Daily Briefing: ‘So Vicious and So Vitriolic’

• Attorneys for Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee express “uniform disappointment” with Miers and are “pushing back against her.” Said one lawyer, “Everybody is hoping that something will happen on Miers, either that the president would withdraw her or she would realize she is not up to it and pull out while she has some dignity intact.” [NYT]
• Dobson says Rove assured him that Miers is a conservative evangelical Christian, though Roe v. Wade “was never part of our discussion”; Rove reportedly explained that alternative candidates removed their names “because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter.” [LAT, WT]
• Judith Miller will testify for a second day today; prosecutors are investigating earlier conversations between administration officials and journalists. [WP, NYT, WSJ]
• Laura says criticisms of Miers might be sexist. William Kristol: “It is striking to me they are spending less time explaining the merits of Harriet Miers and more time… using liberal talking points to criticize the critics. I think it is going to backfire.” [WP, NYT, WT]
• White House strategy shifts focus to Miers’ religious credibility. [USAT]
• Bush in New Orleans: “Out of this rubble is going to come some good; out of the devastation is going to come new cities and new hope.” [NYT]
• Milbank on Bush’s “Today” interview: “The president was a blur of blinks, taps, jiggles, pivots and shifts. Bush has always been an active man, but standing with Lauer and the serene, steady first lady, he had the body language of a man wishing urgently to be elsewhere.” [WP]
• DeLay remains a go-to, agenda-setting congressman. [NYT]
• McCain advances his own agenda ahead of the White House and the Republican leadership. McCain: “Do I want to be president? Sure. Do I want to run for president? That’s the question.” [WSJ]

• Senators Gregg and Kennedy propose that a new federal agency with a cabinet-level czar coordinate the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast. [WSJ]
• Negroponte takes “extraordinary step” by posting 6,000-word letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri, a top al Qaeda leader, on its website. [NYT]
• Supreme Court will decide on legal limits of the Clean Water Act. [WP, WSJ, NYT]
• Bush’s tax advisory panel will “recommend limits in the popular tax deductions for mortgage interest and employer-provided health insurance.” [NYT, WSJ]
• Miers acknowledged her admiration of Warren Burger, though the wording of the conversation is up in the air. [WP]
• Ethics experts are skeptical that Frist could avoid conflicts of interests concerning health stocks. [WP]
• Howard Kurtz: “The newsgathering mission of the Times… has collided with the understandably human need to protect its reporter. In such a circumstance, the journalism must come first.” [WP]
• Earle refuses subpoena from DeLay’s defense team. [LAT]
• Clinton will fundraise for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Timothy Kaine. [WP]

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