delicious

It was no surprise that Bush’s nomination to replace Sandra Day O’Connor was going to be a woman, but when he nominated Harriet Miers I couldn’t place where I’d heard the name. Turns out she’s former Microsoft paid legal counsel whose most notable court win was her success in arguing that people who were sold defective software by Microsoft weren’t “injured” and couldn’t participate in a class action suit against the company. The case involved unstable compression features in MS DOS 6.0 which often destroyed valuable data. Of course Microsoft was quick to release a fix… for $9.95 which the consumers didn’t feel they should have to pay. Miers’ win in court saved Microsoft millions at the same time it cost consumers those millions in upgrade fees.

Also no surprise is Miers’ (and subsequently Microsoft’s) connection to Bush and the “Republican indictment gang”. At the time of the lawsuit Miers was in close contact with Bill Gates whose father is the Gates in the Preston Gates & Ellis law firm. Preston Gates & Ellis made sizable donations to Republican election campaigns especially a $13,000 donation to the reelection campaign of Richard “Doc” Hastings who now chairs the Ethics Committee where he controversially replaced Joel Hefley; Hefley had angered Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republican leaders by issuing several reports and letters criticizing House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Preston Gates & Ellis also employed Jack Abramoff, an influential Washington power-lobbyist and conservative activist.

Abramoff is a central figure in a series of high-profile political scandals linked to the Republican Party. He is currently under investigation by grand juries in Washington, D.C., for his involvement in the Abramoff-Reed Indian Gambling Scandal, and by a grand jury in Guam over a separate matter. He was indicted on August 11, 2005, by a third grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for bank fraud arising out of an unrelated business deal. The investigations and indictments of Abramoff have taken on significant national importance because of his close political connections with leading national Republicans, including George W. Bush, Congressional Republicans and various influential conservatives.