Ex-senator to work as Miers' adviser

WASHINGTON -- President Bush tapped former Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Coats Thursday to help shepherd Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers through the Senate's confirmation process.\nCoats, who resigned in February after nearly four years as the U.S. ambassador to Germany, will fill an unpaid role similar to that of former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson during Chief Justice John Roberts' confirmation proceedings.\n"Senator Coats will be working closely with the nominee and serving as a public advocate for her," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. "He will help advise her throughout the process. Senator Coats' role will be to attend meetings with senators on Harriet's courtesy visits."\nThe choice of Miers, a veteran lawyer and White House aide who has never been a judge -- and therefore has no record of judicial decisions -- has worried some Republican senators, anti-abortion activists and others who question the depth of her conservative views.\nAs a senator, Coats pushed legislation to restrict abortion, tried to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts because of grants it made to artists he said mocked God and led the opposition to allowing gays in the military.\nCoats "is a well-respected senator, respected on both sides of the aisle," McClellan said. "We're delighted to have him as part of our team."\nCoats, now a member of a Washington lobbying firm, was a congressman from northeastern Indiana until being appointed to the Senate when Dan Quayle resigned to become vice president in 1989. He won statewide elections in 1990 and 1992, but did not seek a second full term in the 1998 election.