The possibility of the Lottery Commission controversy being the subject of confirmation hearings is even more daunting for the White House. The story now is only being printed in alternative publications, such as the Dallas Observer of Oct. 13. These reports recalled the lawsuit brought by Lawrence Littwin alleging that Chairman Miers fired him as the Lottery Commission's executive director because he had uncovered corruption involving Gtech, the lottery management firm.

Littwin's federal suit claimed Miers protected Gtech because its lobbyist, former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, as Texas House Speaker had pushed Bush ahead of other applicants for the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. Democrat Barnes had been silent until a 1999 deposition by him said he had pushed young Bush to the head of the line. Barnes, who received from Gtech $3 million a year and $23 million in separation pay, told me that the Bush Air National Guard story has "absolutely nothing" to do with his settlement. Littwin is silent under terms of a $300,000 settlement ending his suit. Former Texas Chief Justice John Hill, a member of the Lottery Commission at the time, told me: "There is no substance at all to these charges." Miers handled the case "with care and judiciousness," Hill added.

The top two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday complained about the written responses they received from Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers this week, and warned her to expect tough questions from Republicans and Democrats alike when her confirmation hearing begins Nov. 7.

Barely concealing their irritation during a 35-minute news conference at the Capitol, Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and ranking Democrat Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) called the lobbying on Miers's behalf "chaotic," and said the answers she provided Monday to a lengthy questionnaire were inadequate. "The comments.

So far this nominee has yet to demonstrate that she can even satisfactorily fill out a questionnaire about her attitude toward important constitutional questions. This page has urged that Ms. Miers be given a fair chance to prove that she is worthy of a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. But based on the evidence so far, it is getting hard to believe that she is.

President Bush began his campaign of support badly, by talking about their close association and insisting that "I know her heart." It is only natural to have a high opinion of one's friends, but we have already learned that Mr. Bush is an imperfect judge of capability. The White House also wasted a lot of time early on emphasizing Ms. Miers's church membership, which—in addition to looking disturbingly as if there were a religious test for high office—said nothing about whether she would be fit to decide Supreme Court cases.

Ms. Miers had an opportunity to win over the skeptics this week with her answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questionnaire. But her responses were so unimpressive that the top Republican and Democrat on that committee took the extraordinary step yesterday of instructing her to give it another try, this time with more "particularity and precision." She thus became perhaps the most important judicial nominee in history to be offered what amounts to a do-over on a take-home quiz.

And so [Ms. Miers] caused a flap on Monday when she reportedly told Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter that the case of Griswold v. Connecticut was correctly decided by the Supreme Court back in 1965. That's a reasonable enough position to hold—but it's not the conservative position. Conservatives believe that Griswold, which guaranteed the right to marital contraception, opened the door to the court's Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, which guaranteed the right to a far more radical kind of contraception, namely, abortion.

For Miers to be a self-declared conservative and be on the "wrong" side of Griswold is like a self-declared literature expert's asserting that Shakespeare wrote the Gettysburg Address—she obviously doesn't know what she's talking about. (Miers disputes Specter's account of their conversation, but Specter, who does know what he's talking about constitutionally, stands by his version.) [The senator later, however, graciously said he may have been "mistaken" in his impression of her views.—Ed.]

And Miers will continue to have a hard time with these tricky questions, because it's impossible to "cram" for a seat on the Supreme Court...So while the White House is no doubt showing Miers tapes of John G. Roberts' testimony—Roberts having established a new benchmark for level-headed conservative testifying—she is not going to be able to duplicate Roberts' sterling performance.

Yet, in the meantime the White House has made Miers' confirmation more difficult by trumpeting her past support for a Constitutional amendment against abortion. The Bush people felt they needed to release that 1989 campaign questionnaire to shore up her soggy support among conservatives, but in doing so they planted a land mine in Miers' path to the court. She can't have it both ways: She can't take credit for her right-to-life credentials and then refuse to talk about them, in detail, before the Senate.

Under the questioning of a sharp liberal, such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), or a sharp conservative, such as Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), she is going to be faced with an impossible choice: Either say nothing and look dumb, or else try to answer detailed questions - and thus hang herself on national TV.