WASHINGTON – Conservative activists who were stunned last week by President Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court are now growing increasingly alarmed at what they describe as the administration’s thin and patronizing response to their concerns.

According to several prominent conservatives, the initial White House reaction to outrage over the nomination of Ms. Miers was stunned silence. The administration did not expect the backlash, they said, and was not prepared to mount a defense. But as anger spread, conservatives said, Mr. Bush and his deputies appeared to have dug in against many of the people who have been their closest allies.

Conservative activists say this defensive posture is not unusual for a White House that is reluctant to admit mistakes. But the persistence of several talking points on Ms. Miers that did not gain traction last week or that have only served to inflame existing tensions among conservatives has caused some to wonder if a leadership vacuum has developed around the nominee.

“I think Harriet Miers’s biggest enemy right now are her defenders,” said Manuel Miranda, a former Senate counsel and a leading critic of the nomination of the White House response. “They are completely uninformed as to the significance of the judicial battle of the last three years.”

Mr. Miranda singled out a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ed Gillespie, who has been used by the White House as an ambassador on its judicial nominees. Conservatives first turned on Mr. Gillespie at a weekly off-the-record meeting last Tuesday conducted by the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist, when he suggested that criticism of Ms. Miers had the “whiff of sexism.”

“I think Ed Gillespie is way out of his league,” Mr. Miranda said. “He’s running this as if it’s a campaign.”

First lady Laura Bush stoked conservative anger yesterday by picking up the same line of defense during an interview yesterday with NBC’s Matt Lauer. When asked if she thought the critics of Ms. Miers were motivated by sexism, Mrs. Bush said, “That’s possible. I think that’s possible.” Rush Limbaugh expressed alarm at the persistence of this view on his daily radio program yesterday.

Other signs that the White House may have lost its hold on the nomination process is a falloff in the number of morale-boosting conference calls, and the fact that the White House spokesman who handled the nomination of John Roberts, Steve Schmidt, was dispatched to Iraq last week. His replacement, James Dyke, did not have an official White House e-mail account one week after the nomination was announced.

The ongoing federal investigation into the role that Mr. Bush’s chief adviser, Karl Rove, may have played in leaking the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame could account for the lack of a potent defense. Conservative activists said Mr. Rove could be distracted. Another blow to the process was the loss of one of the administration’s lead players in the positioning of its judicial nominees: Harriet Miers.

One of the greatest difficulties the White House faces in crafting a compelling defense of Ms. Miers is the apparent lack of surrogates willing to go to bat on her behalf. The administration drew on dozens of loyalists to shore up support for John Roberts; but some of the same reserves are more reluctant to speak out on behalf of Ms. Miers.

The executive director of the Committee for Justice, Sean Rushton, said his group drew on roughly 12 surrogates following the nomination of Chief Justice Roberts. This time, he said, some of the same surrogates could be more reluctant to speak out.

“We put out an analysis today of her record and we are going to attempt to educate the public, especially concerned conservatives, as to her record and why she deserves support,” Mr. Rushton said. “But many conservatives are still mulling over her record and deciding if they want to put their reputations on the line for this nominee.”

Part of the reason some conservatives are undecided, other activists said, is the tepid response from the White House to their criticisms. A prominent conservative who heads the Free Congress Foundation, Paul Weyrich, said the administration angered many with the choice of Ms. Miers angered them even more with its response to their concerns.

“Every day I get e-mails and calls from around the country from people who have doubts and don’t know what to do,” Mr. Weyrich said. “They want to give the president the benefit of the doubt, but as things come out about her they are very, very concerned. When you mention these things to the White House in an effort to be helpful they are defensive. They are not coming to grips with some of the major problems I believe they have.”