Interesting connection between Miers and her saving Bushes ass in regards to investigations concerning him. What are your thoughts?

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Then-Gov. George W. Bush appointed Miers to a six-year-term on the commission shortly after he was elected governor in 1994. After she'd been on the job 18 months, news surfaced that the lottery director's boyfriend had been employed as a consultant for GTECH, the lottery's main contractor.

The Miers-led commission fired the director, Nora Linares, in January maintaining she couldn't be an effective leader because she'd been so damaged by the scandal. Linares filed suit against the commission but later dropped that lawsuit and instead sued GTECH. An agreement ending the dispute with the commission exonerated Linares.

But Linares' attorney, Charles Soechting, complained that Miers took an unnecessarily hard-nose approach to his client, refusing to let her exit gracefully by resigning.

"I learned from Harriet that someone can be stone cold and at the same time act like they care," he told Texas Lawyer in 2003.

The commission fired Linares' replacement, Lawrence Littwin, in October 1997, four months after he was hired. Littwin's dismissal came amid a decline in sales, but the commission wouldn't say why he was fired. He had ruffled feathers for ordering lottery security officers to research campaign finance records of 30 current and former state officials.

Littwin claimed GTECH used its political influence to have him fired. Miers denied the accusation.

It was a lawsuit by Littwin that helped to ignite questions about whether Bush used political influence to avoid active duty during the Vietnam War.

Littwin's lawyers suggested that former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, who was a lobbyist for GTECH until January 1997, helped the company keep its state contract to run the lottery in exchange for keeping silent about how he had helped Bush get into the National Guard in the late 1960s.

Barnes denied the allegations.

Miers resigned as lottery commission chairman in 2000, a year early. She said her resignation had nothing to do with lagging sales in its biggest game, Lotto Texas, but rather that she wanted to allow her successor time to prepare for rebidding the lottery's primary operator contract. FULL STORY

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