FRUM: WHAT THE INSIDERS ARE SAYING [Andy Card wanted Miers fired?]

More talking over the weekend to more conservative lawyers in Washington. It is hard to convey how unanimously they not only reject, but disdain, the choice of Miers.

One commented on this news story that Miers' favorite reading was John Grisham novels: "Look, it's inevitable these senators are going to ask you some obviously stupid questions. You just can't give them obviously stupid answers. How hard is it to say that you are reading Jean Smith's biography of Chief Justice John Marshall?"

Another told me of a briefing session to prepare Miers to enter into her duties as White House Counsel. A panel of lawyers who had served in past Republican White Houses was gathered together. After a couple of hours of questions and answers, all agreed: "We're going to need a really strong deputy."

It's been reported the reason Miers was named White House Counsel in the first place was that she had proven incompetent as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Her boss, Chief of Staff Andy Card, badly wanted to get her out of his office - but couldn't fire her because she was protected by the president and the first lady. So he promoted her instead. Now we learn that it was Card who was the strongest advocate of moving Miers out of the West Wing altogether and onto the high court - raising the question of whether the ultimate motivation for this nomination is to open the way to hiring a new Counsel by kicking a failed Counsel upstairs.

Few of the people I talk to can talk on the public record, although Judge Robert Bork has courageously done so and as time passes others may decide that they have to accept the risks of stepping forward and telling what they know. In the meantime, ask yourself this: Think of all the conservative jurists you know and respect. Have any of them had anything positive to say about this nomination? I can think of only one, Ken Starr, when he was interviewed last week on Fox's Hannity and Colmes.

And even Starr confined himself to vague generalities about Miers' "track record." I've reprinted the transcript below. Notice what Starr does not say. He never says Miers possesses a deep knowledge of the law, he can muster no praise for her intellect or abilities as a lawyer, he does not say she'll be a credit the court. He doesn't even say that this is a good nomination beyond a jovial: "She's terrific." In fact, the only specific praise he offers is praise for Miers' formal statement to the press accepting her nomination - a statement that, as Starr would know, was written for her by others on the White House staff.

Starr in other words sounds to me like somebody who has been deputized to go on television and find something good to say - and who is searching for a way to be kind without saying anything affirmatively untrue. So, as Ann Coulter mockingly puts it, he emphasizes "how nice, tidy, helpful, and prompt" Miers is.

As tepid as Starr's endorsement was, it is just about the only endorsement Miers has received from any conservative with an established reputation in the law. James Dobson, Charles Colson, and Richard Lane of the Southern Baptist Convention have all endorsed Miers heartily. Good men all. But suppose you needed a lawyer to go to City Hall to fight a parking ticket. Would you look to Dobson, Colson, or Lamb for advice on who to hire? I very much doubt it. You'd ask somebody with knowledge of and experience of the law - right? Choosing a Supreme Court justice is a lot more important than fighting a parking ticket. And yet in this matter, almost all the people whose advice you'd want - the people who told you that John Roberts was an outstanding choice - have gone rather curiously quiet, haven't they?

COLMES: Welcome back to a special edition of "Hannity & Colmes." ... Joining us now, the dean of Pepperdine University School of Law, Ken Starr. Judge Starr, good to see you. Thanks for being here.

JUDGE KENNETH STARR, DEAN, PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW: Good to see you, Alan. My pleasure.

COLMES: Do you believe the president when he says she is the most qualified person he could find for the job?

STARR: Oh, I think she's terrific. First of all, Alan, I've known Harriet Miers for over 15 years. And so forth. And she was the head of 400 person law firm committee on which I was privileged to serve many years ago.

She is enormously talented, and I must say I'm a little bit surprised at some of what I read because those who have dealt with Harriet Miers, at the local level, at the state level, she was elected to local office.

And I think they're also not taking account that, for example, William Hubbs Rehnquist, now, of course renowned, and he was, of course, of course, an outstanding chief justice of the United States, went directly to the Supreme Court of the United States from an assistant attorney general position at the Justice Department.

Do you have any doubts whatsoever that she's an originalist in the mold of a Scalia or Thomas? You know her. I don't know her.

STARR: Yes. I don't, and I'll tell you, Sean, I was very comforted by what she said yesterday when one of the first things that she said. Obviously, she's honored, as any lawyer would be.

But one of the things that she invoked was a founding vision of the role of the judiciary. And one of the great and burning issues is who decides these tremendous issues such as the Supreme Court had before today, an end of life kind of issue.

I think she means what she says when she says, "I respect the founding vision of a limited judiciary.

HANNITY: The president believes that -- because remember, the president ran two elections saying that he would appoint people in the mold of a Scalia or Thomas. And I believe the president believes she fits that bill or he wouldn't have done it. I believe he's a man of honor and integrity. I don't question that in any way, shape, manner or form.

I guess what I'm hearing from a lot of conservatives, Judge Starr, is that they feel they've been burned, that there are important questions here. Too much is at stake right now. Seven of the nine justices prior to John Roberts were appointed by Republicans, and many of them were disappointments. And you know, there's no track record here and they are very, very concerned.

STARR: But there is a track record of, I think, extraordinary service in the practice of law and in doing things in a way that did...

STARR: I think we know that by virtue of the fact that she has been very clear, certainly in her opening statement, or I should say, when she was first asked what does this mean to you?

And when she invokes 1787 and 1789, I think that shows us the right kind of instinct.

Now has she been a judge? No. But there are many justices of the Supreme Court who have not been judges. And I think we've gotten a little bit overly accustomed, frankly, to say that unless you bring your robe to the confirmation hearing, somehow there's a question about it.

But I think we also need to bear in mind she has been the counsel to the president of the United States and served in other very high White House positions.

From the Guardian, Jan 2003

How I created the axis of evil

It is the phrase that defines the Bush era - and Washington insiders are betting on whether it will turn up again in today's State of the Union address. But David Frum, the man who coined it, is now out in the cold. Julian Borger meets him

Tuesday January 28, 2003
The Guardian

We are at the end of Year One in the time of the Axis of Evil. It was 12 months ago that George Bush took three apparently dissimilar countries in his State of the Union address and fashioned a new enemy for America. Banded together, the three rogue states, Iraq, Iran and North Korea, conjured up an enemy every bit as fearsome as Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire". The phrase has not only defined the battle lines of the 21st century, it has helped shape the world we now inhabit.

Bush's supporters naturally insist this is a good thing. It has opened our eyes to the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of dictators. The detractors, who include most of Europe and the developing world, see the axis of evil speech more as a self-fulfilling prophecy that has set back the democracy movement in Iran, goaded North Korea towards nuclear brinkmanship and undermined any incentive Saddam Hussein might have had to disarm.

Bush himself has not used the phrase since summer, but Washington is now placing bets on whether it will resurface in the State of the Union address today. Whatever happens, its true father looks on in awe and pride. David Frum, a 42-year-old Canadian who served for 13 months as a presidential speechwriter and helped coin the fateful phrase, has just written a book about the experience - a cardinal sin amid the hushed piety of the White House.

Speechwriters are supposed to be anonymous. We are supposed to associate the State of the Union speech, the rhetorical high point of the White House calendar, with the president alone, not with the paid hack in the back room. In retaliation, Frum has been left out in the cold in Bush's Washington.

His book, The Right Man, tells how the callow and unimaginative American prince was challenged by the horror of September 11 and responded Henry V-style, by showing his true mettle. It is larded with chapter upon chapter of rightwing polemic, brimming with contempt for European "appeasers" and the "stinking bowl" of the Arab world.

As so often with the most vituperative pamphleteers, Frum is in person genial and conciliatory. He argues that his former boss is misunderstood in Britain, mainly because of his Texan drawl and Bible-thumping ways. In fact, Frum suggests - and here he is surely stretching the hand of doctrinal friendship further than credulity allows - Bush has a lot in common with the average Guardian reader. "He is someone who takes a moral view of the world and looks for big, bold answers," he says, by way of evidence. He even suggests the "Bush-as-Guardian-reader" idea would make a thought-provoking article.

As one of the louder voices of radical neo-conservatism, such outside-the-box ideas are Frum's stock in trade and there are a lot of them in The Right Man - so many that they invite the creeping suspicion that the title does not just refer to Bush.

But the book is also a well-written memoir of Frum's short adventure in the administration which just about lives up to its sales pitch as the "first inside account" of the Bush White House.

Frum talks about Bush's sour, watchful presence, in contrast to the jovial hick he sometimes appears in public. He talks about the disconcerting grip evangelical Christianity has on the White House, its squeaky-clean gentility and generally low level of intellectual curiosity. The president, Frum tells us, is "sometimes glib, even dogmatic; often uncurious and as a result ill-informed; more conventional in his thinking than a leader should be".

Most interesting of all, The Right Man tells the story of how the axis of evil got its name - an unnerving tale of rhetorical accident by which a catchy phrase ended up driving policy. It begins when Bush's chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, approaches Frum a few weeks before the pivotal State of the Union address and tells him, "Here's an assignment. Can you sum up in a sentence or two our best case for going after Iraq?"

This was in late December 2001. Frum argues that this does not necessarily mean a decision to oust Saddam had been taken, as he is sure other speechwriters were working on more peaceful versions. But his was the version that was used on January 29 2002.

Looking for historical resonance, Frum goes leafing through the speeches of Franklin Roosevelt, in particular the "day of infamy" address to the nation that followed Pearl Harbor. "On December 8 1941, Roosevelt had exactly the same problem we had. The United States had been attacked by Japan, but the greater threat came from Nazi Germany," Frum argues. In effect, al-Qaida is Japan and no prizes for guessing who plays Hitler this time around.

The phrase Frum comes up with is "axis of hatred", describing the ominous but ill-defined links between Iraq and terrorism. It is Gerson who tweaks the phrase into the "axis of evil", to make it sound more "theological".

"I thought that was terrific," Frum says. "It was the sort of language President Bush used."

The national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, then add Iran on the grounds that denouncing the ruling theocracy might accelerate the incipient revolt they see emerging in the street protests. Why North Korea gets tacked on to the axis is not clear in the book - although Pyongyang's presence does bring the number of miscreants up to the magic number three, and ensures the list is not entirely Islamic.

Watching from home, Frum was spellbound. "When I heard that speech, I thought it was one of the great moments in American history. I thought it was magnificent," he says. "Even though I know I shouldn't be surprised by Bush, I am always surprised. Up until the last, he looks like he might compromise and do the small thing. And then he does the big thing."

"The big thing" in this case was very big indeed. What had begun life as a speechwriter's conceit a month before had filled with hot air and taken off, casting a monumental shadow over the rest of the world.

It also, paradoxically, put a bit of a dent in Frum's own standing in the White House. Hearing of his presence at its creation, his wife, Danielle Crittenden, emailed their circle of friends: "I realise this is very 'Washington' of me to mention, but my husband is responsible for the 'axis of evil' segment of Tuesday's State of the Union address." She signed off adding: "So I'll hope you'll indulge my wifely pride in seeing this one repeated in headlines everywhere!!"

Frum said the email "only went to about 15 people", but one of that number clearly lacked discretion and it ended up splashed across the online magazine, Slate. Frum left the White House soon after.

One year on, he insists his departure had nothing to do with his wife's email. He just got fed up with writing for someone else. "As thrilling as it was, speechwriting is ultimately frustrating for someone who wants to be a writer," he says.

He insists his White House colleagues were amused or sympathetic throughout the two-week scandal, but the truth is that this White House does not appreciate the hired hands stealing the president's thunder. In the book, the president comes across as a far more commanding presence in private than in front of the cameras. "Bush was a sharp exception to the White House code of niceness. He was tart, not sweet," Frum writes. "In private, he was not the easy, genial man he was in public. Close up, one saw a man keeping a tight grip on himself.

"In that hour, Bush had settled one thing in my mind: I could never again take seriously the theory that somebody else was running this administration ... but where was he leading us all to?"

The answer turns out to be: "God knows." According to Frum, the Bush White House is in the grip of Christian evangelism. The first words he hears on his first day at work are: "Missed you at Bible study," - a rebuke to his new boss, Gerson, from some unnamed Bush lieutenant. Attendance at such sessions were "if not compulsory, not quite uncompulsory either".

The president, according to Frum, believes that the future is in "stronger hands than his own". It is a theme which is beginning to emerge from the Bush administration. While most people saw the extraordinary circumstances of the 2000 election as a fluke, Bush and his closest supporters saw it as yet another sign he was chosen to lead. Later, September 11 "revealed" what he was there for.

The president's gut instincts are consequently taken extremely seriously. After interviewing the president at considerable length, Bob Woodward said those instincts had virtually become the object of a White House religion. It is a religion to which Frum, one of the few Jews in the Bush White House, became a convert. The rest of us can only wonder, as Frum once did, where we are all being led.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.