The political fallout from President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court continues. Here's just one report from the nation's capital:
Harriet Miers, unlike previous Republican nominees, will face hostile questioning from both Democrats and Republicans when she appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee.Several Republican senators -- including committee Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Sam Brownback of Kansas -- have said they won't be cutting her any slack just because she's a Republican nominee. And Republican staffers say privately that they're researching her background as if she were a "third-party nominee."
Meanwhile yesterday, a leading Christian conservative said the White House told him that some prospective Supreme Court nominees conservatives would have preferred withdrew their names from President Bush's "short list" before the nomination -- raising the possibility that Miss Miers wasn't Mr. Bush's first pick.
James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said he spoke with Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove on Oct. 1 -- two days before the Miers nomination -- and was told that "Harriet Miers was at the top of the short list."
Also on that list were several candidates that many conservatives say they would have preferred, Mr. Dobson said on his radio program that was recorded yesterday and will be broadcast today.
"Well, what Karl told me is that some of those individuals took themselves off that list," he said, according to a transcript obtained last night. "They would not allow their names to be considered because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter that they didn't want to subject themselves or the members of their families to it."
...
Mr. Specter had suggested he might call Mr. Dobson and Mr. Rove to testify before his committee about any inside knowledge they might have about Miss Miers -- a threat that has only heightened the angst many conservatives feel about the nomination.
Republican staff lawyers on the committee -- normally the ones building the case to confirm a Republican nominee -- say they are despondent over Mr. Bush's choice and some are actively working to thwart her.
"I don't know anybody who is buying what the White House is selling here," said one Republican staffer.
"They're putting out a bunch of positive rhetoric, but they're not putting any substance behind it," said another.
Regardless of the quality (or lack thereof) of the nomination decision itself, this political firestorm is spreading, not dying down. And the president's supply of allies among both the rightwing intelligentsia and the Senate itself is dwindling. The entire Republican nomenklatura will not be far behind now.
Prediction: Harriet Miers will withdraw her own nomination, within days, not weeks. GWB will not walk away, but Miers is smart enough to get the picture and act to protect her president and friend from self-destruction.