US: The Republican chairman of the US Senate judiciary committee has cast doubt on the qualifications of President Bush's latest nominee to the Supreme Court.
Senator Arlen Specter said he would question Harriet Miers vigorously when she comes before the committee because she had not persuaded him that she has a sufficient grasp of constitutional law.
"When you deal in constitutional law, you're dealing in some very esoteric, complicated subjects that require a great deal of background. The jurisprudence is very complicated, and I will be pressing her very hard on these issues," Mr Specter told ABC's This Week yesterday.
Conservative activists have demanded that Mr Bush withdraw the nomination of Ms Miers, a former corporate lawyer who is currently White House counsel and who has never served as a judge.
Conservatives hoped that Mr Bush would move the Supreme Court to the right by appointing a heavyweight conservative intellectual in the mould of Antonin Scalia.
The president used his weekly radio address to reassure conservatives that Ms Miers would hold true to their principles if she is appointed to the court.
"Harriet Miers will be the type of judge I said I would nominate: a good conservative judge ... when she goes before the Senate, I am confident that all Americans will see what I see every day: Harriet Miers is a woman of intelligence, strength and conviction," he said.
Right-wing commentators were unimpressed with Mr Bush's reassurances and the neo-conservative Weekly Standard magazine called for Ms Miers's nomination to be withdrawn.
Former presidential candidate and conservative political commentator Pat Buchanan told NBC's Meet the Press that Mr Bush had squandered an opportunity to put his stamp on history.
"This is a faith-based initiative. The president of the United States is saying: trust me ... This White House has ducked a fight. The president has recoiled from greatness," he said.
Some conservatives are backing Ms Miers, and James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said he had received assurances from the White House that she is opposed to abortion.
But Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, said that Ms Miers had told him she had given no assurances to the White House on how she would vote on Roe v Wade, the 1973 court ruling that guarantees abortion rights throughout the US.
If such assurances had been given, he would vote against the nominee, he said.