In the face of attacks from both liberals and the Religious Right, President Bush insisted today that Harriet Miers, his former personal lawyer, was the best candidate for soon-to-be-vacant slot on the Supreme Court.

Mr Bush announced his nomination of Ms Miers, who has never been a judge, yesterday and her lack of a judicial "paper trail" for Democrats to attack appeared to be a tactic to avoid a bruising confirmation battle at a difficult time for his presidency.

But in trying to placate Democrats, Mr Bush unleashed a potentially far more damaging group of opponents: his own conservative base. Many were outraged at his failure to choose a judge with unambiguous conservative credentials.

Giving his first press conference since May, Mr Bush today defended his choice and assured conservatives that Ms Miers shared his judicial philosophy.

"I’ve known her long enough to know she’s not going to change, that 20 years from now she will be the same person with the same judicial philosophy she has today," he said.

"She’ll have more experience. She’ll have been a judge, but nevertheless the philosophy won’t change, and that’s important to me."

Dismissing Democratic charges of cronyism, Mr Bush added: "I picked the best person I could find. People know we’re close."

Mr Bush has known Ms Miers for more than 10 years, first as his personal lawyer and most recently as a White House counsel. If confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, Ms Miers, who has been White House counsel since November 2004, will replace Sandra Day O’Connor, who announced her retirement in July.

Mrs O’Connor was a swing voter on the finely balanced nine-member court on bitterly contested social issues such as abortion and affirmative action.

But conservative groups, which has waited a generation for this moment, had expected Mr Bush to pick a clear social conservative, shifting the political make-up of America’s highest court definitively their way.

In a wide-ranging press conference, Mr Bush said he would be urging Congress to make "real cuts" in non-military spending to help pay for the reconstruction effort after Hurricane Katrina - although that effort would be driven by the private sector.

In New Orleans today, officials called off the house-to-house search for corpses with the death tell in Louisiana at 972 - far below the most pessimistic estimates in the wake of the hurricane.

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