Miers mire

President Bush early on Monday, Oct. 3, nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers, 60, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court. The debate about her qualifications went on all week and will continue, with many conservative pundits irate about the choice, since she fails the "we know for sure how she will vote" test, and was dismissed by some as a "crony" of the president's, unqualified to serve.

Some facts about the nominee: She is the White House Counsel, the lawyer to the presidency, and has also served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Staff Secretary in the Bush White House (a job of significant power and coordination responsibility.) She has been at the White House since George Bush took office, and throughout every day of the Global War on Terror.

Before going to Washington, she had a long and distinguished career in the law, becoming managing partner of a 400-lawyer firm: That means she was, in effect, the CEO of a good-sized business concern with thousands of support employees, huge contracts, and all the liabilities and legal issues that go with managing such an operation. She served as the first woman president of the Texas Bar Association and as a member of the Dallas City Council.

She is an evangelical Christian who immersed herself in the life of her theologically conservative Dallas church, willing to be a servant leader in the best sense of that term in everything from missions work to teaching Sunday school. For most of her life she did not live in Washington, D.C., and did not absorb the City's unusual status measures.

It is true Ms. Miers hasn't been a professor, a judge, a talk show host or a columnist. Millions of Americans might find that very reassuring indeed.