Patrick Leahy: “on Friday, the President formally withdrew from the Senate his nomination of Harriet Miers to be Associate Justice of…”

“on Friday, the President formally withdrew from the Senate his nomination of Harriet Miers to be Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, he announced his intention to nominate Judge Samuel Alito to that same position. To those who are keeping count, this will be the third nomination to fill the seat vacated by the future retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor made by the President. Justice O'Connor is still there. Three people have been nominated to fill her seat. I am concerned that the nomination may be a needlessly provocative nomination. Obviously, I will do as I have always done on nominees of both Republican and Democratic Presidents. I will make up my mind based on the hearings. But the President had before him a number of names of people who would have gotten probably 95 or 100 votes out of this Chamber, virtually every Republican and virtually every Democrat. Such a nomination would have united, not divided, the country. It appears that instead of uniting the country through his choice, the President chose to reward one small faction of the party and risked dividing the country. Instead of rewarding a small faction, which has put him under a great deal of pressure, I wish he would have rewarded the American people, all 280 million of us. There were many conservative Republican candidates who could have easily been confirmed.…”