Harriet Miers, Once Nominated For The Supreme Court

Harriet Miers withdraws name from consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Does this mean today is the day for a dribble of news about Plame case indictments?

Only a cynic would think that way, right? Who would orchestrate two bits of bad news to drop on the same day?

Scotus Blog has President Bush's remarks here. Bench Memos has her letter to the president.

Slate boils it down: "The fight over the White House documents was the excuse. The looming possibility of indictments of top White House officials was the subtext. The 1993 speeches in which Harriet Miers sounds (gotcha!) like a heartfelt liberal may have been the trigger."

Atrios displays a wicked instinct for the capillary. He notes there is no word yet from her "blog."

This post from Underneath Their Robes, "news, gossip and commentary about the federal judiciary," pulls together the storm of opposition that doomed her candidacy to crash and burn.

Its Monday posting summarized some of her troubles: the White House's refusal to give the Senate documents, citing executive privilege, poor opinion polls, conservative outrage (The Wall Street Journal's editorial page called her nomination "A political blunder of the first order").

"Charles Krauthammer must be smiling," writes In The Agora. The conservative columnist had written an exit strategy for Miers's nomination, which he called "a mistake."

Krauthammer wrote on Friday:

The president's mistake was thinking he could sneak a reliable conservative past the liberal litmus tests (on abortion, above all) by nominating a candidate at once exceptionally obscure and exceptionally well known to him.

The problem is that this strategy blew up in his face. Her obscurity is the result of her lack of constitutional history, which, in turn, robs her of the minimum qualifications for service on the Supreme Court. And while, post-Robert Bork, stealth seems to be the most precious asset a conservative Supreme Court nominee can have, how stealthy is a candidate who has come out publicly for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion?

Before the news, the conservative Captain's Quarters was on to something when writing:

Two overnight developments in the embattled Harriet Miers nomination point towards either the collapse of the effort to confirm Miers or a politically devastating siege mentality at the White House. First, the New York Sun reports that at least two GOP Senators will announce their opposition to Miers based on the speeches released earlier this week if the Bush administration refuses to withdraw her nomination. The Washington Times also reports that a key figure that had been working to support the PR campaign for Miers has suddenly quit to return to the Federalist Society, which Miers once disparaged and which has remained absolutely silent on her nomination.

At Instapundit, constitutional law prof Glenn Reynolds commends Miers's move:

The White House made a dreadful error in nominating her, which it compounded by its ham-handed efforts in support of her candidacy, and this was perhaps the only way to ensure that it wouldn't be a complete debacle for the Bush Administration. Let's hope that they'll do better the next time around. I'm not hoping for Alex Kozinski or anything -- okay, well, I'm hoping -- but we need a nominee who'll meet the high expectations established by the Roberts appointment. That Miers wasn't up to those standards is no discredit to her, as very few lawyers are. But it is a discredit to the White House, which nominated her. Now it's a do-over, and they'd be well-advised not to blow it.

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin's reaction? Relief. Not just any sort of relief. "Sad, pensive, what-a-waste relief. Not happy-joy-joy relief." She does quick work linking posts, most from the right, about what went wrong.

One of them, columnist and law prof Hugh Hewitt, writes:

I think Ms. Miers has been unfairly treated by many who have for years urged fair treatment of judicial nominees. She deserves great thanks for her significant service to the country. She and the president deserved much better from his allies.

For a spin-off, go to People For the American Way, which captions its comments, "Miers, White House Surrender to Ultraconservatives. Meanwhile, Progress For America blamed that sticky executive privilege problem. "Looking forward, PFA is anxious to engage in a debate that will result in the confirmation of a highly qualified, conservative justice."