This week I’ve decided to continue using the LEO model as a tool of analysis to examine the Bush Administration’s peculiar appointment of White House Counsel Harriet Miers to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor at the US Supreme Court. The earlier article pointed out that the Miers appointment merely continued a time-honored factious tendency for presidents to appoint personal acquaintances (in the Miers case, Mr. Bush’s personal lawyer) to prominent positions either in the administration or within the Judiciary. Perhaps in order to divert allegations of cronyism from Senate Democrats, the president’s announcement carried with it a distinct egalitarian tone, one which would generally mollify grumblings from those with a “liberal” ideological preference.

However, in the days that followed, conservatives around the country roundly denounced the Miers appointment, partly on allegations of cronyism, but more often on suspicion that Bush had jeopardized a lasting conservative majority in the US Supreme Court by choosing a judicial unknown to the highest court. Nevertheless, the president seemed steadfast in his resolve; within a week Mr. Bush addressed the nation over the radio, where he continued to express his conviction that Harriet Miers was the best person to fill O’Connor’s shoes.

On the surface it appears as if Bush has not yielded to ideological pressure. However, a comparison of the president’s appointment announcement on October 3 to the subsequent radio address at the end of that week tells a very different story.

When viewed through the lens of the LEO test, the first speech consistently produced an egalitarian preference, more consistent with ideological liberal or even ‘leftist’ rhetoric than what we’re used to hearing from the President.

Granted, this is only one speech, and as such does not suggest that Mr. Bush has suddenly decided to turn over a new ideological leaf after the initial controversy over the Roberts appointment. More likely this result captures an effort to court, and possibly to forestall, perceived opposition to the Miers nomination by liberal Democrats in the Senate. Even so, the conservative backlash, as well as liberal confusion and subsequent provisional support, should come as no surprise at all.

However, a cursory examination of the president’s radio address on October 8th produced no consistent score at all. Instead, each time a test table was applied to the president’s words, a different ideological signature appeared.

The first table indicated the address was that of a libertarian ideologue, while the second looked like a liberal ideologue. The third one seemed to show a moderate conservative, and the last one, a communitarian, looked more like John Kerry than George W. Bush. On the surface it would appear as if the ideological score for the October 8 address is meaningless.

Or is it?

Comparing the president’s radio address with the original appointment announcement at the beginning of the week presents a starkly different picture. By plotting the LEO test results of these two speeches on a line graph to reveal the change in ideological signature, one finds an intriguing pattern.

For every measurement using the LEO test, the egalitarian signature drops, indicating that the President made an effort in the radio address on the 8th to compensate for the excessively egalitarian announcement on the 3rd, likely in response to the conservative backlash in the intervening days.

Based upon this brief comparative analysis using the LEO model, the best way to describe Mr. Bush’s radio address on October 8th is “damage control.� No matter what happened with the other ideological indicators under the LEO test, it is abundantly clear that the President’s statements on the 8th of October were meant at the very least to appear less liberal, perhaps to appease the conservative establishment in the Republican party, especially in the US Senate.

However, both the aggregate and average scores of these two speeches suggest that the President did not move far enough towards conservative language, and while the second address appears decidedly more moderate than the original announcement, it nevertheless fails to shake its egalitarian tone.

Unless the President can convince conservative Republican Senators that this appointment is more consistent with their views than he has previously indicated, conservative opposition is expected to continue.

After this unsteady effort to unite rather than divide, perhaps the president can be nowhere near as confident as he would like to appear.

From the administration’s point of view, the damage is done.