The know-nothing president

Posted by Lakshmi Chaudhry at 1:47 PM on October 4, 2005.

Bush tells reporters that he knows everything about Harriet Miers except her views on abortion:

BUSH: I picked the best person I could find. People know we're close. But you've got to understand, because of our closeness, I know the character of the person. ...

QUESTION: You've taken time to express that you know her heart, her character. You've emphasized your friendship. So it seems reasonable that over the course of the years you've known her perhaps you have discussed the issue of abortion. Have you ever discussed with Harriet Miers abortion? Or have you gleaned from her comments her views on that subject?

BUSH: I have no litmus test. It's also something I've consistently said. There is no litmus test.

What matters to me is her judicial philosophy. What does she believe the proper role of the judiciary is relative to the legislative and the executive branch? And she'll be asked all kinds of questions up there. But the most important thing for me is what kind of judge will she be. And so there's no litmus test.

QUESTION: Sir, you've always said there was no litmus test ...

BUSH: Correct. I'll say it again: There is no litmus test.

QUESTION: But she is not someone you've interviewed for the job that you didn't know. You'd known her a long time. Have you never discussed abortion with her?

BUSH: In my interviews with any judge, I never ask their personal opinion on the subject of abortion.

QUESTION: In your friendship with her (OFF-MIKE)

BUSH: Not to my recollection have I ever sat down with her.

A good thing that Miers' other "good friend," Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, happens to be more knowledgeable about her views on this esoteric subject. Here's what he told ProLifeBlogs:

Miers has been a member of Valley View Christian Church in Dallas for 25 years, where Hecht has been an elder. He calls it a "conservative evangelical church ... in the vernacular, fundamentalist, but the media have used that word to tar us." He says she was on the missions committee for 10 years, taught children in Sunday School, made coffee, brought donuts: "Nothing she's asked to do in church is beneath her." On abortion, choosing his words carefully for an on-the-record statement, he says "her personal views are consistent with that of evangelical Christians ... You can tell a lot about her from her decade of service in a conservative church."[LINK via Feministing]

Lakshmi Chaudhry is a senior editor at In These Times, and the former senior editor of AlterNet. You can write to her at lakshmi@alternet.org.