‘Personnel Is Policy’

THERE’s one way, anyway, that Harriet Miers really is like Antonin Scalia: When Ronald Reagan named the very conservative Scalia to the Supreme Court in 1986, the conservative judge won endorsements from unexpected quarters, including Mario Cuomo, the very liberal governor of New York. For Cuomo, what mattered most about Scalia were not his ideas, but his identity as an Italian American: one of Cuomo’s own.

Ditto for Miers. Within hours of her formal nomination at 8 A.M. on Monday, October 3, Miers was endorsed by James Dobson, the influential broadcaster-and one of the few conservative leaders to have received advance word of the Miers choice. Dobson’s endorsement was no formality. He placed at least one call that day to conservatives who criticized the choice, assuring them of his confidence in the former presidential counsel. Miers, you see, had attended a conservative evangelical church in Dallas. Raised a Roman Catholic, she had a conversion experience some 25 years ago. In other words: She was a born-again Christian, one of Dobson’s own.

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David Frum

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THERE’s one way, anyway, that Harriet Miers really is like Antonin Scalia: When Ronald Reagan named the very conservative Scalia to the Supreme Court in 1986, the conservative judge won endorsements from unexpected quarters, including Mario Cuomo, the very liberal governor of New York. For Cuomo, what mattered most about Scalia were not his ideas, but his identity as an Italian American: one of Cuomo’s own.

Ditto for Miers. Within hours of her formal nomination at 8 A.M. on Monday, October 3, Miers was endorsed by James Dobson, the influential broadcaster-and one of the few conservative leaders to have received advance word of the Miers choice. Dobson’s endorsement was no formality. He placed at least one call that day to conservatives who criticized the choice, assuring them of his confidence in the former presidential counsel. Miers, you see, had attended a conservative evangelical church in Dallas. Raised a Roman Catholic, she had a conversion experience some 25 years ago. In other words: She was a born-again Christian, one of Dobson’s own.