Here's an interview with Pastor Ron Key, who until a few weeks ago, was Ms. Miers' pastor at the Valley View Christian Church in Dallas. The radio host conducting the interview says it's proof that Ms. Miers is anti-abortion, but the interview doesn't bear that out.

It shows she's very faith based, and that her Church is pro-life and against gay marriages. But, Pastor Key admits he has not talked to her about those issues. On the other hand, he says she is the same kind of person as Priscilla Owen and that they are good friends.

I don't think anyone really doubts that Ms. Miers is pro-life, but if she has gone through her career not publicly stating her view, maybe she will not let her personal views affect her rulings as a Judge. I'm also getting tired of the abortion debate. It's not the only important issue. I'm far more concerned with her position on criminal justice and civil liberties issues.

President Bush told reporters today he didn't ask Ms. Miers her views on abortion. That's not surprising.

The Associated Press (Feb. 2, 1992) (available on Lexis.com) reported on Ms. Miers' participation in an American Bar Association panel discussion on Supreme Court nominations. The panel was asked whether a President, who was elected partially based on his abortion stance, should ask a potential nominee about his or her views on abortion.

You've been elected president of the United States, in part due to your views on abortion. In picking a Supreme Court justice, would you ask apotential nominee how he or she will vote in abortion- related cases?

...."Nominees are clearly prohibited from making such a commitment and presidents are prohibited from asking for it," said Harriet Miers, a Dallas lawyer and president-elect of the State Bar of Texas.
She said people who think such inquiries are proper display "a misunderstanding of the separation of powers by proposing that judicial nominees should mirror a president's views."

My thoughts on the implications of Harriet Miers' nomination for the radical right, and some blogger reaction from both sides, are over at Eric Alterman's Altercation today in another edition of Scoring Scotus. A snippet:

In order to accept Ms. Miers, evangelicals will have to place blind faith in the promise by Cheney and Bush that she's one of them. Even though faith lies at the core of their existence, with the stakes so high on abortion, gay rights and other hot-button issues, Miers' nomination may put that faith to the ultimate test.

....If there was any common ground between the right and left Monday, it was over the lack of available information on Miers. While ultimately, Republican Senators and influential evangelists may be willing to take the Bush Leap of Faith, Democrats must demand more.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Editor and Publisher reports today that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers is in the photograph of the infamous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing, and it was on the front page of yesterday's NY Times without a specific date.

E&P also reports the conflicting nature of how news outlets played the picture. AP sent it out with the correct date, and many papers apparently did not appreciate the date or the photograph. The Times downplayed the omission of the date as lacking significance. HA!

by TChris

An Ithaca judge dismissed "resisting arrest" charges against five Cornell protestors, in part because she found it "difficult to understand" a prosecutor's assertion that was contradicted by documentary evidence. In other words, she thinks the prosecutor lied to her.

by Last Night in Little Rock

USA Today reports that Congress is attempting to put a significant number of unconvicted arrestees into CODIS, the National DNA Database. The ACLU is, of course, opposed. This is also discussed on Paper Chase. From USA Today:

by Last Night in Little Rock

This should be no surprise to anyone: Ex-Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, ousted by the state judicial discipline commission for openly defying a federal court order to remove his monument to the Ten Commandments after losing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, is running for Governor of Alabama as noted here on Paper Chase.

It was always assumed that the whole charade was to start a run for Governor. It is now coming to fruition.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Yes, TChris, the hits do just keep on coming.

Just when we thought that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers had no paper trail, we find that the law firm that she was heading at the time paid $22M to settle a class action law suit for assisting law firm clients in defrauding investors, as noted here and picked up by HuffingtonPost.com. The original source: No less than the Class Action Newsletter (May 1, 2000).

It gets better.

by TChris

And the hits just keep on coming.

A Texas grand jury indicted Rep. Tom DeLay on a new charge of money laundering Monday, less than a week after another grand jury leveled a conspiracy charge that forced DeLay to temporarily step down as House majority leader.

Update:

The new indictment, handed up by a grand jury seated Monday, contained two counts. The money laundering charge carries a penalty of up to life in prison.

(Another update below the fold.)

by TChris

The FBI has said since 9/11 that it's shifting its priorities from routine federal law enforcement to terrorist prevention. Statistics show that the FBI has indeed sharply reduced the number of criminal investigations it initiates.

The FBI opened 62,782 criminal investigations in 2000 and 34,451 last year, a drop of 45 percent, [Justice Department inspector general Glenn] Fine said. Drug cases declined by 70 percent, he said.

The unhappy news: although civil rights, health care fraud, corporate fraud, and public corruption investigations have all decreased, obscenity investigations increased. That statistic reflects the Justice Department's misplaced priorities.

by TChris

James Ridgeway writes about the biggest fear surrounding the Miers nomination:

Above all, Miers is loyal to President Bush. It’s hard to imagine her putting faithfulness to the Supreme Court above faithfulness to the Bush family.

Ridgeway also writes about the best news surrounding the nomination: the degree to which the right wing feels betrayed. "They’re howling with dismay," says Ridgeway.

Don't expect the Senate Democrats to put up a fight on Miers. On a blogger conference call last week with Sen. Harry Reid (I wrote about it here), he told us he asked the President to consider Harriet Miers. (Update: Here are his exact comments, thanks to Sam Rosenfeld at Tapped, who also was on the call. Sen. Reid's comments were in response to a question I asked him about his thoughts on who Bush would pick for the next nominee.)

I personally think that I would like to see someone who has not had judicial experience. I think that we need somebody to go on that Court in the mold of the people on the Berger court, people who have not spent their lifetime holed up in some office writing opinions and reading briefs. One of the people that’s being talked about is Harriet Miers, his own lawyer. At the meeting we had with the president last week, we were in the office he has there; I was there, Frist was there, Leahy was there, and Specter was there, plus Andy Card and the vice president. I said, “The vice president got here in a very unusual way. He was chosen by you to find a candidate to be your vice president. You liked the person in charge of finding a candidate better than the people he chose.” I said, “I think that rather than rather than looking at the people your lawyer’s recommending, pick her.” ...