Miers withdraws nomination

From the Houston Chronicle:

White House counsel Harriet Miers, whose nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court sparked a bitter dispute within the Republican Party, withdrew her nomination today. President Bush said he will quickly name a replacement to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Miers, 60, a longtime Bush friend and lawyer from Dallas, said in a letter to the president that answering bipartisan calls for White House documents demonstrating her experience in constitutional law would conflict with a longstanding administration practice of keeping such information private.

And

The news came as senior White House aides awaited word on possible indictments in the CIA leak case and the administration fended off criticism over the war in Iraq after the U.S. military death toll reached 2,000.

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Well, secret documents or no, it's completely clear that conservatives, not liberals, killed this nomination. What that amounts to is a virtual no-confidence vote for the President from his own party. Conservatives, as a whole, no longer trust Bush to govern the country--to be sure, there are conservatives who support the White House, but that support can no longer be counted on for various policy initiatives and executive actions. In other words, Bush is now the lamest of lame duck Presidents. As far as politics goes, he's a non-entity, even a liability for some Republicans: it will be fun to watch GOP Congressmen trying to distance themselves from Bush while running for office next year; it'll be like the Democrats back in '94 trying to distance themselves from Clinton. Oh, the irony is delicious!

Also, as a caller to Air America's Majority Report show observed today, the Oval Office may very well be using all the conflict over Miers nomination to make some news with a new nomination. That is, pretty soon we're going to hear just who, exactly, will be indicted in the White House CIA leak case. That news will utterly dominate the headlines and 24/7 cable news cycle: a new Supreme Court nominee will drown out that domination a bit, sparing the White House from the worst of the oncoming political firestorm.

Speaking of irony, this whole drown-out gambit, if that's what's actually going on, is probably Karl Rove's idea. Irony is delicious. Yum.

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