Harriet Miers, toast

Now all she needs is a great exit line.

Knight Ridder newspapers reported Saturday that soon-to-be-former Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers sold a small piece of land owned by her family to the state of Texas five years ago for ten times what it was worth.

Good business sense and hardheaded negotiating? Guess again.

Ms. Miers' law firm made a $5,000 donation to state District Judge David Evans, who appointed the three-person committee that set the price Texas would pay for the land, which was needed for an interstate highway off-ramp. The committee, which included a friend of Harriet Miers named Peggy Lundy and a property-rights activist named Cathie Adams, set a price of almost five dollars per square foot. Knight Ridder reports that at the time, the land was valued at about thirty cents per square foot because it was part of a Superfund cleanup site.

The Miers family was paid $106,915 for the land.

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Later, the price of the land was reduced from $106,915 to $80,915. Knight Ridder reports that Ms. Miers has not yet returned the $26,000 to the state of Texas.

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

A White House spokesperson told Knight Ridder that Ms. Miers did not know the details of her law firm's donation to Judge Evans.

The details?

"Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are."

The trouble with being suspected of cronyism is that every time you benefit from cronyism somebody accuses you of cronyism. It's getting so a woman can't make a fast $100,000 off the taxpayers of Texas without people saying the last thing America needs on the U.S. Supreme Court right now is a corrupt Texas lawyer with a history of working for tips.

"Say goodnight, Gracie."

It's all so sexist.

"Say goodnight, Gracie."

"Goodnight Gracie!"


Copyright 2005

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