THIS IS NO REFLECTION ON YOU, GEORGE, BUT I NEED A WARTIME JUSTICE:

Miers has backed wide executive role: Was on team that developed Patriot Act (Charlie Savage, October 5, 2005, Boston Globe)

As President Bush's counsel, Harriet E. Miers continued the expansive interpretation of presidential powers favored by her predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, who backed Bush's authority to hold terrorist suspects without trial, as well as the White House's right to withhold more administration documents from public disclosure than in the past.

Miers has also been outspoken in her support of reauthorizing the Patriot Act, which gave the executive branch new powers of surveillance over US citizens.

Now, Miers is Bush's choice to join the Supreme Court, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor.

That selection determines how much power a president can wield under the Constitution. Her nomination, announced Monday, followed the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who supported broad war powers for the president in a case he heard during his brief tenure as an appellate judge.

The two appointments, both of lawyers with extensive White House experience, have raised alarm among critics of the Bush administration's broad reading of executive branch authority.