Is Love Blind?

Two people at times romantically involved with Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers have offered contradicting opinions of her views. The Boston Globe tracked down Miers' former fianc???? ©, Jim Martin, who dated her after they graduated from Southern Methodist University Law School, and later became engaged to her for a year. "I think the likelihood is that Harriet will be in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor, something of a swing voter," Martin said. "She'd be far more in that mold than a conservative ideologue." But Miers' on-again, off-again boyfriend, Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, continues to try to explain away any apparent flaws in her reputed conservatism. When asked by Newsday about her donations to Democrats Al Gore (Tenn.) and Lloyd Bentsen (Tex.) in the 1980s, Hecht said that the only way to get ahead as a lawyer in Texas was to be a Democrat. "I think she was a Democrat back in the '70s and most of the '80s, and was probably far less conservative than the President, coming out of law school," Hecht said.