WASHINGTON – Under heavy attack from both sides of the political spectrum for using the religious faith of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers as a way to shore up early support for her cause, the White House yesterday defended its efforts on behalf of the beleaguered nominee even as the Senate committee that will review her moved one step closer to establishing a hearing date.

Conservatives and liberals have criticized the White House for courting a prominent evangelical Christian and founder of Focus on the Family, James Dobson, with a phone call two days be fore the nomination was announced. Mr. Dobson’s early support for the nomination caused many to wonder whether Karl Rove, chief adviser to President Bush, had given him assurances of how Ms. Miers would act on the court.

Mr. Dobson denied that any such assurances were made. In a radio program aired yesterday that was taped Tuesday afternoon, he said Mr. Rove told him two days before the nomination was announced that Ms. Miers was an evangelical Christian and that she attended “a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life.” Mr. Rove also mentioned that Ms. Miers had “taken on” the American Bar Association on the issue of abortion.

The conversation between Mr. Dobson and Mr. Rove was an early example of the strategy the White House has used for the past 10 days in promoting the White House counsel as a solid, conservative pick. It asked a conservative Texas Supreme Court justice and close friend of the nominee, Nathan Hecht, to speak about Ms. Miers’s religion in scores of interviews in the days following the nomination. Other White House surrogates, including Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, have also used the nominee’s faith as an argument to conservatives on her behalf.

President Bush, who called a rare press conference last Tuesday to defend Ms. Miers, told reporters yesterday that religion was an important part of the nominee’s profile. “People ask me why I picked Harriet Miers,” Mr. Bush said. “They want to know Harriet Miers’s background; they want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers’s life is her religion.” The White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said that while Ms. Miers is “a person of faith,” she also recognizes that “a personal religion or personal views have no role when it comes to making decisions as a judge.”

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, of Vermont, was not satisfied with the White House defense. He said in a statement that Mr. Rove’s conversation with Mr. Dobson suggested that some people were getting a privileged view of the nominee. But Mr. Leahy also criticized conservatives who have been attacking the president for picking Ms. Miers. Those activists have complained that she is not sufficiently well-known in the conservative legal community to warrant their support. Mr. Leahy’s comments reflect the extent to which Democrats are benefiting from both division within the White House and a pick they have described as better than expected.

“No political faction should be given a monopoly of relevant knowledge about a nomination, just as no faction should be permitted to hound a nominee to withdraw before the hearing process has even begun,” Mr. Leahy said. “What we have seen so far is more of a commentary on the litmus tests and narrow motivations of vocal factions on the Republican right than it is a commentary on the qualifications of Harriet Miers.”

In a sign that the Senate is committed to pressing forward despite the political battles that have erupted around the nominee, the Judiciary Committee yesterday issued a detailed, 12-page questionnaire that Ms. Miers will have to complete ahead of her confirmation hearing. One of the president’s key allies in the fight over Ms. Miers, Senator Cornyn, of Texas, is urging his fellow judiciary committee members to aim for a November 7 start date for the hearing.

Conservatives who have been waiting for the White House to mount a strong defense of Ms. Miers have expressed disappointment at what they describe as an apparent lack of strategy and, perhaps more troubling, weak arguments. Some Washington attorneys who were called on to defend the last nominee, John Roberts, have told the White House they are not comfortable assuming the same role this time around. Some have complained that the lack of a White House response to such refusals has only added to their concerns.

Another troubling sign, traditional White House allies said, was the appearance yesterday of the U.S. attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, in a television interview defending Ms. Miers. Many conservatives feared Mr. Bush would pick Mr. Gonzales for the Supreme Court. Some of these conservatives complained yesterday that it was cold comfort to see the White House now using him as the face of its defense strategy.

Some conservative activists were troubled further yesterday when the White House acknowledged that potential nominees had withdrawn their names from consideration. Mr. McClellan declined to name specific potential nominees, but a number of Supreme Court watchers said yesterday that an early favorite of conservatives, Priscilla Owen, a judge on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, was “ready to go.”

There was also widespread doubt that two other conservative favorites, Edith Jones, of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and a Court of Appeals judge for the D.C. Circuit, Janice Rogers Brown, would have withdrawn their names.

A key evangelical advisor to the White House, the chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, Jay Sekulow, said through an assistant yesterday that he was not aware of anyone backing out in the run-up to the announcement.