Miers to Withdraw Name from High Court Consideration

This is what I see happening shortly. In order to allow Pres. Bush to save face, Harriet Miers will ask that her name be withdrawn from consideration for the Sup. Court.

Obviously, Bush made a *big* mistake nominating her. Equally obvious, the White grossly miscalculated the conservative reaction to a stealth nominee who is a Bush crony. (and, for the third "obvious", the White House just as obviously botched the handling of the conservative uprising -- calling conservative opponents elitist and sexist was not only stupid, it was just plain wrong.)

I'm seeing rumors (see esp the Washington Times and National Review's blog) about "contingency plans" for withdrawing the nomination, how it would be handled, etc. In politics, this type of "what if" speculation is sometimes the ground work being laid for the real thing.

As unfortunate as this is for Pres. Bush (it's a black eye he surely could have done without, but one that he surely needed to be given). He needed to be "taught a lesson" here. He has a majority in both houses of Congress and the support of a majority of Americans. He needs to choose a candidate worth fighting for.

If he does choose a solid conservative he will surely have a fight on his hands. But the corollary is that he will have all the conservatives willing to take up the fight.

As he has so painfully learned over the last couple of weeks, when he picked such an unqualified candidate, not only did he lose the support of his conservative base, he also got into a fight with the folks who would have and should have been in his corner!

Here's hoping that we soon learn that Miers has a previously unknown health issue, family consideration, philosophical difference -- spin it any way you like -- and has decided that it is in the president's best interests to withdraw her name for consideration to the Supreme Court.