[JURIST] Lawyers for Republican members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that President Bush's nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers [JURIST news archive] for the Supreme Court was uniformly unpopular among committee staffers, and that some questioning her qualifications and conservative pedigree were actively researching ways to rebut arguments put forward in her favor by the White House. Wednesday's New York Times quoted one GOP lawyer as saying "Everybody is hoping that something will happen on Miers, either that the president would withdraw her or she would realize she is not up to it and pull out while she has some dignity intact." Committee staffers vented their frustrations at two meetings on Friday of last week, one a meeting of chief counsels for GOP senators, and another a Republican staff session with Ed Gillespie [Wikipedia profile], a former GOP party chair lobbying for Miers. Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter acknowledged in an interview Tuesday that staffers had strong views on the nominee, but that Senators would make up their own minds, and Specter chief counsel Michael E. O'Neill has urged his colleagues to give Miers a chance to speak for herself, a perspective echoed early Wednesday by US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, interviewed [AP report] on ABC's Good Morning America. The Times has more.