Miers went through her fifteen minutes of fame rather quickly.

Canadasucks' thoughtful and intellectually stimulating post notwithstanding, this is not a particularly significant event, unless GWB refuses to learn the lesson that a 2nd term president needs his base just as much (if not more) than in his 1st term. On a personal level, I sympathize with this woman, who is quite accomplished and deserving of respect and esteem for her resume. She was tarred and feathered, not by democrats who hardly offered any opinion of her, but by conservatives, disappointed that Bush showed such ideological weakness and eschewed the fight, that is now inevitable. This lady's name will be a trivia question just after January 1, 2006. A stumper. Nobody is gonna remember her name. She's the Zoe Baird of the Bush Administration. (I'd mention Kimba Wood, but you'd think I was showing off) I believe that the conservatives have been awakened sufficiently to support "their" nominee now.

You snake-handling, drooling-from-the-mouth-while-your-eyes-are-rolled-back-and-hands-are-in-the-air-hillside-Protestants really dropped the ball on this one. Bush wouldn't know a centrist judge if he saw one because all this guy does is surround himself with 'yes' people. Miers was a Bush crony- and conservatives were 'worried'? For the last time kids- you will only get a pro-life judge through a backdoor stealth nomination because you don't live in an anti-choice culture. Now you knuckleheads will watch as Dubs struggles and faces more scrutiny than ever. . .you think Miers was under a microscope? Dub's island is shrinking- the indictments (which ultimately are about the lies about Iraq), the bungled war, the lousy ecomony, and now his pathetic attempt to quietly send in one of his cronies to be a Judge. Just watch Dubs try to snake the next one by- didn't you people realize that a pro-lifer would have to be snuck in? Do you have electricity in those caves?

Everyone seemed to take issue with the Miers nomination, with the Democrats inclined to oppose her because of the Administration's refusal to reveal documents that would shed light on her judicial phiolosophy; and the conservative evangelicals, who saw Miers as "conservative light" (at best). Oddly enough, the majority of opposition (or at least the opposition that led to Miers withdrawing her name) was from the Republicans, as they objected to specific views that Miers held, or at least didn't think she was the best candidate to represent conservative interests on the High Court. Ultimately, this blunder is largely the fault of the Administration, who failed to provide information upon request by Senators of both parties. Had both Miers and the Administration been more forthcoming, things may have turned out differently. Ultimately, it seems rather odd to me that the more meaningful issues with this nomination were not addressed: (1) Miers' lack of qualifications to sit on the High Court, or at least her relative lack of qualifications when compared to other potential nominees; and (2) the certain cases where Miers would clearly have to recuse herself because of conflicts of interest where the Administration is concerned (i.e. she would be ruling on the constitutionality of many of the policies that she either helped formulate or advised on). Whether or not Miers would have done so is open to question, but assuming she wouldn't, as such recusals are rare, it brings the objectivity of the court as a whole into question. Having a justice on the highest court in the land that is blindly loyal to a President is never good, especially in cases where the admiration is as profound as the relationship between Bush and Miers.

This is only the 2nd time in over 160 years that a nominee to the Supreme Court has been forced to withdraw before even receiving a hearing before the Senate. The bottom line is that she simply didn't have the votes in the Senate to get confirmed. A nomination battle would have proven very divisive. The Democrats would have opposed her at any rate due to the fact that the administration wasn't being forthcoming with information about her views as expressed through her legal opinions which were written for the President (he claimed that these were protected by attorney-client privilege). Politically, the bulk of the damage would have been caused on the Republican side, where this nominee would have precipitated an intense factional fight that Bush simply cannot afford now. Watch for Bush to pick a conservative like Edith Jones to the High Court. He will do this to bring the evangelicals back into the fold. The nominee will no doubt be a polarizing one, especially since the O'Connor seat is a pivotal vote. As for Bush's political fortunes, his position now is typical of that for most second term Presidents. Some have problems for a variety of reasons, but broadly speaking, these issues come up only because they overestimate their mandates after re-election. I will say that Bush isn't as bad off politically as many in the media will have you believe, especially given that the Democrats are still in disarray. Something interesting that many people don't point out is a common thread that runs among all the people Bush picks for the judiciary, including John Roberts: their position on Executive power. Bush believes that the judiciary should not "legislate" from the bench. In principle, I agree with him, but in practice, any judge who is operating within the context of a political system is bound to have his opinions influence policy. The bottom line with Bush is that he wants nominees who will tread lightly when it comes to preserving the President's prerogatives, especially with what he terms as matters of national security. This includes blocking reviews of POW torture and arbitrary imprisonment. One has to be wary of too much concentrated power as well.