or may not have needed him to lie, and now Libby is hoisted on his own petard.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby�s testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said. The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson�s husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV...

Rosa Parks died today at 92.

Parks inspired the civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1955.

Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks that was organized by a young Baptist preacher, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and led to a court ruling desegregating public transportation in Montgomery.

Crooks and Liars has the details from this Arizona Star article of a rape victim who spent three days trying to get the morning after pill.

C & L says,

Looks like we have another Target on our hands. John has more on them. I thought these Circus Clowns believed abortion was fine if it involved rape?

Via Taegan Goddard of Political Wire: President Bush gave Republican Senators their "way out" of the Miers nomination today by announcing he would refuse to turn over documents requested by Senate Judicaiary Committee members.

This afternoon, CNN notes President Bush refused the Senate request, saying "It's a red line I'm not willing to cross." Bush insisted that complying with such requests "would make it impossible for me and other presidents to be able to make sound decisions."

Now, our sources say, the White House can withdraw the nomination over principle and not out of political necessity. They may still wait to see if the circumstances change in the coming days, but they've given themselves a way to at least partially save face.

Law Prof Jack Balkin analyzes the pros and cons of Miers' nomination from the Democrats' view point and comes up opposed, unless Miers demonstrates her abilities at her hearings.