by DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: October 4, 2005
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 - The White House scrambled on Monday to prevent conservative opposition to the president's choice of the White House counsel Harriet E. Miers as his next Supreme Court nominee.

Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, started calling influential social conservatives to reassure them about the pick even before it was announced. He called James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, over the weekend, and Richard Land, a top public policy official of the Southern Baptist Convention on Monday morning, said several people briefed on the calls. Paul Weyrich, the veteran conservative organizer, said Ed Gillespie, the former Republican Party chairman lobbying for confirmation, called at 7:10 a.m. to tell him the news.

In each call and in a series of teleconferences throughout the day, representatives of the White House promised their conservative supporters that as White House counsel, Ms. Miers had played a central role in picking the many exemplars of conservatism among Mr. Bush's previous nominees. [...] Read it all at http://tinyurl.com/8fyd9


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