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Wow, weeks of intense speculations from both political parties and the most inane patter-praise from the President can really do something: Harriet Miers has withdrawn her Supreme Court nomination. Maybe she was upset that her makeunder was so poorly received. Maybe she didn't want to go through the hassle of explaining her multi-party colors. Maybe she didn't want to see Rachel Dratch carried around by Will Forte anymore. Maybe she realized she was a terrible candidate and that the President really isn't that smart. Maybe she wanted to steal the thunder of any indictment of a senior White House official whose name rhymes with "Marl Cove" in leak of Valerie Plame. Gothamist is just happy that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is on the court for a little while longer - quick, speed up hearing some cases.
Gothamist on the nomination. And if you need a Harriet to fill the void, we suggest Harriet the Spy.
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Not unexpected. Funny thing is: pundits predicted that it would be the same day Indictments were handed down to minimize the Administrations Bad Days.
It will still be minimized. This news hits today. Indictments are handed down tomorrow wiping Miers off the front page. A new nominee is announced early next week, distracting the news from the indictments. It's the circle of life.
Ann Coulter was just on CNN bragging about Miers' withdrawl. It's very clear that HM withdrew not because of Democratic opposition and questions about her qualifications, but because the right wing didn't think she was right wing enough. Too many questions about Griswold and Roe v. Wade. They didn't want another Souter. Look for Bush to nominate someone even more conservative, futher to the right than Roberts, maybe even as far as Thomas and Scalia, but someone with a clearer paper trail than Miers.
Ann Coulter was on CNN? She hit NBC this morning too.
Must be selling Yet Another "book"...
I hate to admit it, but I find Coulter hot in a weird way. I'm so ashamed of myself.
Miers was doomed from the start. Bush's conservative base wanted one of them nominated. Miers could have gone the way of Souter and they were having none of that. The Democratics must have enjoyed this... they got to sit back and watch the in-fighting at the GOP.
Any potential hotness of AC is quickly squelched when she opens her grade-school mouth.
On a related note: Rachael Dratch just withdrew her bid on that new condo.
Yeah, I'm terrified of what the next nominee may be like. If he's listening that closely to what the far right thinks, and they were angry that he couldn't guarantee them an anti-Roe justice, then we've got an even bigger fight ahead.
A sad state, literally, when the first time in memory you can unequivocally agree with your own country's leadership is the day a Supreme Court nominee withdraws and the administration doesn't say, "Oh, no Harry, please don't go!".
I mean, look, let's be frank. Arguments that Miers was just a straw woman put out there to be knocked down in the end and provide the administration with PR cover fall short when you consider how much Bush & Co. had to gain by having her there. Does anyone doubt that the entire "cabal" would have loved to have her there on the bench affirming the sanctity of privileged Presidential information, documents and delibrations? Even recusing herself from any case that might come before the Court, her presence on the bench could have created a 4 to 4 deadlock.
But then there was the evangelical Dobson assuring the base that Miers was good people. Oops. Guess he has a special security clearance from God entitling him to special information not due the rest of us? Good luck justifying that one to the American People and its Congress. Of course Bush now understands that "it is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House"!
And, so, having undone their own Supreme Court nominee the same way they may well undo their ratonale for going into Iraq, the same way they undid their carefully cultivated pre-Rita image of competency, via leak, perhaps Bush realizes Ms. Miers can do much more for him back at the White House if not distracted from her general counsel duties by remedial Constitutional law instruction.
After all, they read the papers don't they? Don't they? Oh, wait, scratch that, they just try to write the stories the rest of us read... But surely they know this is the calm before a very big storm and the entire ship of state is athreatening to take on water? Bush is going to need every legally inclined friend he's got back at the Washington ranch doing a "heckuvva" job denying public access to documents that might reveal what he knew and when he knew it regarding G. Scooter Liddy (oops, meant to say, I. Scooter Libby...), Rove, Cheney and others.
After all, this Administration is going to have a hard time justifying the safeguarding of classified information related to Administration misconduct when it so willingly divulges classified information in direct opposition to national security interests and is suspected of selectively revealing information regarding the ideological purity of a life time appointee.to the nation's judicial branch.
A distracted General Counsel, questions regarding Dobson, a split base -- all for a failed nominee in a leaky administration -- these are the last things Bush needs. For my money, that is the real reason Ms. Myers has been so readily hung out to dry.