Put away your statutory hard hats: The “Statutory Construction Zone” blog has gone on extended hiatus.

“Nominee Gets First Chance to Counter Critics”: This article will appear Monday in The New York Times.

The Dallas Morning News reports today that “Being a woman holds less sway than resume for Miers.”

And Monday’s edition of The Telegraph (UK) reports that “Bush at war with Right over court nomination.” In addition, Alec Russell has an op-ed entitled “Americans are not unblinkingly Right-wing.”

“Miers must go: Bush’s blatant cronyism, and his outrageous appeal to religion, cross lines the founders held sacred.” Joe Conason has this essay at Salon.com.

“Miers’ academic background draws scrutiny”: The Austin American-Statesman contains this article today.

The Associated Press provides a report headlined “Rice: Criticism of Miers Is Unfounded.”

OpinionJournal today reprints an editorial from The Wall Street Journal entitled “Religion and the Court: Harriet Miers’s faith tells us nothing about how she would rule.”

In The Age of Australia, Michael Gawenda has an essay entitled “George and the Bachelorettes: The denigration of the White House women is sexist and wrong.”

And David M. Shribman of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today has an essay entitled “Thunder on the right: The Miers Supreme Court nomination has rocked many conservatives’ sense of entitlement.”

“A right to privacy roils a nation and its courts; From abortion to assisted suicide, from computer confidentiality to sodomy, the issue is in the eye of the ‘culture wars’ storm”: This article appears today in The Kansas City Star.

“Evacuated Prisoners Are Captive to Legal Limbo; Help in the courts appears to be distant in a system that was strained even before the storm”: Henry Weinstein has this article today in The Los Angeles Times.

“Inmate seeking abortion is stressed”: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch today contains an article that begins, “One of the lawyers trying to secure an abortion for a Missouri prisoner said Saturday that his client is feeling the strain of the court battle, which now rests with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.”

“Harriet’s Hail Mary: OK, so the religious line didn’t work so well; The White House is back with a new strategy for its embattled high-court choice.” The October 24, 2005 issue of Newsweek will contain this article.

In The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Michael McGough reports that “Conservatives soured on Souter for tilting so quickly to the left.” And an article is headlined “Specter: Court snubs Congress.”

In The Philadelphia Inquirer, political analyst Dick Polman has an article headlined “Key to choice: Presidential power; Bush’s real mission for Harriet Miers.”

The Dallas Morning News contains an article headlined “A familiar journey to the bench; Texan justice’s résumé not unlike Miers’.”

And Newsday reports that “Miers land had liens; Court nominee had to reimburse Texas city for failing to clear weeds, debris from vacant lots.”